It isn’t long after capturing the attention of those who know no better, that the mythology Surrounding Chabad Rebbes is told to them as if it were true Jewish history. However, Chabad is expert at omitting much of the truth when it comes to many things; fundraising, Chabad messianism, the extent of alcoholism and child sexual abuse in Chabad, and of course Jewish history.The Rashab, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneersohn, and his son the Rayyatz, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, were both sexually molested as children. The Rashab and his older brother engaged in forbidden sexual escapades, as did their wives.
The 5th Chabad-Lubavitch rebbe, Sholom DovBer Schneerson, went to Vienna in 1903 to get treatment from Sigmund Freud.
While the trip to Vienna and its purpose – treatment from “Herr Professor” – is reported in the published works of the Rashabs son, the 6th rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, and Chabad lore claimed the professor was Freud, the name of the professor was only revealed when the Reshimot (notebooks) of the 7th rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, were published posthumously in 1997.
But the identity of the professor as Sigmund Freud has been problematic for scholars, because no case file for the Rashab was found, and there is no conclusive evidence in Freuds writings to confirm the treatment.
Maya Balakirsky Katz, writing in the Association of Jewish Studies Review (April 2010) has done a masterful piece of historical research and shows that the Rashab did indeed seek out treatment from
Sigmund Freud, but Freud referred the Rashab to another Viennese psychoanalyst , his close disciple Wilhelm Stekel, and consulted with Stekel on the case.
The Rashab reports being sexually molested by a male household servant from the time he was 5 or 6 years old until his marriage.
He also describes sexual liaisons he had with his sister-in-law; licentious sexual behavior of his brother, Rabbi Zalman Aharon; questionable sexual behavior of his wife; and his own frequent masturbation, sometimes carried out with his brother.
Here are excerpts from her article, An Occupational Neurosis: A Psychoanalytic Case History Of A Rabbi. References to page number in square brackets are mine:
In consultation with Sigmund Freud, the Viennese psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel (1868–
1940) treated the first Jewish cleric known to undergo analysis, in 1903. According to the case history, published in 1908, a forty-two-year-old rabbi suffered from a Berufsneurose, an occupational neurosis associated with the pressures of his career. [p.1]…
The rabbi’s first dream took the form of a vivid military scene with soldiers in awkward poses, stretching their bayonets to mark their enemy and laughing deliriously. The leader of these soldiers seized the rabbi by his beard and demanded, “Why have you become so proud and will not have anything to do with me?” The dream was instigated by a “pornographic photograph” that the rabbi remem- bered in which a bayonet was pressed against a soldier’s penis. Stekel opined that the military leader in the dream formed a “condensation” figure—a single dream symbol that expressed the emotional content of several memories. The delirious military leader evoked both traumatic and repressed memories of a male servant, the rabbi’s brother, and a friend. The memories that followed the first dream thus were structured around the roles these three figures played in triggering the rabbi’s revelations about his early sexual experiences. Finally losing what appeared to be epic patience, the rabbi lashed out against “the cure,” a term of art that Stekel uses interchangeably with “psychoanalysis,” which the rabbi claimed was not helping in the least, but only making things worse.8
The next day, the rabbi revealed that a “man-servant,” whose tasks included watching over the rabbi in his boyhood, sexually molested him from the time he was “five or six” until his marriage, when “such things” became impossible. After retrieving the sexual trauma of his childhood, the rabbi divulged the details of the encounter, showing visible signs of emotional turmoil, and Stekel, in turn, recorded the sordid details of the encounter with clinical distance and graphic min- utiae. Stekel noted that the servant still lived in the rabbi’s house and that the rabbi still showed him great affection despite the fact that the man was frequently “rude and impertinent.” Despite their confusing sexual encounters, the rabbi “did not have the heart to be severe with him and much less to give him notice.”9 In line with psychoanalytic thought of the time, Stekel glides over the emotional conflict of traumatic memory under the premise that its discovery suffices for the patient’s recovery. Indeed, this memory of childhood sexual trauma unblocks “such a rich supply of source material that there was not enough time to discuss and incorpor- ate it all.” The rabbi admitted to masturbating since childhood, both alone and with his brother, a point that in 1903 signaled a possible cause of neurosis.10
These confessions led to the second character within the “condensation figure” represented by the tormenting soldier in the rabbi’s dream—the rabbi’s brother. The rabbi revealed that his brother, “a man-about-town and a ladies’ man—paid court to his [the rabbi’s] wife in a shocking manner.” The rabbi could not accuse them of anything definite and trusted his wife, but nevertheless, the rabbi chastised his brother for compromising his wife’s reputation. Further analysis uncovered that the real motivation for the rabbi’s jealousy toward his brother concerned not his own wife, but his brother’s wife. The brother, who married before the rabbi, habitually took the rabbi into his wife’s bedroom, “where he [the brother] displayed her in scant attire, with the idea of arousing him, and to hold his wife’s beauty before his eyes.” In his brother’s absence, the rabbi stayed with his sister-in-law, playing with her and “having fun” without getting carried away. In his characteristic dubious tone, Stekel offers a jus- tification in the rabbi’s own words: “They were all children in those days …”11
