Chabad: Difference between revisions

The [[geography of Chabad|geography of the Chabad movement]] spreads across the world. Chabad maintains a strong presence in every significant Jewish community across the world. Although the Chabad movement was founded and originally based in the Russian Empire and Eastern Europe, various Chabad communities span the globe, including [[Crown Heights]], [[Brooklyn]], and [[Kfar Chabad]], [[Israel]].

* '''Russia''' - Initially, Chabad was based in Liozna and Liadi before being centered in Lubavitch. The Chabad movement was at times subjected to governmental oppression in Russia. The Russian government, first under the Czar, later under the Bolsheviks, imprisoned all but one of the Chabad rebbes. The Bolsheviks also imprisoned, exiled and executed many Chabad Chassidim. And many were sent to Siberia for years of hard labor. During the Second World War, many Chabad Chassidim evacuated to the Uzbek cities of Samarkand and Tashkent where they established small centers of Chassidic life, while at the same time seeking ways to emigrate from Soviet Russia due to the government's suppression of religious life.<ref>Estraikh, G. (2018). Escape through Poland: Soviet Jewish Emigration in the 1950s. Jewish History, 31(3-4), 291-317.</ref> The reach of Chabad in Central Asia also included earlier efforts that took place in the 1920s.<ref>Levin, Z. (2015). 1 "The Wastelands": The Jews of Central Asia. In Collectivization and Social Engineering: Soviet Administration and the Jews of Uzbekistan, 1917–1939 (pp. 7–26). Brill.</ref> Following the war, and well after the center of the Chabad movement moved to the United States, the movement remained active in Soviet Russia, aiding the local Jews known as Refuseniks who sought to learn more about Judaism.<ref>Beizer, M. (2007). The Jews of struggle: the Jewish national movement in the USSR, 1967–1989.</ref> And throughout the Soviet era, the Chabad movement maintained a secret network across the USSR.<ref>Gitelman, Z. (2007). Do Jewish Schools Make a Difference in the Former Soviet Union?. East European Jewish Affairs, 37(3), 377–398.</ref> Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, state persecution of Chabad ceased, and the Chabad movement openly leads the rebuilding of Judaism in Russia.

* '''United States of America:''' Estimates for Chabad and other Hasidic groups are often based on extrapolation from the limited information available in US census data for some of the areas where Hasidim live. A 2006 estimate was drawn from a study on the [[Montreal]] Chabad community (determining average household size), in conjunction with language and other select indicators from US census data, it is estimated that Chabad in the [[United States]] includes approximately 4,000 households, which contains between 22,000 and 25,000 people. In terms of Chabad's relation to other Hasidic groups, within the New York metropolitan area, Chabad in the New York area accounts for around 15% of the total New York Hasidic population. Chabad is estimated to have an annual growth of 3.6%:<ref name=comenetz/>

** [[Montreal]] – The estimated size of the Chabad community of Greater [[Montreal]] is 1,590. The estimate is taken from a 2003 community study.<ref>[ |title=Chabad of Montreal: Here's the stats!!! |publisher=The Chabad Sociologist |date=October 13, 2013 |url=chabadsociologist.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/chabad-of-montreal-heres-the-stats-chabad-montreal-chabadsociology/ |access-date=January 13, 2015}}</ref><ref>Shahar, Charles. "Main Report: A Comprehensive Study of the Ultra Orthodox Community of Greater Montreal (2003)". Federation CJA (Montreal). (2003): pp. 7–33.</ref> The Chabad community in [[Montreal]] originated sometime before 1931. While early works on Canadian Jewry make little or no mention of early Hasidic life in [[Canada]], later researchers have documented Chabad's accounts in [[Canada]] starting from the 1900s and 1910s. [[Steven Lapidus]] notes that there is mention of two Chabad congregations in a 1915 article in the ''[[Canadian Jewish Chronicle]]'' listing the delegates of the first [[Canadian Jewish Conference]]. One congregation is listed as Chabad of Toronto, and the other is simply listed as "Libavitzer Congregation". The sociologist [[William Shaffir]] has noted that some Chabad Hasidim and sympathizers did reside in Montreal before 1941 but does not elaborate further. Steven Lapidus notes that in a 1931 obituary published in ''Keneder Odler'', a Canadian Yiddish newspaper, the deceased Rabbi [[Menashe Lavut]] is credited as the founder of Anshei Chabad in [[Montreal]] and the Nusach Ari synagogue. Thus the Chabad presence in [[Montreal]] predates 1931.<ref>[ |last=Lapidus |first=Steven |title=The Forgotten Hasidim: Rabbis and Rebbes in Prewar Canada |journal=Canadian Jewish Studies |year=2004 |volume=12 |url=pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/cjs/article/viewFile/22624/21095 |access-date=January 13, 2014}}</ref> The Chabad movement has attracted a significant number of Sephardic adherents in the past several decades, and some Chabad communities include both [[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazi]] and Sephardic Jews. For example, in [[Montreal]], close to 25% of Chabad households include a Sephardi parent.