Chabad Links Bind Alt-Media Darlings Trump and Putin
by Sean Jobst
February 23, 2017
The alt-media's cultish singing the praises of Trump is only exceeded by its dogmatic idolization of Putin. Many of these are certain self-professed anti-Zionists, who assert that both world leaders are secretly "plotting" against the very Israel that both openly support with their words and actions. On the other side, the mainstream media speaks much about the links between Trump and Putin, including pushing the simplistic half-truth that Putin "fixed" the U.S. presidential election in favor of Trump, from the standpoint of liberal interventionist saber-rattling against Russia.
Lost in the entire debate is that Trump and Putin are binded by common links to the Hassidic Chabad movement, a world-wide orthodox Jewish movement with origins in Lurianic Cabbala and a hardline messianism centered around its founder, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson. In its obituary of Schneerson on June 13, 1994, The New York Times described the Chabad founder as "a major political force in Israel, both in the Knesset and among the electorate," who "presided over a religious empire that reached from the back streets of Brooklyn to the main streets of Israel and by 1990 was taking in an estimated $100 million a year in contributions."
Jared Kushner's Links to Chabad
Given the movement's massive financial clout, its not surprising the Chabad movement would develop close ties with business interests closely linked with both Putin and Trump. We shall examine those links, but in the case of Trump there are also personal family links via his Jewish convert daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, the Orthodox Jew Jared Kushner; the latter currently serves as Senior Advisor to the President with much power within the White House. Kushner has ties with Chabad and these links were present during his wedding to Ivanka Trump on October 25, 2009:
"Ivanka is only 27, but she recently auctioned off an internship with her for Chabad, the Hasidic organization her boyfriend supports. This donation and the visibility that comes with sounds like a good way to get in with Kushner’s family, because we hear that they don’t like the idea of Jared marrying outside the tribe....The Kushners have long been good friends with Chabad groups. Jared was the head of the Chabad House at Harvard. And dad Charles got a rabbi from Chabad’s Living Legacy organization to write a letter on his behalf when he got into all that prostitute-blackmail trouble. Donating to a Chabad effort, a favored charity of the Kushner family, was the kind of smart move she might want to mention in her upcoming 'motivational' book." ("Ivanka Trump Continues Her Campaign to Be a Good Jew," Gawker.com, November 25, 2008)
On November 6, 2016, Ivanka and Jared visited the "Ohel," Schneerson's grave in Brooklyn - a place of pilgrimage for Hassidic Jews and Kabbalist fellow-travellers. This was reported in a Breitbart article by Joel Pollak, which also lauded "the venerated Lubavitcher Rebbe" and his "worldwide fame and respect" without a word about the racist Jewish supremacism and anti-Gentile hate-speech of Schneerson as contained within his own books that are revered and taught by Chabad to this day. Pollak's article also approvingly cited claims by Chabad members that Ivanka and Jared's pilgrimage to the grave is what "saved" Donald Trump from harm when a man rushed his campaign rally in Reno, Nevada. This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Breitbart's pro-Jewish bent.
Chabad Rabbi Ginsburg and West Bank Settlements
Chabad has close links with the Jewish settler movement in the West Bank, with many settlers being Jewish immigrants from the United States. One of these is Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, president of the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in the settlement of Yitzhar, near the Palestinian family of Nablus. This yeshiva is one of the recipients of the Kushner family's donations to many Jewish settler groups. Ginsburg first made a name for himself when he justified the killing of Palestinian civilians by his armed Jewish settlers: "Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg had offered biblical justification for the view that the spilling of non-Jewish blood was a lesser offense than the spilling of Jewish blood. 'Any trial based on the assumption that Jews and goyim are equal is a total travesty of injustice,' he said. 'We have to recognize that Jewish blood and the blood of a goy are not the same thing.'" ("An Israeli Mayor Is Under Scrutiny," The New York Times, June 6, 1989, p. 5)
Ginsburg elaborated in a later religious ruling: "As for the Goyim....Zalman's attitude (was): 'Gentile souls are of a completely different and inferior order. They are totally evil, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.'...If every single cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, and is thus a part of G-d, then every strand of DNA is a part of G-d. Therefore, something is special about Jewish DNA. If a Jew needs a liver, can he take the liver of an innocent non-Jew to save him? The Torah would probably permit to take the liver of an innocent non-Jew passing by, to save the Jew. There is something infinitely more holy and unique about Jewish life than non-Jewish life." (The Jewish Week, April 26, 1996; cited in Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, London: Pluto Press, 1999, pp. 43, 62)
Chabad Links to Donald Trump?