Stekel’s inflammatory ellipses lead into the rabbi’s identification of the third character within the dream’s “condensation” figure—a male friend. The rabbi reminisced about a seaside resort where he and his young wife once spent a summer. The rabbi occasionally wrestled with the friend in the wife’s presence, and, after successfully pinning his friend on the floor with his knee, the rabbi tri- umphantly took his wife to bed. Stekel’s bold interpretation of the rabbi’s first dream is offered as “proof” of Stekel’s success as an analyst, as the interpretation led to the rabbi’s identification of the “core trauma” and the confession of a vivid sexual life. The rabbi was tormented day and night by the most unbridled fanta- sies: everything he saw, heard, read, and touched assumed sexual images. Stekel determined that this man, “who led such a pious and sequestered existence in real life, was in his fantasy life, the greatest Don Juan,” whose fantasies “would put even those of a Marquis de Sade in the shade.”12
The second dream’s setting was a sleeping compartment on a traveling train, which led to the admission that the rabbi harbored fantasies of being forced into a sexual liaison in a way that would exonerate him from the sin of adultery because it would be “an act performed against his will.” The rabbi explained that he knew of two possibilities by which he could remain true to the tenets of his religion while experiencing intercourse. In the first, a woman lying in the sleeping com- partment above him falls upon him in a way that might resemble coitus, a situation in which he could be an “unwilling” subject. In the second, he is attacked by robbers in a forest and the captain of the thieves holds a pistol to his breast, saying, “either you have intercourse with this woman who lies here before you, or I will shoot you.” In both cases, the rabbi could not be held accountable for his passive transgressions and thereby could achieve a measure of “pleasure without sin.”13
Stekel’s endeavors to account for two of the rabbi’s pathological behaviors through his interpretation of the second dream revealed that the rabbi suffered from a “traveling neurosis” (Reiseneurose), in which he was seized by a desire to travel at night by train and to walk in forests by day. “After three months an oppressive restlessness seizes him [the rabbi]; he cannot work any longer, and decides to go somewhere to consult some professor or visit some famous seaside health-resort … . urged by the secret hope that a luscious lady would fall down on him from above.” Hence, Stekel interprets the dreamer’s anticipation of meeting a woman with whom he could have unwilling and unwitting—and hence free of sin—sex as the reason behind the rabbi’s real-life wanderings through forests and train travel. The rabbi harbored an obsessive desire for an illicit sexual experience, but he repressed this untenable desire into the unconscious, “masked by various more tenable desires, such as consultations with professors, visits to friends, trips to resorts, etc.” However, in Stekel’s estimation, the “primary motive, in fact, the only motive to these wishes, is the journey.” The rabbi “could not tolerate the spas for long, losing patience, and traveling further and as far as possible, always at night, and always in a sleeping-compartment.” Likewise, the second part of the fantasy with the sin-compelling robbers inspired the rabbi “to circle the forests for days while staying at a health-resort, always in the hope that circumstances might induce a sublime end to his innocence.”
Consequent analysis revealed that the woman in the rabbi’s train dreams triggered the memory of a “young, strikingly beautiful, and finely built woman,” resembling the housekeeper in the rabbi’s summer residence, who once extended her hand in greeting. The experience with a “foreign” woman left “a burning fire” in his left hand, and shortly afterward, he lost all sensation in that hand. Stekel records the rabbi’s fascination with travel in the rabbi’s own words: “Every time I get into a train, I think of this woman, and always hope that, by chance, she may one day share a compartment with me.” After this piecing together of details about the adult sexual fixation on the “foreign” servant and his pathological traveling, the rabbi’s left-hand numbness disappeared.
As Stekel described it, the analysis progressed rapidly, and the patient found boundless relief in being able at last to communicate unabashed, for the rabbi “did not have a single person whom he could speak about these things.”14
The third and final dream ties up the loose ends presented at the start of the case history, a performance so eloquent that it invites skepticism. Stekel assesses the value of the handwritten books that the brother demanded, to address the “deeper emotional regions.” The key to the rabbi’s obsession with the holy books lie in passages within them of a graphic sexual nature. Even when he was a child, scripture dealing with erotic life excited him, and “he pursued these portions of scripture in earnest.” The old manuscript contained significant details about the erotic symbolism found within the four letters of the divine name (YHWH), a staple of kabbalistic literature since the thirteenth century.15 Stekel concluded that the book symbolized the sexual rivalry between the rabbi and his brother, who taunted him both with the beauty of his sister-in-law and the unabashed courting of the rabbi’s wife.16 In Stekel’s interpretation, the rabbi’s real attachment to the book stemmed from his hermeneutical analysis of the sexual symbolism of the divine name. Stekel discovered that the rabbi always lost his train of thought and always halted at the name of God because “it brought the sexual symbolism of the four letters out of the unconscious and to the surface.” Stekel concludes, “His religious acts were imbued with a secret sexual symbolism. He halted—not without a deeper determination—in the middle of his speech. He [the rabbi] always halted at the word ‘YHWH’ because this word reminded him not only of his illicit thoughts, but of his inhibitions.”17 [p.3 – p.6]
In Stekel’s case history, other familial relationships besides that with the elder brother make a debut. These are revealed in the rabbi’s attraction to his brother’s wife, his confusion regarding his own wife, his incestuous thoughts about his sister, and even his incestuous feelings toward his mother. These appear to illustrate a complex interior life. Stekel never even men- tions the rabbi’s own role as a father, whose child is presumably susceptible to the “sexton in his father’s house” during his own extensive traveling. The most palp-able silence within the case history concerns the rabbi’s anger toward a father who left his child in the care of this “man-servant” on account of personal health and on behalf of the Jewish people. [p.18]…
