More about Chabad
Posted by:
richardmgreen
()
Date: April 22, 2007 04:25AM
Saturday, April 21, 2007
I have over 40 years worth of experience in dealing with Chabad Lubavitch. The first Hebrew school after public school program I went to was run by them at the time I was living in Brooklyn as a child in the mid 1960’s. All I have to show for my association with them is failure and problems, one after the other.
I had a failed marriage from a girl I met through the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE) which is located at 824 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY. And I have nothing but emotional scars from my involvement in that movement. It took me over three years to get a divorce from a girl that I was only together with for 4 months, all courtesy of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson and his group of followers. And I have friends who have similar experiences.
Chabad got reinvolved in my life, as my father and his brother went to them to gain “spiritual help” in getting me out of the Ben Yishai cult that I became entrenched in as a teenager. This occurred circa ’77. Chabad itself caused more problems and my father noted that it seemed to be “cult vs. cult.”
When I left Ben Yishai, I simply wanted to go to college and further my education. But my father put Shea Hecht in control of the family and Hecht decided I had to go to Israel and go to yeshiva. I was involved with the absolute worst the Jewish religious world had to offer.
Rabbi Shea Hecht of Chabad Lubavitch wrote a book called Confessions of a Jewish Cultbuster which as readers of Rick Ross’s ant cult forum know, had a story in it that centered around what happened when I got involved with Ben Yishai and what subsequently happened when Chabad was enlisted to get me out. They only drove me further into the cult.
Furthermore, while Rabbi Hecht’s book leaves off during my stay in Israel in’78 to ’79, my family went back to Chabad for help several times after that time period. And as noted elsewhere, the results were always terrible.
I have friends who also got married and involved with Chabad who have had similar misery in connection to this group of aggressive “Chasidim”. The modus operandi always seems to be the same: Chabad gets you involved with all kinds of overtures as to how great being “properly religious” through them is going to turn out and then they lower the boom. I know many people who have had their own families, especially their children, turned against them by this group of “Torah business people.”
Some of the people I knew from Rabbi Carlebach’s movement wound up in Crown Heights and one in particular had real problems with a girl he met from Moshav Modi’in(the Israeli home of the Chasidim of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach). The girl convinced him to get married and bore him at least seven children that I know about and then she became very difficult to live with. Last I heard they were separated and he no longer uses his Hebrew name anymore. Like myself, he left the orthodoxy period.
My father noticed, more than once, that I’d get involved heavily in Shlomo’s music and then I’d go to Chabad and Chabad would always mess me up. It was a cycle that recurred several times and I never seemed to learn from my mistakes.
I was also told by an orthodox Jewish group, to not judge Judaism by a “semi-messianic” cult. It’s hard to feel good when as of late I have a friend who is naïve enough to go to a Seder run by Chabad. Chabad never does anything innocently and their focus is always the same, getting people who have power, money and influence on their side and using them to further their goals of “bringing the true messiah” and the messianic redemption called the geulah in Hebrew. Just what all of that entails is unknown but if my friends are any indication the only people who will benefit from Chabad’s control are Chabadnik’s.
One of the main problems in this movement is the lack of original thinking. In fact, when Rabbi Schneerson was alive it seemed that most of the thinking was done by him and no one else. On the issue of “land for peace” deals with the Arabs, Rabbi Schneerson was against it claiming, “It would cost Jewish lives.” All his followers could do was parrot whatever he said. They had an extremely high opinion of him and it was the basis for their creating the cult of personality that surrounded the late ADMOR (Adoneynu, Morenu, Rabbenu ie, Our leader, our teacher, our rabbi) of Lubavitch.
And more recently, in the news, when an African American group was fighting Chabad’s faction in Crown Heights, the leaders in Crown heights said, “They have their own agenda” and all the followers simply repeat what the leaders say.
Chabad is a movement of the peasant class that came from Belarus in White Russia about 250 to 300 years ago. It was founded by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi who wrote a book called Likutie Amarim, Tanya and he copyrighted the book. The book is the “Bible of Chabad.”
The Lubavitchers were not cut from the upper crust of the Jewish intellectual world. As a side note, of all the Chasidic Rebbes, rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev was considered to be on par with the mitnaged scholars in intellectual ability. It is also worthy to note that he did not manage to found a dynasty of his own despite the fact that he wrote a work called Kedushat Levi.