Such Jewish supremacist teachings proliferate on the West Bank settlements, and they have close links not only to the Kushner family, but have also received donations from David Friedman, Trump's lawyer-turned-his Ambassador to Israel, and even from the Trump Foundation itself. Another Orthodox Jew in Trump's cabinet is his advisor on Israel and Special Representative for International Negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, who has often served as Trump's personal representative to Chabad communities. No surprise that Trump has directly cultivated links with the Chabad movement and been among its leading non-Jewish benefactors:
"President-elect Donald Trump’s foundation has donated thousands of dollars to Chabad institutions. The Israeli daily Haaretz also reported that the foundation of the parents of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner gave some $342,500 to Chabad institutions and projects over a 10-year period.
"The Donald J. Trump Foundation donated $11,550 to three Chabad institutions. In 2008, a year before Ivanka Trump and Kushner were married, the Trump foundation donated $6,750 to the Lubavitch Youth Organization in Brooklyn and $1,800 to the Chabad of Southampton Jewish Charity. In 2011, the foundation donated $3,000 to Chabad of East Boca Raton – an institution in Florida also supported by the Kushners.
"The Charles and Seryl Kushner Family Foundation, on whose board Kushner sits, made $78,000 in donations to the Ohel visitors center at the grave of the Lubavitcher rebbe in 2011 and 2013, and $150,000 to the Chabad center at Harvard University in 2007 and another $3,600 in 2013. Kushner, who is an Orthodox Jew, is a graduate of Harvard.
"The Kushner foundation also contributed to Chabad centers in Florida, Manhattan and New Jersey. It also contributed $7,500 to a Chabad-run school for troubled youth in Israel. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are moving to a home in the tony Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C., which is a 10-minute walk to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s D.C. center known as 'The Shul.'" ("Report: Trump, Kushner foundations have donated thousands to Chabad," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, January 10, 2017)
Rabbi Shmuely Boteach is a leading Jewish religious leader in the United States, complete with numerous TV and radio appearances where he's touted as an authority not just on Judaism but on general morality and other issues (fitting in with Chabad concepts of "Noahide" guidance to "the goyim"). In 1988, he was personally sent by Schneerson as a Chabad shaliach (emissary) to Oxford, England, where he served as rabbi for eleven years and founded the L'Chaim Society, as he boasts on his website where he's labelled "America's Rabbi." During the 2016 presidential campaign, Boteach publicly endorsed Trump because he was "a much better candidate for Israel." After Breitbart leader Stephen Bannon, the former Goldman Sachs and Hollywood investment banker who serves as Trump's Special Counselor and Chief Strategist, was attacked by the mainstream media, Boteach defended him, joining the numerous other Likudist/Neocon Jews defending the pro-Jewish Bannon.
Lev Leviev and the Russian Connection
Lev Leviev is an Israeli billionaire of Uzbek Bukhari Jewish background, known for his diamond mining investments in Angola and his role in financing the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. He is a major philanthropist of the Chabad movement. In 2015, Leviev personally earned $35 million when his Africa Israel Investments Ltd. sold its 50.1% stake in the Times Square Building in Manhattan for $295 million, to Trump's orthodox Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner. With the rise of the Russian Federation in the 1990s, Leviev avoided ties with President Boris Yeltsin and instead hedged his bets on former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, whose political fortunes he saw rising. (Yossi Mehlman, "No love lost," Haaretz, December 11, 2005)
"AS HAPPENS every year, international businessman and philanthropist Lev Leviev, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the Commonwealth of Independent States formerly part of the Soviet Union, sent large quantities of Passover food supplies to Chabad emissaries in the CIS to distribute to Jews in these communities. Joining him this time was Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews." (Greer Fay Cashman, "Grapevine: A 100-Ton Gift of the Bread of Affliction," Jerusalem Post, April 2, 2015)
Putin's Chabad Handlers
Born into a Chabad family in Milan, Berel Lazar was ordained a rabbi at the Central Lubavitch Yeshiva in New York City. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Schneerson sent Lazar as his personal emissary to Russia in 1990. Lazar has since served as Rabbi of the synagogue in Maryina Roshcha District of Moscow, and through Leviev was introduced in 1992 to leading Russian-Jewish oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich. On August 1, 1997, Leviev and Lazar founded the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (FJC), the Chabad-controlled organization whose takeover of the Russian Jewish community has occurred through its close connections with Putin.
