Is Chabad a cult? It’s an old question. At least for me it is. And it’s one that I expect to examine closely on this blog.
As I was searching the web for material related to this question, one search result from The Guardian exactly one year ago today caught my attention. It contained an answer by a man who has earned my respect and admiration for his fight against child sexual abuse (CSA) and Chabad’s CSA cover-up, Manny Waks.
Waks says Chabad has “all the hallmarks” of a cult – “every waking moment was dictated for us”, he said. He still has difficulty reading books or watching movies for pleasure, so heavily was his studying of religious texts and documentaries. He did not know what his secular birthday was until he was 15. His relationship with his father, who used a disciplinary approach to ensure his children adhered to Yeshivah values, is fractured.
But Waks says to label Chabad and Yeshivah as a cult would force him to reject his entire childhood. And there were moments of beauty he wants to hold on to.
…
When Waks was 12 years old and questioned a teacher about whether the Rebbe was really infallible, he received a swift slap in the face.
“So I find it hard to criticise Chabad. It’s my childhood. And I find it difficult to call Chabad a cult, even though there are clearly cult-like elements.”
His father, Zephaniah Waks, has no such difficulty. While he still practises Judaism, he broke away from the Orthodox community last year after being severely ostracised. By supporting his sons in going to the police and speaking out against their abuse, he faced endless and unrelenting attacks within Chabad.
He put his house on the market two years ago – he remains unable to sell it – and moved overseas.
“It is a cult, there is no doubt,” he says. “When you are in a cult, you can’t just decide to leave, it is extremely difficult. You can’t just leave Chabad and go to a different Chabad church. When I go overseas, word gets around within Chabad there that I am destroying Chabad in Australia.
I wonder how Manny would answer the question today, one year later.
If you are not familiar with the Chabad sexual abuse cover-up, the Guardian article is an important read: Manny Waks: I’m the ‘troublemaker’ who blew the whistle on Jewish abuse scandal
If you’re struggling to answer the question whether or not Chabad is a cult, I’ll direct you to a post that was a very important starting point for me: Why I am no longer Chabad.
Chafraud-Depravitch 
Yes.
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I don’t know if Chabad does or does not fit the academic definition of a cult. It is absolutely at a minimum very cult like. While I’ve known some very nice Chabad followers, the movement has a dark unhealthy aspect to it.
Institutionalized Jewish themed religions and their leaders over-think, over-analyze, over-complicate, and over-control their followers with micromanagement, brainwashing, and unnatural unhealthy lifestyles.
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A lot of it has to do with the personality of the attendee. The “seekers” seem prone to cult-like behavior. Some approach Chabad viewing it as a business that they can use as a Jewish outpost, a social club. Others may have had a recent family crisis. People are attracted to it for a number of reasons. Generally, none of those people are aware of the problems that plague the organization; the financial crimes, the sexual crimes, the cover-ups, the truth about Chabad messianism.
I think people have a right to know. And they rarely find out in the rosy bubble of Chabad.
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I thought a cult requires a charismatic leader, at least one who is alive.
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To me any organisation that wants you to run your life in a specific way without deviation is a cult. They have no real ability or choice to leave- cultish. They attack any criticism – see FM and the trolls and compare them to the scientologists – same thought pattern, different methods.
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Yes, ChaBAD is a cult , no doubt about it . A cult whose drug dealers sect members worship menachem mendel Schnorrer ( the super skillful
schnorrer that ever lived ) like God .
Also, those chaBAD cult members have the appearance of sorcerers , characteristic wizards black hats , characteristic sorcerers black coats ,
AND THE CHARACTERISTIC BEARDS , so you got it all , PLUS THEIR NAMES chaBAD , all in one .
Their chaBAD drug infested neighborhood whose members’ make a living through drug dealings and international drug trafficking ,
shows clearly what kind of ppl chaBAD really are .
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@ WIGMORE,
That’s the saddest thing about chabad . Not only MMS did not have any children to take over the sect , but he did not even appoint anyone to take over the cult . He just let it go .
All Hassidic sects rabbi leaders have biological children to take over their sect , not MMS , bc he was not blessed to carry out the continuation of what he built for decades .
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And chabad is a vicious cult .
They hacked into Shmarya ‘s failedmessiah in 2004 , bc they did not want the public to know the sh *** that’s going on in their sect ( pedophilia , boys rapes and molestation , chaBad did not want the names of their sect members pedophiles to be published , ) drug dealings and international drug trafficking by their own schlihus abroad . Since Shmarya succeeded to reinstate failedmessiah after the 2004 hack , more recently chabad put a knife under Shmarya’s throat threatening him and FORCING HIM TO ‘ SELL’ failed messiah , or else .
Yes, absolutely and with no doubt , chabad is a sect .
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Yes, chabad is a cult .
10 years ago , chabad bought the Jewish Center on Eastern Parkway from the Conservatives who originally owned the building .
Chabad destroyed ALL STAINED GLASSES WINDOWS with imitation Marc Chagall ‘s paintings .
When I saw that , it broke my heart , beautiful pieces of Arts smashed into smittereen , bc the stained glasses windows looked like a church .
chabad also destroyed the hanging memorial lamp that the Conservative installed .
Chabad have no respect for the Arts , for anybody or anything , they are a cult .
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Since Shmarya left , there must be by now TONS of articles on chabad . Shmarya will have published them pronto .
We, Jews have lost our real messiah , the one and only Shmarya Rosenberg .
I hope Shmarya will have a long vacation and come back , bc we all need him .
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M,
It’s your business if you choose to regard Shmarya as your messiah. The man was definitely not my messiah. I learned things from him that were true for me as I have learned from many others too. I appreciated and respected Shmarya for having had the moral courage to break taboos that needed breaking exposing the frum’s dirty laundry.
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He was no messiah, nor do I believe he wanted to be one.
For me he was an eye-opening source that broke through the delusion I had about Chabad and religion in general.
He was a lot more like a glass of cold water in the face than a messiah.
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I wonder how Manny feels about the cult and its leader now, more than 2 years after this post.
Thankfully, he had a family who was willing to back him up even when his “community” shunned him. There have been horror stories of victims who have not been so lucky with their families, only caring about their reputations and the cult leader, and with the abusers getting away with their crimes on planes to foreign countries. Family should come first, no matter what.
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