Politico took great pains to tie the Chabad movement to Putin, and in so doing, omits a few fairly crucial points that could have been fleshed out by actually speaking with a representative of the movement (this guy might have been a good person to start with). While there are outposts of the movement in Russia, there also exist outposts everywhere else in the world. Their emissaries, called schulchim, are technically titled “messengers” because they talk to anyone, anywhere, in an attempt to spread Judaism to Jews in far-flung corners of the Earth.
Chabad’s history in the former USSR is filled with persecution, arrest, and exile. To survive anywhere, but especially in a land as hostile to Jews as Russia is, it’s no wonder the group has worked hard to remain in the government’s good graces.
Blind to the blatant anti-Semitic tropes it trotted out, Politico then paints the movement as a large, rich, tightly woven organization, a depiction straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In reality, individual Chabad houses, which start with seed money from headquarters, are soon expected to be self-sufficient through fundraising and operate as franchises, not as branches of the Brooklyn headquarters. (Disclosure: This is why I am a nominal monthly donor to the Chabad of Cambodia, which provides essential services to Jewish residents and visitors to the country, from free holiday and Sabbath meals to burials to weddings.)
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