"Lazar’s work, his Russia boosterism and his ties to the Kremlin — he is sometimes called 'Putin's rabbi' — has helped Chabad’s Russian branch eclipse all the Jewish groups vying to reshape the country's community of 250,000 Jews. Now Lazar heads a vast network that comprises dozens of employees and plentiful volunteers working in hundreds of Jewish institutions: schools, synagogues, community centers and kosher shops....Today, Lazar said, Russia has in Vladimir Putin its 'most pro-Jewish leader,' whom he credits with 'fighting anti-Semitism more vigorously than any Russian leader before him.'....Lazar was Chabad’s chief envoy to Russia before staking claim to the title of chief rabbi in 2000. That’s when he quit the Russian Jewish Congress, an umbrella group, after the organization’s founder, Vladimir Gusinsky, and Russia’s other chief rabbi, Adolf Shayevich, criticized Russia’s war in Chechnya and its alleged human rights abuses — including the alleged targeting, by anti-corruption authorities, of political dissidents." (Cnaan Liphshiz, "'Putin's rabbi' says challenging governments is not Jewish," Times of Israel, June 6, 2015)
The alt-media's Putin worship partly centers around his alleged struggle against Jewish oligarchs such as Berezovsky and Gusinsky, but what they fail to mention is Putin's cracking down on them coincided with Lazar and Leviev's own falling out with those oligarchs who weren't tied to Chabad. Nor do they take into account Putin's continued ties with such oligarchs as Mikhail Fridman or the Rotenberg brothers - indeed what the Jerusalem Post termed "an army of Jewish billionaires" at Putin's side. Indeed, it was another oligarch tied to Chabad - Roman Abramovich - who first recommended to Yeltsin that Putin become his successor. (Richard Sakwa, The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 135) And when Putin formed his first cabinet as Prime Minister in 1999, Abramovich personally interviewed each of the candidates for cabinet positions before they were approved. (Dominic Midgley and Chris Hutchins, Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere, London: Harper Collins, 2005, p. 102)
The Chabad-Putin Coup
Lazar was an "American citizen who had lived in Russia only nine years, and his command of the Russian language was relatively weak. To remedy that, on May 26, 2000 Putin extended Russian citizenship to thirty-one individuals. While most were Uzbeks and Azeris, the final candidate was Rabbi Lazar. Lazar belongs to the Orthodox Lubavitch Hassidic movement, or Chabad, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. He had been sent, along with several dozen other adherents, to establish Hassidic communities all over the former Soviet Union. It was the Jewish equivalent of a missionary movement. By coincidence, one of Putin's favorite oligarchs, Roman Abramovich, attended Lubavitch services and provided financial support to Rabbi Lazar's movement. Thus Abramovich may have inspired the strategy of the challenge to Gusinsky. Abramovich was also allied with Lev Levayev, a one-time official in the Russian Jewish Congress, who was a major supporter of the Lubavitch Hassidic movement in Israel and Russia, and a man eager to win favor with President Putin.
"Levayev became the president of the new umbrella group, which instead of the Russian Jewish Congress they called the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Commonwealth of Independent States. An Israeli citizen born in Uzbekistan, Levayev was a controversial diamond dealer who has allegedly used his access to President Putin to encroach on De Beers' exclusive rights to Russian diamonds. He has also been involved with the one-time aluminum oligarch Mikhail Chernoi, accused by the Israeli police of being deeply involved with the Russian underworld and international money laundering, charges denied by Chernoi.
"On June 13, 2000, two weeks after becoming citizen and a day after meeting in the Kremlin with Putin, Lazar convened a meeting of his fellow Hassidic rabbi emissaries from forty-five Russian regions. They voted unanimously to make Rabbi Lazar the Chief Rabbi of Russia. This was somewhat awkward since there was an already existing Chief Rabbi, Adolf Shayevich, who was recognized by the Russian Jewish Congress. Undeterred the Russian government immediately decreed Lazar's Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia the official representative of Russian Jews, thereby superseding Gusinsky's Congress." (Marshall L. Goldman, The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry, London/New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 126)
Jewish Supremacist Teachings of Chabad
Schneerson was seventh in a line of Chabad leaders called Rebbe. The first Rebbe was Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), one of the foremost Hassidic authorities, who authored commentaries and updated versions of Halacha (Jewish law). In the first two chapters of Tanya, he claimed Jewish souls were derived from the Divine, whereas the souls of "the nations" (goyim/gentiles) are derived from evil. So "all the good that the nations do, is done from selfish motives....all the charity and kindness done by the nations of the world is only for their own self-glorification." Zalman also wrote: "All Jews are good by nature, all non-Jews are evil by nature. The Jews are creation's crowning glory, the non-Jews are the scum of the earth."