In South Africa, there’s a wealthy person in the diamond industry named Gutnick who’s worth about 350 million dollars. He and other benefactors give the bulk of the money for Chabad’s 100 million dollar a year operating budget for their outreach efforts. It is all big time money. The outreach efforts include Sabbath Houses, mass Bar Mitzvahs, etc, and anything to attract the money in. And Chabad also has the Ivy League Torah Study Program, designed to attract the most intellectual Jews they can get. My ex-wife and I worked on that project for a while.
I have a friend who is Jewish who is married to a non-Jew and her cousins run a Judaica store. My friend knew of my mechanical recording agreement with the daughters of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, the late “father of modern Jewish music.” They actually used my friend to try to coerce me to do a concert for them. I told my friend that I would do no such thing for any Chabad entity. And this self same friend complains about the pushy Chasidim and how disheveled they dress, their dirty greasy beards and how their clothing reeks of body odor. She always wanted to know how they came to being so powerful but she, herself, has had trouble with her family.
These same people actually paid ten thousand dollars to have just one letter put in a Torah scroll. You can actually get a whole Torah written up for about 5 thousand additional dollars. And putting your life in the hands of this group can really put you on the path to doom.
I worked for a Jewish fundraiser in Brooklyn about 18 years ago. He told me that Chabad had more charity money than any other Jewish group. But when I had to rely on them, I almost lost my life. I was turned out and they even laughed in my face and told me “You’ll starve.” All the while that infernal book was selling just fine on the bookshelves in Crown Heights if not elsewhere.
At the same time, and even before that in Israel in ’86, I was turned out by secular job placement agencies because my insistence on dressing up as a Chasidic Jew (encouraged by my late uncle) turned them off to me. I told someone in Tel Aviv that I was looking for work and he screamed at me, “Convince me!” So much for becoming “properly religious” and that curing all of my problems.
In ’95, I went back to Israel (I got my Master of Science in Management from a program that Boston U did with Ben Gurion U of the Negev in Be’er Sheba in ‘86) and the head of my undergraduate program gave me a consulting firm to talk to and when they found out who I was living with from the Carlebach movement, I had a snowball’s chance in Hades of getting a job through them. And I never wanted to go to Israel at all. I went back because I was a member of the Carlebach Shul and I had nowhere else to go. It seems this religion stuff is the cause of my problems not the cure.
Years ago, on the sitcom, “Silver Spoons” someone asked Ricky Schroeder’s character, “How do you get a girl?” To which Ricky replied, “You tell her anything she wants to hear!” It may seem comical but that’s exactly what Chabad does.
Chabad talks about the end of what they call the golus of the current “exile of Edom” the so-called exile of Esau’s children which began when the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem 2 thousand years ago and the Jewish people were subsequently scattered. They assure the disenfranchised and gullible Jews who are not valued as part of the religious establishment that the Chabad group loves them because they love their “fellow Jew as themselves.” All of this is pure propanganda and lies.
When I was in Crown Heights in ’87 to ’88, I was not directed to the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. The Met Council provides meals, housing for the disabled and financial aid for the Jewish community. But I was ignored and turned out. It seemed that Chabad had no long term love for me or my family, just a lot of slick campaigning and rhetoric. Don’t be gullible in reference to this organization. The world would be better off not relying on their kind.
I go to a church again. We have a food pantry and a clothing ministry. We also distribute appliances and furniture when we get that in too. My church takes the loving teachings of the founder of Christianity to heart and I have no agenda when it comes to converting people. I am there because of the good they do in this church and that’s the whole rub. I have no hidden religious or political agenda. I do this to help people.
The concept of loving your fellow man is one in many religions. If that’s what you want to ally yourselves with, I concur that it’s a good idea. No matter what religion fosters the belief and only if it’s not help for only those deemed “worthy.”
In the final analysis, I believe that love is stronger than bigotry and hatred. My church made me see that and I am finally recovering from what happened to me in Israel in ’95.
I have over 40 years worth of experience in dealing with Chabad Lubavitch. The first Hebrew school after public school program I went to was run by them at the time I was living in Brooklyn as a child in the mid 1960’s. All I have to show for my association with them is failure and problems, one after the other.