R. Yosef Yitzchak writes that he always wished that his father had spent more time recounting his family history and the stories of other pious men, but it was not until RaSHaB was infirm in Vienna that RaSHaB began to experience vivid dreams in which the deceased R. Shmuel [his father, the 4th rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch] revealed family history. During the long walks through the forest “as per doctor’s orders,” RaSHaB, in turn, related these stories to his son. [p. 19]…
R. Yosef Yitzchak writes about his father’s two-year absence as an intensely painful time of isolation from his father: “My lifestyle during the course of those two years made me forget my earlier memories of my father” and “during my two bitter years I suffered greatly from this man [the servant Yosef Morde- khai in his grandmother’s house].” R. Yosef Yitzchak describes the time as years spent alone in his room crying without even the memory of his father to sustain him. The amnesia that he experienced during his father’s absence ended with his father’s return. The years of absence induce a selective amnesia and, in his “recollections,” R. Yosef Yitzchak’s narrative moves back and forth between R. Yosef Yitzchak’s “remembering” and “forgetting” over the two years, but “in the summer of 1889, in the space of one month, I became a different child. My father drew closer to me with a great intimacy so that I felt all the warmth of a father, all the love of a merciful father, and I would go to sleep with the thought that I too have a father and mother to which to say good- night. In the course of these two years I forgot the bitter conditions of the earlier life.”77
Freud considered hysterical amnesia a symptom of repression connected with childhood sexuality and the Oedipus complex, and R. Yosef Yitzchak’s narrative of father absence is sprinkled with accounts of the elderly servant. With his father and memory restored, however, R. Yosef Yitzchak finds himself eighteen months later paralyzed with fear when his father again falls severely ill. R. Yosef Yitzchak describes his pain and desperate intercession with God on his father’s behalf, so that when RaSHaB rises from the sick bed, R. Yosef Yitzchak writes, “With God’s mercy and with the positive turn of the situation, my father’s [return to] health became recognizable before all and not only for our family but also for our helpers and all the people who came to our courtyard … Even Yosef Mordekhai, the old servant, had a different countenance and his perpetual bitterness subsided.”78 [p. 21-22]…
As the author notes, Chabad has claimed for more than 65 years that the Rashab went to a famous Viennese professor for psychoanalysis in 1903.
The 7th rebbes personal notebooks, published on 1997 after his death, ID that professor as Freud.
The travels described by the rabbi in Stekels case study match the travels of the Maharash and Rashab.
The year and time of year of the therapy matches the account published in the 1940s by the 6th Chabad rebbe, the Rayyatz, the son of the Rashab.
Numerous other details match.
But there are references Stekel makes that are incorrect.
The Rashabs age at marriage, cited by Stekel as 18 when the actual age was 13, could be a simple typographical or transcription error. (That can be seen from the Rashabs repeated statement, quoted by Steckel in reference to the sexual interplay between the Rashab, his sister-in-law, Rabbi Zalman Aharon and the Rashabs wife, the masturbation, etc., that “they were all children in those days …” Stekel quotes this several times but doesnt attempt to explain how 18 to 20 year olds could be referred to as children in 1903, which leads me to believe Stekels handwritten notes or manuscript had the numeral “13” written, and that was read by his publisher as “18.”)
The second error is “Stekels report about the rabbis daughter, whom the rabbi purportedly sent to Stekel five years after his own successful treatment. In fact, RaSHaB did not have a daughter.”
This is true, the Rashab did not have a legitimate daughter. But he may have had an illegitimate daughter, or, much more likely, the reference is to a niece or a granddaughter. If the latter, it would be most likely be Chana, his oldest granddaughter, who would have been a teenager in 1908.
Maya Balakirsky Katz has done groundbreaking research that, among many other things, shows the devastating long-lasting impact of child sexual abuse even in rabbinic families, and the need for therapy to overcome that damage.
If nothing else, lets hope the haredi community takes that message to heart.
Photographs from top: The Rashab, his son the Rayyatz, and Wilhelm Stekel.
Chafraud-Depravitch 
Chafraud, how can you publish such mamash skeker?! Do you really expect me to believe that? MAYBE, just MAYBE they had problems with servants molesting, R”L, but certainly all the apparent “facts” about these holy Tzaddikim and ***ual fantasies are, forgive me, but disgustingly untrue.
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AishKodesh,
I have no expectations. The research is what it is. Those who want to believe that these men were anything more than ordinary men, will NOT even consider this research that cuts their Rebbes down to the size of ordinary humans.
Aish, there was a time I believed that every emissary/missionary from Chabad was righteous. As if the “holy” Rebbe,” with “ruach hakodesh” hand-picked people who were a cut above all others to become local leaders of the Jewish people. And, of course, I believed they represented the most “authentic” Jews, closer to the way we were when the Torah was given to us. It was bullshit. But I wanted to believe it. Chabad’s phony facade and Rebbe mythology made it all that much easier to do so. We gave money like good cult members, to our family’s detriment, because “that’s what God wanted.” The rabbi never stopped asking for more, and happily took from us knowing the hurt it was causing us. However, he did tell us that God would give it (and more) back to us so we could “increase the mitzvah.” More BS.