That this is a "master race" ideology, is seen by the fact that he also said in chapters 18 and 19 of Tanya that even the lowest Jew has a "spark" of the Divine. "The inwardness of a Jew....remains intact in every Jew, regardless of his outward status and whatever the outward circumstances may be." (Schneerson, Letters by the Lubavitscher Rebbe 1956-1980, Brooklyn, New York: Kehot Publication Society, 1981, p. 13)
This book is openly sold by Jewish bookstores, while the hate-filled Tanya holds such reverence among the Chabad movement that it contains the entire work on its official website. "The basic religious and social mission of Habad is thus intended to elevate the conscious choice of the individual to the level of his inner Jewish choseness, that is, to actualize his inner given holiness." (Aviezer Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism, University of Chicago Press, 1996, p. 191)
Schneerson taught that Jews were uniquely "chosen" and granted innate holiness, which further entrenches an ontological barrier between Jews and non-Jews, leading to the exclusivism that really defines Chabad. Schneerson taught that each morning, Jews should give thanks to God for having restored their "Jewish souls", as "'life' is Jewish life only", so that "his entire vitality and life consist - in his being a Jew." (Schneerson, On the Essence of Chassidus, Brooklyn, NY: Kehot Publication Society, 1986, pp. 49, 73) This book is likewise taught on the Chabad website and can be openly purchased from Jewish bookstores.
"Souls of Gentiles unclean"
The following excerpts are from Tanya, which is a major part of Chabad's "outreach" efforts. Here is their true teachings against all non-Jews, laid bare for any honest observer: "The souls of the nations of the world (i.e. all Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.), however, emanate from the other, unclean 'kelipot' (evil forces) which contain no good whatever." (Tanya, New York/London: Kehot Publication Society, 1973, p. 5)
"However, the 'kelipot' (evil forces) are subdivided into two grades, one lower than the other. The lower grade consists of the three 'kelipot' which are altogether unclean and evil, containing no good whatever. From them flow and derive the souls of all the nations of the world (i.e. all Christians, Muslims, etc.), and the existence of their bodies, and also the souls of all living creatures that are unclean and unfit for consumption." (ibid., Chapter 6, p. 25)
"To elucidate still further, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of the verse 'The candle of God is the soul of (neshamah) of man.' What it means is that the souls of Jews, who are called 'man', are, by way of illustration, like the flame of the candle, whose nature it is always to scintillate upwards....Now this is a general principle in the whole realm of holiness....This stands in direct contrast to the so-called 'Kelipah' (evil forces) and 'sitra achara' (the other, evil side), where from are derived the souls of the Gentiles....Therefore they (the Gentiles) are called 'dead.'" (ibid., Chapter 19, pp. 77, 79)
Thus, Chabad lumps all Gentiles with pigs, snakes, worms, and all other "creatures that are unclean and unfit for consumption." There are also comparisons to dogs: "Thus an Orthodox Jew learns from his earliest youth, as part of his sacred studies, that Gentiles are compared to dogs." (Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, London: Pluto Press, 1994, p. 94) This serves as a theological basis behind the actions of Israel and the Zionist movement, to dehumanize the Palestinian "Gentiles" and legitimize their murder.
Schneerson's Anti-Gentilism
Schneerson believed that Jews and Gentiles are "two separate species," going to lengths to innumerate how the former are "superior" to the latter: "A non-Jew should be punished by death if he kills an embryo, even if the embryo is non-Jewish, while the Jew should not be, even if the embryo is Jewish. The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: 'Let us differentiate.' Thus, we do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather we have a case of 'let us diffentiate' between totally different species. This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations [goyim] of the world.
"The Jewish body 'looks as if it were in substance similar to bodies of non-Jews,' but the meaning is that the bodies only seem to be similar in material substance, outward look and superficial quality. The difference of the inner quality, however, is so great that the bodies should be considered as completely different species.
"This is the reason why the Talmud states that there is an halachic difference in attitude about the bodies of non-Jews: 'and their bodies are in vain'....An even greater difference exists in regard to the soul. Two contrary types of soul exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness.
"The body of a Jewish embryo is on a higher level than is the body of a non-Jew....We therefore ask: Why should a non-Jew be punished if he kills even a non-Jewish embryo while a Jew should not be punished even if he kills a Jewish embryo? The answer can be understood by the general difference between Jews and non-Jews: A Jew was not created as a means for some [other] purpose; he himself is the purpose, since the substance of all [divine] emanations was created only to serve the Jews: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' means that [the heavens and the earth] were created for the sake of the Jews, who are called the 'beginning.'