I had a failed marriage from a girl I met through the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE) which is located at 824 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY. And I have nothing but emotional scars from my involvement in that movement. It took me over three years to get a divorce from a girl that I was only together with for 4 months, all courtesy of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson and his group of followers. And I have friends who have similar experiences.
Chabad got reinvolved in my life, as my father and his brother went to them to gain “spiritual help” in getting me out of the Ben Yishai cult that I became entrenched in as a teenager. This occurred circa ’77. Chabad itself caused more problems and my father noted that it seemed to be “cult vs. cult.”
When I left Ben Yishai, I simply wanted to go to college and further my education. But my father put Shea Hecht in control of the family and Hecht decided I had to go to Israel and go to yeshiva. I was involved with the absolute worst the Jewish religious world had to offer.
Rabbi Shea Hecht of Chabad Lubavitch wrote a book called Confessions of a Jewish Cultbuster which as readers of Rick Ross’s ant cult forum know, had a story in it that centered around what happened when I got involved with Ben Yishai and what subsequently happened when Chabad was enlisted to get me out. They only drove me further into the cult.
Furthermore, while Rabbi Hecht’s book leaves off during my stay in Israel in’78 to ’79, my family went back to Chabad for help several times after that time period. And as noted elsewhere, the results were always terrible.
I have friends who also got married and involved with Chabad who have had similar misery in connection to this group of aggressive “Chasidim”. The modus operandi always seems to be the same: Chabad gets you involved with all kinds of overtures as to how great being “properly religious” through them is going to turn out and then they lower the boom. I know many people who have had their own families, especially their children, turned against them by this group of “Torah business people.”
Some of the people I knew from Rabbi Carlebach’s movement wound up in Crown Heights and one in particular had real problems with a girl he met from Moshav Modi’in(the Israeli home of the Chasidim of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach). The girl convinced him to get married and bore him at least seven children that I know about and then she became very difficult to live with. Last I heard they were separated and he no longer uses his Hebrew name anymore. Like myself, he left the orthodoxy period.
My father noticed, more than once, that I’d get involved heavily in Shlomo’s music and then I’d go to Chabad and Chabad would always mess me up. It was a cycle that recurred several times and I never seemed to learn from my mistakes.
I was also told by an orthodox Jewish group, to not judge Judaism by a “semi-messianic” cult. It’s hard to feel good when as of late I have a friend who is naïve enough to go to a Seder run by Chabad. Chabad never does anything innocently and their focus is always the same, getting people who have power, money and influence on their side and using them to further their goals of “bringing the true messiah” and the messianic redemption called the geulah in Hebrew. Just what all of that entails is unknown but if my friends are any indication the only people who will benefit from Chabad’s control are Chabadnik’s.
One of the main problems in this movement is the lack of original thinking. In fact, when Rabbi Schneerson was alive it seemed that most of the thinking was done by him and no one else. On the issue of “land for peace” deals with the Arabs, Rabbi Schneerson was against it claiming, “It would cost Jewish lives.” All his followers could do was parrot whatever he said. They had an extremely high opinion of him and it was the basis for their creating the cult of personality that surrounded the late ADMOR (Adoneynu, Morenu, Rabbenu ie, Our leader, our teacher, our rabbi) of Lubavitch.
And more recently, in the news, when an African American group was fighting Chabad’s faction in Crown Heights, the leaders in Crown heights said, “They have their own agenda” and all the followers simply repeat what the leaders say.
Chabad is a movement of the peasant class that came from Belarus in White Russia about 250 to 300 years ago. It was founded by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi who wrote a book called Likutie Amarim, Tanya and he copyrighted the book. The book is the “Bible of Chabad.”
The Lubavitchers were not cut from the upper crust of the Jewish intellectual world. As a side note, of all the Chasidic Rebbes, rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev was considered to be on par with the mitnaged scholars in intellectual ability. It is also worthy to note that he did not manage to found a dynasty of his own despite the fact that he wrote a work called Kedushat Levi.
In South Africa, there’s a wealthy person in the diamond industry named Gutnick who’s worth about 350 million dollars. He and other benefactors give the bulk of the money for Chabad’s 100 million dollar a year operating budget for their outreach efforts. It is all big time money. The outreach efforts include Sabbath Houses, mass Bar Mitzvahs, etc, and anything to attract the money in. And Chabad also has the Ivy League Torah Study Program, designed to attract the most intellectual Jews they can get. My ex-wife and I worked on that project for a while.