In fact, the Rebbe sent out criminals, child molesters, and young hucksters who value their luxury over the well being and education of Jewish children. So I’ll ask you to forgive me when I expose the shortcomings of the charlatans who pose as righteous when they are – even by SECULAR measure – substandard.
And that is well demonstrated by showing that even their leaders (one even supposedly the Moshiach!) were no better than the Jew on the street that Chabad tries to suck in for their money.
Look at Shlomo Cunin, the Rebbe’s appointment to the west coast in California. He’s a criminal. That’s not merely my opinion, it’s a documented fact. Research which cities he secured for his sons (Malibu, Pacific Palisades and Beverly Hills). Then ask if that’s about saving Jewish souls and Torah… or nepotism and money? Did a “tzadik Rebbe” with “ruach hakodesh” send his gold-diggers here? The Rebbe and his predecessors were far more fallible than Chabad would have us believe. And Chabad is known for covering up a lot.
This nonsense that men who received their positions through nepotism were/are somehow more “righteous” or on some kind of higher superhuman spiritual plane is merely the first step of creating god-men to follow, and ultimately worship. Torah warns against it. In reality these Rebbes were nothing special and often had very undesirable qualities.
It’s my belief that God cares more about the truth than some Rebbe’s, or religious organization’s phony image and reputation.
I won’t get fooled again. And hopefully someone reading this can avoid it completely.
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First thing I will say is I am sorry for my very harsh outburst — I did not mean to be rude, achi. Please forgive me.
But I want you to understand, #1, not all Shluchim are reshaim, #2, not all Shluchim were appointed by the Lubavitcher Rebbe zt”l (yes, I know he is zt”l) — and we probably all know that they weren’t all appointed from Ruach HaKodesh. But starting and operating a community is costly, and you must understand a lot of the time, money is needed not for the Rabbis themselves, but for the upkeep of everything — yes, including your Shul.
And again, realize that not all Rabbanim, Shluchim, Chareidim, etc. are crooked or the like.
Forgive me for not going into further detail, but I must go.
Gut Nacht to you and your family and Kol Tuv!
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Aish,
You are just the most polite fellow on Earth. You don’t owe me an apology for anything, nor to ask any forgiveness. I don’t know why you get such a hard time at DIN. You’re really a nice guy.
You should see the comments I’ve kept unapproved; FU, burn in hell, etc. (defenders of Chabad…)
Anyway, I’ve said before, and I’ll say again; not all shluchim are reshaim. But, unlike you, I believe they are the minority. Did you know some shluchim privately admit the organization is corrupt? There are certainly a few with a moral compass, but they’re cowards too. Chabad is not a place where they can call out their own without turning their lives upside-down.
And clearly the Rebbe hasn’t appointed a shliach since 1994. He’s been dead. But we can lay part of the blame on him for the commercial organization that Chabad has become. Their thirst for money is never quenched. And when a shliach enjoys the luxury of exotic kosher meat (like buffalo, or giraffe), or making luxury home improvements while Jewish children in the community are struggling to remain in Jewish schools; let’s call it for what it is. There’s no nice way to say it. It’s bullshit, and it’s fraud. The “Rebbe’s vision” my tuches. It’s anti-Torah and a complete mockery of what Judaism is supposed to represent. Shame on the Rebbe, his predecessors, and the plague of con-men they left behind.
Chabad is (for you I’ll add, with rare exception) a commercialized religious fraud upon the Jewish people. Their shliach business model is by its very nature, parasitic. Shluchim have been dispersed to primarily affluent communities to live off of them, not to bring them Torah.
And as for ALL rabeim being reshaim, of course that’s nonsense. I know GREAT rabbis. And they’re not great for being Jews, or rabbis, or religious. They’re great for the integrity they display. One who teaches my children even refused a tzedaka check from me once because he knew I couldn’t really afford to give it. He was right. It would have cleared, but our family would end up hurting for it. He said it was no mitzvah to do that and that I should give at a later date. OF COURSE HE WAS NOT A CHABAD RABBI!
His front yard looked horrible the last time I saw it. He doesn’t have a gardener… he’d rather help students from single-parent homes. His car is an old vehicle that’s nothing to look at (to be nice about it). He could lease whatever he wants to drive. Instead he hands out assistance to families on erev Shabbat and Yom Tov.
I know another very well respected rabbi who wrote publicly in a haredi publication about the necessity to support victims of sexual abuse, not the offender. That took guts.
Not only are the two men I refer to rabbis, they are haredi rabbis.
They don’t strive to take advantage of the US government and every handout they can get a hold of. And they certainly don’t take advantage of the people they feel God has privileged them to serve.
Unlike Chabad shluchim, they are lead by Torah values, not a quest for money. They have shuls and schools too. And they don’t bleed their own people to maintain them.
Thank you for the exchange.
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Thank you as well. A Guten Chodesh Elul!
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I don’t know about all the sexual stuff – I have my doubts as to its accuracy.
And regarding the financial aspects, I must say that I know several Chabads that have done wonderful things to develop their communities and have been a huge help to many in those communities.
But – I believe that, where we live now, there is a huge mismanagement of funds going on (fraud may be too strong)
Chabad people tend to be very charismatic and inspire trust. People are willing to part with huge sums of money for some reason that makes sense and appeals to them.