"This means everything, all developments, all discoveries, the creation, including the 'heavens and the earth' - are vanity compared to the Jews. The important things are the Jews, because they do not exist for any [other] aim; they themselves are [the divine] aim." (Schneerson, Gatherings of Conversations, 1965; quoted in Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, London: Pluto Press, 1999, pp. 59-60)
by Sean Jobst
February 23, 2017
The alt-media's cultish singing the praises of Trump is only exceeded by its dogmatic idolization of Putin. Many of these are certain self-professed anti-Zionists, who assert that both world leaders are secretly "plotting" against the very Israel that both openly support with their words and actions. On the other side, the mainstream media speaks much about the links between Trump and Putin, including pushing the simplistic half-truth that Putin "fixed" the U.S. presidential election in favor of Trump, from the standpoint of liberal interventionist saber-rattling against Russia.
Lost in the entire debate is that Trump and Putin are binded by common links to the Hassidic Chabad movement, a world-wide orthodox Jewish movement with origins in Lurianic Cabbala and a hardline messianism centered around its founder, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson. In its obituary of Schneerson on June 13, 1994, The New York Times described the Chabad founder as "a major political force in Israel, both in the Knesset and among the electorate," who "presided over a religious empire that reached from the back streets of Brooklyn to the main streets of Israel and by 1990 was taking in an estimated $100 million a year in contributions."
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| Schneerson |
Jared Kushner's Links to Chabad
Given the movement's massive financial clout, its not surprising the Chabad movement would develop close ties with business interests closely linked with both Putin and Trump. We shall examine those links, but in the case of Trump there are also personal family links via his Jewish convert daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, the Orthodox Jew Jared Kushner; the latter currently serves as Senior Advisor to the President with much power within the White House. Kushner has ties with Chabad and these links were present during his wedding to Ivanka Trump on October 25, 2009:
"Ivanka is only 27, but she recently auctioned off an internship with her for Chabad, the Hasidic organization her boyfriend supports. This donation and the visibility that comes with sounds like a good way to get in with Kushner’s family, because we hear that they don’t like the idea of Jared marrying outside the tribe....The Kushners have long been good friends with Chabad groups. Jared was the head of the Chabad House at Harvard. And dad Charles got a rabbi from Chabad’s Living Legacy organization to write a letter on his behalf when he got into all that prostitute-blackmail trouble. Donating to a Chabad effort, a favored charity of the Kushner family, was the kind of smart move she might want to mention in her upcoming 'motivational' book." ("Ivanka Trump Continues Her Campaign to Be a Good Jew," Gawker.com, November 25, 2008)
On November 6, 2016, Ivanka and Jared visited the "Ohel," Schneerson's grave in Brooklyn - a place of pilgrimage for Hassidic Jews and Kabbalist fellow-travellers. This was reported in a Breitbart article by Joel Pollak, which also lauded "the venerated Lubavitcher Rebbe" and his "worldwide fame and respect" without a word about the racist Jewish supremacism and anti-Gentile hate-speech of Schneerson as contained within his own books that are revered and taught by Chabad to this day. Pollak's article also approvingly cited claims by Chabad members that Ivanka and Jared's pilgrimage to the grave is what "saved" Donald Trump from harm when a man rushed his campaign rally in Reno, Nevada. This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Breitbart's pro-Jewish bent.
Chabad Rabbi Ginsburg and West Bank Settlements
Chabad has close links with the Jewish settler movement in the West Bank, with many settlers being Jewish immigrants from the United States. One of these is Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, president of the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in the settlement of Yitzhar, near the Palestinian family of Nablus. This yeshiva is one of the recipients of the Kushner family's donations to many Jewish settler groups. Ginsburg first made a name for himself when he justified the killing of Palestinian civilians by his armed Jewish settlers: "Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg had offered biblical justification for the view that the spilling of non-Jewish blood was a lesser offense than the spilling of Jewish blood. 'Any trial based on the assumption that Jews and goyim are equal is a total travesty of injustice,' he said. 'We have to recognize that Jewish blood and the blood of a goy are not the same thing.'" ("An Israeli Mayor Is Under Scrutiny," The New York Times, June 6, 1989, p. 5)
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| Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg |
Ginsburg elaborated in a later religious ruling: "As for the Goyim....Zalman's attitude (was): 'Gentile souls are of a completely different and inferior order. They are totally evil, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.'...If every single cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, and is thus a part of G-d, then every strand of DNA is a part of G-d. Therefore, something is special about Jewish DNA. If a Jew needs a liver, can he take the liver of an innocent non-Jew to save him? The Torah would probably permit to take the liver of an innocent non-Jew passing by, to save the Jew. There is something infinitely more holy and unique about Jewish life than non-Jewish life." (The Jewish Week, April 26, 1996; cited in Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, London: Pluto Press, 1999, pp. 43, 62)
Chabad Links to Donald Trump?
