6 | DECEMBER 12 • 2024 J
N

1942 - 2024

Covering and Connecting
Jewish Detroit Every Week

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essay
You Are a Jew: Chabad and the Antisemites
E

veryone has their favorite
Chabad story. Here is mine.
A friend once approached
a Chabad shaliach (emissary) who
would stand at the entrance to the
subway station every
Friday morning, asking
people if they were
Jewish and offering to
help them lay tefillin.
It was exceptionally
rare for anyone to stop
and accept his offer,
and my friend wanted
to understand how the shaliach
kept at it week after week, despite
his repeated failure. The shaliach’s
response was quintessentially
Chabad: “My success rate is 100%.
Every Jew that walks by me is
reminded that he or she is a Jew.”
Chabad’s dedicated emissaries
can be found in every corner of the
globe, creating Jewish presence and
outposts of Jewish life and caring,
reminding Jews of who they are.

According to Pew, an astounding
37% of American Jews engage with
Chabad from rarely to often.
Two years ago, a group of us from
the Orthodox Union (OU) had the
privilege of attending the dinner
event at Chabad’s annual conference
of shluchim (emissaries). We went to
demonstrate appreciation for their
lifesaving work delivering aid and
support under fire to the Jews in
Russia and Ukraine. As they went
through the jaw-dropping roll call
of their emissaries throughout the
globe, the big screen showed Russia
— 222. I leaned over and whispered
to a colleague. “Do you see that?
We struggle to find a few people
to spend a couple of years of their
lives teaching Torah in communities
without a kosher pizza store, while
Chabad has 222 people who, at
around the age of 22, decided to go
alone to remote corners of Russia
where they will care materially and
spiritually for Jews, raise their own

families, and remain until they die or
the Messiah arrives.”
That is what the angels of Chabad
do everywhere in the world and that
was the mission of Rabbi Zvi Kogan
in the UAE. No movement or group
even remotely approaches Chabad’s
relentless dedication to mission and
its reach and success in reminding
Jews — wherever they may be — of

who they are.
No one, that is, other than the
antisemites.
The vicious murder of Rabbi Zvi
Kogan (at the end of November)
painfully reminded every Jew
everywhere that he or she is a Jew.
It was not an isolated reminder. The
tidal wave of antisemitism that has
engulfed the world since Oct. 7 has
reminded countless Jews of who they
are and moved them to try to find
their way home to Jewish tradition
and community.
Much as the Talmud notes how the
empowerment of Haman stimulated
more of a resurgence of Jewishness
than the positive guidance of
generations of prophets, we can
observe how hateful antisemitism has
outdone the ahavat Yisrael of Chabad
in bringing Jews home.
Our hearts are broken for Rabbi
Kogan’s family and for the entire
Chabad community as they grieve
over this devastating blow. We in the

Rabbi Moshe
Hauer

PURELY COMMENTARY

Rabbi Zvi
Kogan