There is no oversight, nor transparency regarding use of funds. But the money keeps flowing in.
In our area, I believe that huge amounts of money have been taken from the community and very poorly used. The state of the congregation in terms of EVERYTHING is pathetic. But the money keeps flowing. Instead of using donations to benefit the community, money is spent on items that benefit the leader and his family.
To a large extent, the community bears responsibility but challenging Chabad has huge risks.
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Whoa, this is ridiculously foolish……
More likely then stating that the article made a mistake by saying that the Rabbi got married at 18, and that he had an illegitimate daughter that none of his thousands of his thousands of Chassidim knew about, it makes more sense to say that this info is all BS. You got the wrong Rabbi LOL. The Rashab also never mentioned G-d’s name during discourse. This Rabbi is probably some sort of Kabbalist. Don’t forget that there were probably hundreds of Rabbis visiting him in those days…..
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Sholom Block, Child molestation in Chabad is a long held tradition. Even Manis Friedman admitted the prevalence of it within yeshivas.
And why do you Chabad rabbi types typically go for the little boys? Isn’t that a form of homosexuality? FYI, adult women are awesome (especially if it’s one’s wife). You know, wives aren’t just for breeding new Chabadnicks to leech off of the greater population of unsuspecting Jews.
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You are completely crazy! out of 5,00 Chabad Rabbis you have a grand listing of 2 Chabad rabbis!
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Sholom Block, You really are a disingenuous piece of crap. Now that we’ve traded insults, would you like to tell us why Chabad hasn’t brought their own Nisson Friedman to justice? You are willing to turn in one of your own for the sake of justice and truth, right? LOL. Just kidding. We know your sick cult covers it up.
Do you know where Nisson Friedman went after he ran from PA? Crown Heights. His last reported whereabouts to this blog was right near Chabad Headquarters, 770. The former home of your dead leader, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (who is now a corpse).
And since you want more:
Child sexual abuse, cover-ups and intimidation — a global Jewish community snapshot
A global Jewish community snapshot in light of revelations in Baltimore, and an ongoing Australian case https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/child-sexual-abuse-cover-ups-and-intimidation-a-global-jewish-community-snapshot/
Court hears child sex abuse allegations against former Chabad teacher
Daniel Golomb, 46, faces 14 counts of indecent assault against four different boys aged between five and 12
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/rabbi-speaks-of-being-sexually-groomed-by-his-teacher-in-abuse-trial-1.480502
Would you like more?
https://web.archive.org/web/20151101165501/https://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2007/06/chabad_molestat.html
“I was fifteen. He, the older mashpia-bochur – me, the young naive lesser religious, grossly convincing me as my mashpia not to run after chix and to study with him and become really really close to the rebbe…he did this b’tur mashpia mitam hayeshiva. He was 20.
The other rabbi, Rabbi Dovid Wakser of Crown Heights did it first when i was 12 1/2. I am forgoing here a fifty thousand dollar settlement since he is still molesting teenagers”
Another?
https://web.archive.org/web/20161022212003/http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2007/06/another_chabad_.html
“This one involving an 11 year old boy molested at Camp Gan Israel in Montreal 25 years ago. His alleged abuser, a camp waiter (a position given to yeshiva students) went on to anally rape boys at knife point in Long Beach, California. The alleged rapist abuser now lives in Betar, Israel.”
Here’s one that was caught in LA not long ago, charged with 37 counts of abuse (dumbass):
Mendel Tevel sentenced to one year in prison on sex abuse charges
https://jewishjournal.com/news/united-states/171887/mendel-tevel-sentenced-one-year-prison-sex-abuse-charges/
Read some of the sick details here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180226151948/http://jewishjournal.com/news/los_angeles/120520/
“The alleged victim said that Tevel, then 11 or 12, would go to the basement of his home multiple times per week with him, lock the door, tie him down, remove some or all of his clothing, and whip him”
Sholom Block, dumbass, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Would you like some more?
I always appreciate when Chabad morons like you come here and try to defend your cult.
Here’s another:
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/sexual-abuse-victim-recalls-arduous-ordeal-20-years-later-601473
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Weiss, of Woodcliff Lake, NJ
How adorable, a sick child molester named after your dead rebbe Messiah!
Oh, why not, just one more. A Levitansky, no less!
https://www.jewishcommunitywatch.org/canyon-news-santa-monica-rabbi-arrested-for-child-sexual-abuse/
“Levitansky, 38, was charged by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office with five counts of oral copulation of a person under 18 years of age, five counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object, and one count of lewd act upon a child.”
Your Rebbe deserves all the credit for the plague he unleashed on Jews worldwide.
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Menachem Mendel Tevel, named after your zombie Rebbe:
” When he was a 14-year-old student — in around 2004 — at the since-closed Shterns Yeshiva in upstate New York, Tevel, then a mentor at the school, initiated what was at first a friendly relationship with the speaker. Tevel, who is now about 30, was around 21 years old at the time.
At first, the man alleged, Tevel offered simply to be the student’s exercise partner. But eventually, he said, Tevel came up with extreme ways to motivate him to work out harder, including repeatedly whipping him with a metal coat hanger, which he said lacerated his skin and caused bleeding.