Such Jewish supremacist teachings proliferate on the West Bank settlements, and they have close links not only to the Kushner family, but have also received donations from David Friedman, Trump's lawyer-turned-his Ambassador to Israel, and even from the Trump Foundation itself. Another Orthodox Jew in Trump's cabinet is his advisor on Israel and Special Representative for International Negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, who has often served as Trump's personal representative to Chabad communities. No surprise that Trump has directly cultivated links with the Chabad movement and been among its leading non-Jewish benefactors:
"President-elect Donald Trump’s foundation has donated thousands of dollars to Chabad institutions. The Israeli daily Haaretz also reported that the foundation of the parents of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner gave some $342,500 to Chabad institutions and projects over a 10-year period.
"The Donald J. Trump Foundation donated $11,550 to three Chabad institutions. In 2008, a year before Ivanka Trump and Kushner were married, the Trump foundation donated $6,750 to the Lubavitch Youth Organization in Brooklyn and $1,800 to the Chabad of Southampton Jewish Charity. In 2011, the foundation donated $3,000 to Chabad of East Boca Raton – an institution in Florida also supported by the Kushners.
"The Charles and Seryl Kushner Family Foundation, on whose board Kushner sits, made $78,000 in donations to the Ohel visitors center at the grave of the Lubavitcher rebbe in 2011 and 2013, and $150,000 to the Chabad center at Harvard University in 2007 and another $3,600 in 2013. Kushner, who is an Orthodox Jew, is a graduate of Harvard.
"The Kushner foundation also contributed to Chabad centers in Florida, Manhattan and New Jersey. It also contributed $7,500 to a Chabad-run school for troubled youth in Israel. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are moving to a home in the tony Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C., which is a 10-minute walk to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s D.C. center known as 'The Shul.'" ("Report: Trump, Kushner foundations have donated thousands to Chabad," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, January 10, 2017)
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| Jason Greenblatt confers with Rabbi Shmuely Boteach |
Rabbi Shmuely Boteach is a leading Jewish religious leader in the United States, complete with numerous TV and radio appearances where he's touted as an authority not just on Judaism but on general morality and other issues (fitting in with Chabad concepts of "Noahide" guidance to "the goyim"). In 1988, he was personally sent by Schneerson as a Chabad shaliach (emissary) to Oxford, England, where he served as rabbi for eleven years and founded the L'Chaim Society, as he boasts on his website where he's labelled "America's Rabbi." During the 2016 presidential campaign, Boteach publicly endorsed Trump because he was "a much better candidate for Israel." After Breitbart leader Stephen Bannon, the former Goldman Sachs and Hollywood investment banker who serves as Trump's Special Counselor and Chief Strategist, was attacked by the mainstream media, Boteach defended him, joining the numerous other Likudist/Neocon Jews defending the pro-Jewish Bannon.
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| Boteach and Bannon |
Lev Leviev and the Russian Connection
Lev Leviev is an Israeli billionaire of Uzbek Bukhari Jewish background, known for his diamond mining investments in Angola and his role in financing the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. He is a major philanthropist of the Chabad movement. In 2015, Leviev personally earned $35 million when his Africa Israel Investments Ltd. sold its 50.1% stake in the Times Square Building in Manhattan for $295 million, to Trump's orthodox Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner. With the rise of the Russian Federation in the 1990s, Leviev avoided ties with President Boris Yeltsin and instead hedged his bets on former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, whose political fortunes he saw rising. (Yossi Mehlman, "No love lost," Haaretz, December 11, 2005)
"AS HAPPENS every year, international businessman and philanthropist Lev Leviev, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the Commonwealth of Independent States formerly part of the Soviet Union, sent large quantities of Passover food supplies to Chabad emissaries in the CIS to distribute to Jews in these communities. Joining him this time was Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews." (Greer Fay Cashman, "Grapevine: A 100-Ton Gift of the Bread of Affliction," Jerusalem Post, April 2, 2015)
Putin's Chabad Handlers
Born into a Chabad family in Milan, Berel Lazar was ordained a rabbi at the Central Lubavitch Yeshiva in New York City. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Schneerson sent Lazar as his personal emissary to Russia in 1990. Lazar has since served as Rabbi of the synagogue in Maryina Roshcha District of Moscow, and through Leviev was introduced in 1992 to leading Russian-Jewish oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich. On August 1, 1997, Leviev and Lazar founded the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (FJC), the Chabad-controlled organization whose takeover of the Russian Jewish community has occurred through its close connections with Putin.
