How many Chabads are there?

Like other observers of the Haredi world, I have also been wondering over the last thirteen years what is happening to Chabad without its Rebbe.

My impression was that at least from an Israeli point of view, the once vibrant movement was gradually running out of steam. The split between the moderate branch who wanted to get on with the work and the messianic group who refuse to accept the Rebbe's death and even answer their phones by saying "Yechi hamelech" (long live the king) seems to have sapped their strength.

The movement isn't as powerful on the national political scene as it was during the 1990s, in part due to the financial and legal problems of its main backer at the time, Australian millionaire Yossef Gutnik, but it also seemed to have lost presence also on the day-to-day Israeli street.

There is nothing scientific about these observations, only my personal impression, but surely it's no coincidence that lately, we've been meeting more young people who left Chabad after years of belonging to the movement.

Lately though, I have changed my opinion. I still feel that Chabad in Israel is nowhere near as powerful as it used to be, but on the other hand, it seems that the movement in other countries is flourishing.

Chabad is now a veritable empire in the former Soviet Union, with hundreds of communities, a network of schools and the all-crucial backing of the Putin Administration. This JTA story http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/20070905PenzaFJC.html shows just one aspect of their ascendancy.

The success in the FSU but also in many other parts of the world is due to a young generation of shluhim, emissaries who get sent to all corners of the globe with their young families and set up Chabad centers which are designed to offer their own particular brand of Judaism to every Jew out there.

Last week in Berlin, I was at the dedication of a new Chabad center, in itself a remarkable feat, in a city which never had any real Chabad or Hasidic presence. I met there two groups of shluhim. One was a group of rabbis from farflung spots in Europe, from the frozen reaches of Scandinavia to Cyprus. The other group were the six brothers of the Chabad leader in Berlin, Yehud Teichtal. The brothers are all Chabad rabbis in small out of the way towns in the US heartland, far from the established mega-communities. All have their own unique success story.

Of course there is nothing new about the shluhim, they have been going out for two generations already, but I still found their recent success surprising, considering the absence of a Rebbe and Chabad?s weakness here in Israel.

Many, both in the secular and ultra-Orthodox worlds, still see Chabad as a dangerous sect, but at least on the international scene, they are still amazingly strong.

Previous entries:September 5, 2007: Yeshiva in a Berlin barSeptember 4, 2007: In Germany, the burden of the past lies heavySeptember 1, 2007: Show me the money! Even on ShabbatAugust 29, 2007: Not all survivors are angelsAugust 23, 2007: Would Anne Frank even have wanted German money? August 21, 2007: The truth about the Satmar 'victory'August 17, 2007: A few observations on the richest Jew on the planetAugust 12, 2007: Fuchs isn't the only 'bastard'August 10, 2007: Too tired to blog, but...August 8, 2007: 'You bet I'm going on this march'August 7, 2007: Training for the war that won't beAugust 6, 2007: 'The real change is that we're training at all'August 5, 2007: Olmert's own heritage is no excuse

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