He claimed that as the relationship grew, Tevel would crawl into bed with him at night, inappropriately massage him, and rub his clothed body against the boy’s. He claimed Tevel also bent him over and spanked him when he refused to immerse himself in what was sometimes a very cold outdoor mikveh (ritual bath). These incidents occurred multiple times, the speaker said.
“He wasn’t exactly trying to hide the fact that he had an erection at the time,” the alleged victim told the gathering, describing his incidents with Tevel in the mikveh.
“I was a very naïve 14-year-old, but something just didn’t feel right, so I cut off ties with him.””
Only the most naive, uninformed, unsuspecting Jews get sucked into Chabad (that’s where their funding comes from when Chabad isn’t leeching off of the government).
All informed and experienced Jews stay away from that cult of alcoholics, criminals, child abusers, and Rebbe worshipers.
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“Child molestation in Chabad is a long held tradition”
While Chabad does contain such issues, this is not something that’s limited exclusively to Chabad. These Rabbis would have the same issues even if they didn’t grow up Chabad. By focusing on the negative aspects of Chabad, which is just as prevalent in any other community or Jewish sector, you lead others, and yourself, into the false delusion that Chabad is an evil cult that is out to get you.
“And why do you Chabad rabbi types typically go for the little boys?”
Chabad has programs for adults as well. Parties, single gatherings, Seders, Chanukkah lightings and other such activities well. In addition, Chabad provides a solid Jewish education for the little ones as well. Chabad houses (Like my father’s Chabad house) provide a preschool, Hebrew school, and much more, all according to the direction of our Rebbe Shlit”a. The Rebbe Shlit”a emphasized the importance of children’s education, because this sets the tone for their entire life ahead. That’s why Chabad places a special emphasis on Children’s programs. Many Chabad institutions like my fathers have succeeded in raising children who ended leading fully observant lives, and raised families in that vein, thanks to Chabad’s effort.
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Sholom Block,
“While Chabad does contain such issues, this is not something that’s limited exclusively to Chabad. These Rabbis would have the same issues even if they didn’t grow up Chabad. ”
Chabad has a track record of protecting their many child molesters. Pointing out that child molestation and cover-ups exist elsewhere is no defense of Chabad’s problems. You realize that in this regard Chabad is much like the pig that holds out its split hooves and claims to be kosher. Misleading. Therefore, dangerous.
“Chabad has programs for adults as well.”
You’ve clearly missed my point or avoided addressing it. Additionally, all of the so-called services you mention are really just products that shluchim use to extract money out of the same unsuspecting Jews that they look down upon.
“all according to the direction of our Rebbe Shlit”a”
“Shlit”a” is for a living human being. Try one of these instead:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorifics_for_the_dead_in_Judaism
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Besides, you completely missed the point. I was demonstrating how fallacious your story of the Rashab is, yet you tried diverting my attention by mentioning Chabad rabbis. The whole thing is one massive libel full of inconsistencies and discrepancies. Just reading it makes me not sure whether to laugh or cry. I can’t believe you managed to fall stupidity, hook line and sinker. “A fool
always falls for foolishness”. You gotta do your research before you post you stuff on the internet.
1. Stekel states that the Rabbi had a daughter. The Rashab had no daughter. oops…..
2 Stekel states that the Rabbi got married at 18. The Rashab got married at 14. Yikes…..
3. In Stekel’s description, the Rabbi is said to have a stutter. Nowhere in the hundreds of diaries that Chassidim wrote about the Rashab is it said that he had a stutter. In fact the Rashab delivered thousands of discourses throughout his 20 years or leadership. He also regularly held farbengens even 2 weeks before his death, and visited the Czar and many government officials on a frequent basis.
4. In Stekel’s description the Rabbi is said to be “strikingly tall and broad shouldered”. Therer Rashab was neither tall nor broad shouldered – as can be seen in you picture.
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Points 1 and 2 are addressed above. Point 3 is addressed in the researcher’s references.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ajs-review/article/an-occupational-neurosis-a-psychoanalytic-case-history-of-a-rabbi/1624B81A3D6349081F8EA3A4E3C6647F
And point 4, your quote of “strikingly tall and broad shouldered” is not found in the .pdf file of the research. So you’ll have to do better than fabricating some text and pointing to a picture on my blog to refute the researcher’s claims. Who, by the way, is really the individual with whom you have a grievance.
I’m sorry the research doesn’t fit your Chabad mythology agenda of painting your Rebbes as tzadikim (righteous people). They were not.
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Points 1 and 2 are NOT addressed above. Those are the most pathetic desperate sounding explanations I could even dream of.
Point 3 is NOT addressed in the link you provided. (honestly, there is no way to address this. It’s an indisputable fact that the Rebbe Rashab did not have a stutter. Maya – that fool – attempts to prove from the fact that Stekel’s Rabbi had a stutter, that it’s the Rebbe Rashab because the Frierdiker Rebbe once observe the Rashab crying in middle of his prayers. Fail to see the connection? Dont worry, neither do I)
Point 4 does not appear in your pdf, because you handpicked the part that can’t be disproven…..