"Lazar’s work, his Russia boosterism and his ties to the Kremlin — he is sometimes called 'Putin's rabbi' — has helped Chabad’s Russian branch eclipse all the Jewish groups vying to reshape the country's community of 250,000 Jews. Now Lazar heads a vast network that comprises dozens of employees and plentiful volunteers working in hundreds of Jewish institutions: schools, synagogues, community centers and kosher shops....Today, Lazar said, Russia has in Vladimir Putin its 'most pro-Jewish leader,' whom he credits with 'fighting anti-Semitism more vigorously than any Russian leader before him.'....Lazar was Chabad’s chief envoy to Russia before staking claim to the title of chief rabbi in 2000. That’s when he quit the Russian Jewish Congress, an umbrella group, after the organization’s founder, Vladimir Gusinsky, and Russia’s other chief rabbi, Adolf Shayevich, criticized Russia’s war in Chechnya and its alleged human rights abuses — including the alleged targeting, by anti-corruption authorities, of political dissidents." (Cnaan Liphshiz, "'Putin's rabbi' says challenging governments is not Jewish," Times of Israel, June 6, 2015)
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| Putin's Rabbi....or Rabbi's Putin? |
The alt-media's Putin worship partly centers around his alleged struggle against Jewish oligarchs such as Berezovsky and Gusinsky, but what they fail to mention is Putin's cracking down on them coincided with Lazar and Leviev's own falling out with those oligarchs who weren't tied to Chabad. Nor do they take into account Putin's continued ties with such oligarchs as Mikhail Fridman or the Rotenberg brothers - indeed what the Jerusalem Post termed "an army of Jewish billionaires" at Putin's side. Indeed, it was another oligarch tied to Chabad - Roman Abramovich - who first recommended to Yeltsin that Putin become his successor. (Richard Sakwa, The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 135) And when Putin formed his first cabinet as Prime Minister in 1999, Abramovich personally interviewed each of the candidates for cabinet positions before they were approved. (Dominic Midgley and Chris Hutchins, Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere, London: Harper Collins, 2005, p. 102)
The Chabad-Putin Coup
Lazar was an "American citizen who had lived in Russia only nine years, and his command of the Russian language was relatively weak. To remedy that, on May 26, 2000 Putin extended Russian citizenship to thirty-one individuals. While most were Uzbeks and Azeris, the final candidate was Rabbi Lazar. Lazar belongs to the Orthodox Lubavitch Hassidic movement, or Chabad, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. He had been sent, along with several dozen other adherents, to establish Hassidic communities all over the former Soviet Union. It was the Jewish equivalent of a missionary movement. By coincidence, one of Putin's favorite oligarchs, Roman Abramovich, attended Lubavitch services and provided financial support to Rabbi Lazar's movement. Thus Abramovich may have inspired the strategy of the challenge to Gusinsky. Abramovich was also allied with Lev Levayev, a one-time official in the Russian Jewish Congress, who was a major supporter of the Lubavitch Hassidic movement in Israel and Russia, and a man eager to win favor with President Putin.
"Levayev became the president of the new umbrella group, which instead of the Russian Jewish Congress they called the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Commonwealth of Independent States. An Israeli citizen born in Uzbekistan, Levayev was a controversial diamond dealer who has allegedly used his access to President Putin to encroach on De Beers' exclusive rights to Russian diamonds. He has also been involved with the one-time aluminum oligarch Mikhail Chernoi, accused by the Israeli police of being deeply involved with the Russian underworld and international money laundering, charges denied by Chernoi.
"On June 13, 2000, two weeks after becoming citizen and a day after meeting in the Kremlin with Putin, Lazar convened a meeting of his fellow Hassidic rabbi emissaries from forty-five Russian regions. They voted unanimously to make Rabbi Lazar the Chief Rabbi of Russia. This was somewhat awkward since there was an already existing Chief Rabbi, Adolf Shayevich, who was recognized by the Russian Jewish Congress. Undeterred the Russian government immediately decreed Lazar's Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia the official representative of Russian Jews, thereby superseding Gusinsky's Congress." (Marshall L. Goldman, The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry, London/New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 126)
Jewish Supremacist Teachings of Chabad
Schneerson was seventh in a line of Chabad leaders called Rebbe. The first Rebbe was Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), one of the foremost Hassidic authorities, who authored commentaries and updated versions of Halacha (Jewish law). In the first two chapters of Tanya, he claimed Jewish souls were derived from the Divine, whereas the souls of "the nations" (goyim/gentiles) are derived from evil. So "all the good that the nations do, is done from selfish motives....all the charity and kindness done by the nations of the world is only for their own self-glorification." Zalman also wrote: "All Jews are good by nature, all non-Jews are evil by nature. The Jews are creation's crowning glory, the non-Jews are the scum of the earth."
