In 1962, Harvey Swados, an American novelist and social critic, visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He wanted the Rebbe’s opinions on issues related to the Holocaust.  Swados’s account of that discussion, which appeared in The New York Times some thirty years later, is of particular interest today, as anti-Semitism is once again normalized on the streets of major […]

Man’s soul is G-d’s lamp… (Proverbs 20:27) Sitting with the Rebbe’s shluchim at the closing session of the Annual International Conference of Chabad Lubavitch Emissaries near the end of November, I felt the enormous spiritual power concentrated in the cavernous hall. Scanning  the room, I saw the faces of three generations of shluchim stationed on […]

He was an early proponent of public lightings as mayor of Burlington, Vt. U.S. Senator and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders lit a large public menorah at Chabad-Lubavitch of Iowa’s Chanukah celebration on the eighth and final night of Chanukah. Sanders briefly addressed those gathered, recalling his father, who emigrated from Poland to flee anti-Semitic attacks. […]

People are scared, and not just in this sleepy town Over Chanukah, my children visited us from Chicago. After Shabbat, after the seventh lighting of the menorah, they were preparing to leave. My son-in-law and two older grandchildren were rushing in and out, busily loading their van for their long drive home early the next […]