Check out the book Conditions Of Nervous Anxiety and Their Treatment p.221 for furtherr info check this
https://books.google.com/books?id=FBZWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT40&lpg=PT40&dq=rashab+stammer&source=bl&ots=K-0nYVy6cv&sig=ACfU3U3gXr1wWmhOFrwtBiCQgsw-FIqVGQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiQgc79ifboAhWiknIEHauZBMYQ6AEwAHoECAsQKQ#v=onepage&q=rashab%20stammer&f=false
“I’m sorry the research doesn’t fit your Chabad mythology agenda of painting your Rebbes as tzadikim (righteous people). They were not.”
I don’t need your research/propaganda, in order to convince me of my Rebbe’s righteousness.
10+ yearss of studying their works in Likkkutei Sichos and Sefer Hamaamarim, listening to their niggunim, hearing stories about them, and realizing how much they’ve impacted the world – and how many people are so jealous of them, which further proves their righteousness. I’m mainly on your site for the entertainment – as are most of your viewers.
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“Those are the most pathetic desperate sounding explanations I could even dream of.”
Whether you accept them or not is of no concern to me.
“Maya – that fool”
It appears your dispute is with the researcher, and not me. I was happy to find Shmarya Rosenberg’s composition about her work. It demonstrates clearly how fallible your Rebbes were, far from the tale of the righteous that Chabad spins.
“I don’t need your research/propaganda, in order to convince me of my Rebbe’s righteousness.
10+ yearss of studying their works in Likkkutei Sichos and Sefer Hamaamarim, listening to their niggunim, hearing stories about them”
You can’t believe anything else. Your entire life has been built upon the way you’ve been conditioned.
But this web site is not for you. It’s for the people that your Hasidic cult has victimized. And hopefully it will serve as a warning to spirituality seeking Jews that find it before they become Chabad victims in one manner or another.
“I’m mainly on your site for the entertainment”
Well, you’ll have to get your thrills as a reader exclusively since we won’t be publishing anymore of your comments.
Thank you for visiting.
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I’m just curios to know: What exactly caused you to abandon your roots? I have a couple ideas but I’m gonna need your help.
1. After becoming a baal teshuva, you got ensnared by a bunch of low-life school dropouts who convinced you to abandon your religion (that would explain your excessive use of vulgarity, swearing etc).
2. You just didn’t have the head for religious studies, so you decided to leave it (that would explain you ignorance in regards to….. well practically everything – but especially in regards to Chabad messianism).
3. You were entranced by the physical temptations of this world, and were disappointed to discover that religious Judaism doesn’t provide it (that would explain your unusual obsession with sexual stories).
4. Some Russian cult attracted you more than orthodox Judaism (that would explain your ridiculous name)
Each theory explains another aspect of you personality, but none of them touch upon your whole picture. Perhaps you can help me out over here.
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Sholom Block,
None of your questions are any of your business. But I will reply for the sake of readers, and because I want to give you something to think about before our exchange comes to an end (which you will see shortly). So, let’s play your little AMA game:
“What exactly caused you to abandon your roots?”
One doesn’t abandon their roots. One has roots, period. I prefer the word “heritage, ” and I’m proud of mine. I take a lot of my values from it, and I find beauty in much of its culture.
What I abandoned, is religion. That’s a different thing. Though you may have difficulty making the distinction because you’re in a religious cult. And this religion is not of God, it’s fabricated by rabbis. Abandoning it was the best decision my family ever made for their well being. Since leaving religion, life is like an exercise in gratitude to God. Essentially, it’s what we call “happy.”
“1. After becoming a baal teshuva, you got ensnared by a bunch of low-life school dropouts who convinced you to abandon your religion (that would explain your excessive use of vulgarity, swearing etc).”
Your little narrative is adorable, but incorrect. After becoming a baal teshuva I finally was able to admit that the Chabad rabbis who sucked me in were complete frauds. They were endless money pits, dishonest, alcoholic, abused my children, concealing and misleading about their messianism, and scattered like cockroaches when the lights come on if it was time to help a non-Lubavitcher. I denied it for a very long time while watching all other BTs come and ultimately leave. I was long overdue to become another statistic of ‘Chabad BT churn.’
Upon research, I found that my experience is not an isolated one. I discovered worldwide accounts of similar, and worse, by BTs and those born and raised Chabad-Lubavitch alike.
My use of vulgarity is not foreign to many Chabad hypocrites who say the same with their tzitzit hanging out (along with their sloppy shirts). I’ve met enough of them, and have seen shluchim many times drunk or with their guard down.
The only person I’ve ever heard say “I don’t give a fuck” in front of the Aron Kodesh was a Chabad rabbi, on Simchat Torah no less.
And maybe you should concern yourself with your mouth and not mine. You expressed vulgarity above when you wrote “this info is all BS.” I’m just not afraid to spell out “bullshit” when expressing the same concept. You have a pretentious image to maintain.
I like some expletives, and I don’t think my use of vulgarity is excessive. Please also note that much of the shocking material you’ve read above are quotes from articles about the behavior of some Chabadniks. So if you find “five counts of oral copulation of a person under 18 years of age, five counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object, and one count of lewd act upon a child,” offensive, then your problem is with a Levitansky, not with me or my vulgarity.
“2. You just didn’t have the head for religious studies, so you decided to leave it (that would explain you ignorance in regards to….. well practically everything – but especially in regards to Chabad messianism).”
You do project a lot, don’t you? I was orthodox the better part of 20 years and have yeshiva educated (if you can call it that) children. All now living or being raised secular (thank God).