I have a friend who is Jewish who is married to a non-Jew and her cousins run a Judaica store. My friend knew of my mechanical recording agreement with the daughters of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, the late “father of modern Jewish music.” They actually used my friend to try to coerce me to do a concert for them. I told my friend that I would do no such thing for any Chabad entity. And this self same friend complains about the pushy Chasidim and how disheveled they dress, their dirty greasy beards and how their clothing reeks of body odor. She always wanted to know how they came to being so powerful but she, herself, has had trouble with her family.
These same people actually paid ten thousand dollars to have just one letter put in a Torah scroll. You can actually get a whole Torah written up for about 5 thousand additional dollars. And putting your life in the hands of this group can really put you on the path to doom.
I worked for a Jewish fundraiser in Brooklyn about 18 years ago. He told me that Chabad had more charity money than any other Jewish group. But when I had to rely on them, I almost lost my life. I was turned out and they even laughed in my face and told me “You’ll starve.” All the while that infernal book was selling just fine on the bookshelves in Crown Heights if not elsewhere.
At the same time, and even before that in Israel in ’86, I was turned out by secular job placement agencies because my insistence on dressing up as a Chasidic Jew (encouraged by my late uncle) turned them off to me. I told someone in Tel Aviv that I was looking for work and he screamed at me, “Convince me!” So much for becoming “properly religious” and that curing all of my problems.
In ’95, I went back to Israel (I got my Master of Science in Management from a program that Boston U did with Ben Gurion U of the Negev in Be’er Sheba in ‘86) and the head of my undergraduate program gave me a consulting firm to talk to and when they found out who I was living with from the Carlebach movement, I had a snowball’s chance in Hades of getting a job through them. And I never wanted to go to Israel at all. I went back because I was a member of the Carlebach Shul and I had nowhere else to go. It seems this religion stuff is the cause of my problems not the cure.
Years ago, on the sitcom, “Silver Spoons” someone asked Ricky Schroeder’s character, “How do you get a girl?” To which Ricky replied, “You tell her anything she wants to hear!” It may seem comical but that’s exactly what Chabad does.
Chabad talks about the end of what they call the golus of the current “exile of Edom” the so-called exile of Esau’s children which began when the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem 2 thousand years ago and the Jewish people were subsequently scattered. They assure the disenfranchised and gullible Jews who are not valued as part of the religious establishment that the Chabad group loves them because they love their “fellow Jew as themselves.” All of this is pure propanganda and lies.
When I was in Crown Heights in ’87 to ’88, I was not directed to the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. The Met Council provides meals, housing for the disabled and financial aid for the Jewish community. But I was ignored and turned out. It seemed that Chabad had no long term love for me or my family, just a lot of slick campaigning and rhetoric. Don’t be gullible in reference to this organization. The world would be better off not relying on their kind.
I go to a church again. We have a food pantry and a clothing ministry. We also distribute appliances and furniture when we get that in too. My church takes the loving teachings of the founder of Christianity to heart and I have no agenda when it comes to converting people. I am there because of the good they do in this church and that’s the whole rub. I have no hidden religious or political agenda. I do this to help people.
The concept of loving your fellow man is one in many religions. If that’s what you want to ally yourselves with, I concur that it’s a good idea. No matter what religion fosters the belief and only if it’s not help for only those deemed “worthy.”
In the final analysis, I believe that love is stronger than bigotry and hatred. My church made me see that and I am finally recovering from what happened to me in Israel in ’95.
More about Chabad
Posted by:
K.D.
()
Date: May 02, 2007 12:52PM
You should be very proud of yourself in getting out of the Chabad in one piece. What a story... you have been through a lot of horrors with them.
They have my beautiful baby girl, they have their hooks in her and I will probably never see her again. They have introduced her to a Chabad man... he is 33 she is 18. He is mentally unstable by the Chabads own admission... and my daughter is an honors student who wanted to go to Medical school. She will become one of their "child bearing machines" instead.
It has broken my husband and I's heart.. but as our daughter says this is WHAT SHE WANTS!! We have disinherited her but it did nothing to change her decision....
I have started a PR campaign against them and if it takes me years to accomplish it I intend to get my ANTI-CHABAD message to as many as I can. It is nothing but a dangerous CULT.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2010 12:56AM by rrmoderator.
