THE FACE OF CHABAD

I believe (that is, I think it not unlikely) that Chabad will eventually split up.

There were rumbles of such a likelihood over the Messiah issue a few years ago, and they've been heading towards critical mass - maybe critical thinking will kick in soon, or leastways a natural tendency towards dissidence and schism.

If they weren't Jewish, they'd probably be called a cult - much like the Jay fer Jay crowd.

There's more to minhag than a monotone sameness. What's the point to being countless as the stars and the grains of sand if everyone is identical?

[They piss off certain groups, and combat Christian outreach, so they do still have a usefulness, but then that whole Messiah thing - oy!
Shades of Shabbesai Zvi. And buckets of utter hubris.]

Chabad gives some of us the shudders, and it might be only a matter of time before we and they have a parting of the ways.

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Chabadnikim are the more visible face of the orthodoxishe olam as far as the SF Bay Area is concerned (most bearded people here are not orthodox - or even Jewish).

At a protest three years ago, a bearded friend was speaking to the Chabadniks in Russian. It was a great conversation, until they asked him if he had put on tfillin. At which point he indicated that he wasn't Jewish, but an opera singer. And Russian orthodox. The conversation came to a somewhat abrupt and frigid close.

Good thing he didn't put on those tfillin, I guess.

As a matter of perspective, the Jay fer Jay crowd have an office just one block away from Chabad in the Sunset district, with the same three languages out front that Chabad uses for their sign: Russian, English, Ivrit. They're fishing the same waters as Jay fer Jay - marginally Jewish immigrants.

What baffles me is why I hardly ever hear from Chabad until it's donation time - but some iglesia messianica I've never heard of can send me several e-mails a week in Spanish trying to turn me into a hudio por heisus.