Having also been raised with traditional Orthodox Judaism around me, I understand that waiting for a dead Rebbe to rise again and be the Messiah is a Christian idea. And, no, we will not be having that argument. But I will add that it’s enlightening for many BTs to find that their local Chabad rabbi hides his feelings about MMS to not offend the greater Jewish world and chase away customers. Because I value honesty, I find this disgusting.
I am by no means ignorant of Chabad Messianism, its deluded justification, or the various expressions of behavior it manifests. I’m aware of Chabad official policy about disclosure and the various camps that are opinionated about that.
Back to the topic of vulgarity: I’m very well studied. Just because I’m not afraid to use the words “fuck’n idiot,” don’t assume I am one. Thank you.
“3. You were entranced by the physical temptations of this world, and were disappointed to discover that religious Judaism doesn’t provide it (that would explain your unusual obsession with sexual stories).”
No, I was disappointed to discover that religious Judaism is loaded with enough fraud to make most beliefs about Torah fall apart like a cheap suit. It was ultimately a kind of fraud that made my family broke, kept my children under educated, and inflicted way too much undue stress.
Your “freudian slip” explanation of sexual motivation certainly tells our readers more about you than it does about this site.
And finally (I answered them all just to get here):
“4. Some Russian cult attracted you more than orthodox Judaism (that would explain your ridiculous name)”
#4 is perfect. That’s 100% correct. A Russian Hasidic cult on which my publication name is modeled. Very good.
You got one out of four correct. In Chabad with such outstanding grades you could get smicha.
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Even if what you research you think is true: I am not going to say what I think of the matter. You are talking about people who know the entire Talmud, Bavly and yerushalmi, All of Halacha, All midrashim, All Tanach, and especially All of Chasidus and Zohar. These are people who went to prison for Judaism, which are all facts. Every great rabbi in Europe went to the Rebbe’s wedding in Poland for the honor of Rsbbi Rayatz. You are telling me every Yeshivash Gadol was tricked by some masturbator. So no Gadol could sense a sexual deviant?????
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“So no Gadol could sense a sexual deviant?????” : almost the only problem with that quote is the “?????”. You mean a “Gadol” like Berland?
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“So no Gadol could sense a sexual deviant?”
Perhaps their judgement was offset by the fact that they considered sucking baby’s penis at the bris, “kosher.”
Anyway, the dumbass Rebbe created a movement that protects the likes of alleged child molester, Nissan Friedman.
Whatever happened to that “imminent” arrest? Oh, how the school was praised for the reporting so Chabad could build some good PR when they had a reputation for cover-ups.
Anyway, Chabad is full of perverts now. Should we believe it was any better then? Ha ha, it was better covered up then!
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i assume he was just playing, trying a bit of pr, not that he (and others like him) actually believes what he says…surely not?!
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Even without the ridiculousness and unlikeliness of this research from a logical perspective, this account is riddled with factual errors left and right. I simply couldn’t believe it when I read in Stekel’s account, that the Rabbi used to entertain the Halachic allowance of committing adultery if a woman falls on top of you…. I simply couldn’t stop laughing! Do Stekel and Chafraud really believe that Jewish law permits forbidden relationships if a woman just “falls” on top of you?!
Rabbi Berel Levin (a Chabad historian and researcher far more reputed than this ms. Katz)
has already authored a full on rebuttal, shredding this joke of “historical research” to pieces”.
Chafraud (who simply copy and pasted this article from Failed-Messiah, the now defunct site which was hacked into by Lubavitchers) only highlighted the excerpts from Mr. Stekel’s report which are compatible with the Rebbe Rashab, and casually censored all the tidbits which prove clearly that the Rabbi cannot be the Rebbe Rashab. He also discusses 2 details in the story which can’t apply to the Rebbe, and then offers ridiculous “explanations” which I will not waste my time to address – especially because any reader could simply figure out himself the stupidity contained in them.
Here are some examples: this article makes no mention of Mr. Stekel’s description of the Rabbi as being paralyzed. The reason for this is because the “researchers” don’t want the readers to realize that the Rashab was not paralyzed and hence could not possibly the Rabbi discussed over here.
Moreover, Ms Katz make reference t the fact that Stekel describes the Rabbi as having a stutter. This, she claims, is proof that the rabbi is the Rashab because the Rashab’s son writes in one of his notes that when his father would pray, he wouldn’t be able to get the words out to his intense concentration.
How idiotic!! The fact that he sometimes couldn’t articulate the words when he was praying due to his intense concentration indicates that he had a general stutter?! on the very contrary – the fact that his son noted that his father wouldn’t say the words in prayer when he was meditating means that, in general, he COULD articulate words! In fact, we have a series of 26 books of the Rashab’s speeches spanning the years 1884 – 1920. that includes the year 1902 when the Rashab purportedly visited Stekel. Additionally, from the dozens of diaries written by Chassidim in those times, it isn’t written anywhere that the Rashab had a stutter, something that definitely would have been mentioned in the diaries if it were indeed true.
Stekel’s erotic imagination coupled with Chafraud’s hate-filled conspiracy theorist rhetoric managed to create one of the most hilarious (and saddest) “historical pieces” ever created.
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ChabadWillBringMoshiach (LOL),
” (who simply copy and pasted this article from Failed-Messiah, the now defunct site which was hacked into by Lubavitchers)”
Oh, tell us more.
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