They have my beautiful baby girl, they have their hooks in her and I will probably never see her again. They have introduced her to a Chabad man... he is 33 she is 18. He is mentally unstable by the Chabads own admission... and my daughter is an honors student who wanted to go to Medical school. She will become one of their "child bearing machines" instead.
It has broken my husband and I's heart.. but as our daughter says this is WHAT SHE WANTS!! We have disinherited her but it did nothing to change her decision....
I have started a PR campaign against them and if it takes me years to accomplish it I intend to get my ANTI-CHABAD message to as many as I can. It is nothing but a dangerous CULT.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2010 12:56AM by rrmoderator.
More about Chabad
Posted by:
richardmgreen
()
Date: May 08, 2007 05:04AM
I'm fed up with Chabad. That book they wrote was one piece of trash but their general attitude towards me is worse. They must have gotten a l of charity money thrown their way over the so-called "social service" work that they do.
More about Chabad
Posted by:
upsidedownnewspaper
()
Date: May 08, 2007 09:45AM
(I may have asked this of you before, richardmgreen. Is it Lubavich Chabad Judaism that is depicted in Potok's My Name is Asher Lev?)
More about Chabad
Posted by:
richardmgreen
()
Date: May 11, 2007 03:14AM
I don't know.Quote
upsidedownnewspaper
(I may have asked this of you before, richardmgreen. Is it Lubavich Chabad Judaism that is depicted in Potok's My Name is Asher Lev?)
More about Chabad
Posted by:
richardmgreen
()
Date: May 11, 2007 04:19AM
[en.wikipedia.org]
If the Chabad movement can and will ever move forward is doubtful as far as I can tell. Rabbi Schneerson died many years ago and no one has been appointed.
If the Chabad movement can and will ever move forward is doubtful as far as I can tell. Rabbi Schneerson died many years ago and no one has been appointed.
More about Chabad
Posted by:
mjr40
()
Date: May 16, 2007 02:57PM
Quote
K.D.
We have disinherited her but it did nothing to change her decision....
Ms. [D.] -
Since I am not a parent myself, so I can only imagine the emotions that you are feeling right now. However, I do have some understanding of cultic psychology and its effects. Please note that part of this psychology is that cults tell their members that everyone outside of the cult is bad, is evil and is against them. It is part of building up an "us vs. them" psychology, which aids in keeping people in the cult. Psychologists, I believe, call this building a "group mentality", whereby association with the group becomes all-consuming in the person's psyche. The action of disinheriting her plays into this cultic psychology; they can say "See, your family is bad and we are good, ergo, you should stay with us." Attempting to maintain contact with her and telling her that you love her will assist in counteracting their psychological assault on her logic and decision-making capabilities.
One of the foremost anti-cult psychologists on the Web, Steve Hassan, was once in the Moonies cult in NYC. They too told him that everyone outside the cult is bad and evil. But one day when he was out on the streets selling flowers in the summer heat, someone gave him a glass of water. After that Steve saw that not everyone outside the cult was bad, and this eventually led him to see the psychological manipulations of the cult. Perhaps something similar can occur with your daughter. It is never too late.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2010 12:41AM by rrmoderator.
More about Chabad
Posted by:
richardmgreen
()
Date: May 18, 2007 02:13AM
Quote
mjr40Quote
K.D.
We have disinherited her but it did nothing to change her decision....
Most of the time people don't spend their whole life in a cult so there's hope. Where there is life, there is hope. That's something to hang on to.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2010 12:12AM by rrmoderator.
More about Chabad
Posted by:
dv
()
Date: June 04, 2007 08:53PM
I will endeavor to read this book and get back to you with a definitive response.
Quote
upsidedownnewspaper
(I may have asked this of you before, richardmgreen. Is it Lubavich Chabad Judaism that is depicted in Potok's My Name is Asher Lev?)
More about Chabad
Posted by:
K.D.
()
Date: June 05, 2007 12:54AM
We have tried everything...we have tried kindness and offers of everything to get her home. The Tough Love aspect of not "enabling" her and getting her immediately into therapy IF we can find her is just one of the things that we have tried.
Bottom line we just want our baby girl home...
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2010 12:54AM by rrmoderator.
Bottom line we just want our baby girl home...
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2010 12:54AM by rrmoderator.
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