That this is a "master race" ideology, is seen by the fact that he also said in chapters 18 and 19 of Tanya that even the lowest Jew has a "spark" of the Divine. "The inwardness of a Jew....remains intact in every Jew, regardless of his outward status and whatever the outward circumstances may be." (Schneerson, Letters by the Lubavitscher Rebbe 1956-1980, Brooklyn, New York: Kehot Publication Society, 1981, p. 13)
This book is openly sold by Jewish bookstores, while the hate-filled Tanya holds such reverence among the Chabad movement that it contains the entire work on its official website. "The basic religious and social mission of Habad is thus intended to elevate the conscious choice of the individual to the level of his inner Jewish choseness, that is, to actualize his inner given holiness." (Aviezer Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism, University of Chicago Press, 1996, p. 191)
Schneerson taught that Jews were uniquely "chosen" and granted innate holiness, which further entrenches an ontological barrier between Jews and non-Jews, leading to the exclusivism that really defines Chabad. Schneerson taught that each morning, Jews should give thanks to God for having restored their "Jewish souls", as "'life' is Jewish life only", so that "his entire vitality and life consist - in his being a Jew." (Schneerson, On the Essence of Chassidus, Brooklyn, NY: Kehot Publication Society, 1986, pp. 49, 73) This book is likewise taught on the Chabad website and can be openly purchased from Jewish bookstores.
"Souls of Gentiles unclean"
The following excerpts are from Tanya, which is a major part of Chabad's "outreach" efforts. Here is their true teachings against all non-Jews, laid bare for any honest observer: "The souls of the nations of the world (i.e. all Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.), however, emanate from the other, unclean 'kelipot' (evil forces) which contain no good whatever." (Tanya, New York/London: Kehot Publication Society, 1973, p. 5)
"However, the 'kelipot' (evil forces) are subdivided into two grades, one lower than the other. The lower grade consists of the three 'kelipot' which are altogether unclean and evil, containing no good whatever. From them flow and derive the souls of all the nations of the world (i.e. all Christians, Muslims, etc.), and the existence of their bodies, and also the souls of all living creatures that are unclean and unfit for consumption." (ibid., Chapter 6, p. 25)
"To elucidate still further, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of the verse 'The candle of God is the soul of (neshamah) of man.' What it means is that the souls of Jews, who are called 'man', are, by way of illustration, like the flame of the candle, whose nature it is always to scintillate upwards....Now this is a general principle in the whole realm of holiness....This stands in direct contrast to the so-called 'Kelipah' (evil forces) and 'sitra achara' (the other, evil side), where from are derived the souls of the Gentiles....Therefore they (the Gentiles) are called 'dead.'" (ibid., Chapter 19, pp. 77, 79)
Thus, Chabad lumps all Gentiles with pigs, snakes, worms, and all other "creatures that are unclean and unfit for consumption." There are also comparisons to dogs: "Thus an Orthodox Jew learns from his earliest youth, as part of his sacred studies, that Gentiles are compared to dogs." (Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, London: Pluto Press, 1994, p. 94) This serves as a theological basis behind the actions of Israel and the Zionist movement, to dehumanize the Palestinian "Gentiles" and legitimize their murder.
Schneerson's Anti-Gentilism
Schneerson believed that Jews and Gentiles are "two separate species," going to lengths to innumerate how the former are "superior" to the latter: "A non-Jew should be punished by death if he kills an embryo, even if the embryo is non-Jewish, while the Jew should not be, even if the embryo is Jewish. The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: 'Let us differentiate.' Thus, we do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather we have a case of 'let us diffentiate' between totally different species. This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations [goyim] of the world.
"The Jewish body 'looks as if it were in substance similar to bodies of non-Jews,' but the meaning is that the bodies only seem to be similar in material substance, outward look and superficial quality. The difference of the inner quality, however, is so great that the bodies should be considered as completely different species.
"This is the reason why the Talmud states that there is an halachic difference in attitude about the bodies of non-Jews: 'and their bodies are in vain'....An even greater difference exists in regard to the soul. Two contrary types of soul exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness.
"The body of a Jewish embryo is on a higher level than is the body of a non-Jew....We therefore ask: Why should a non-Jew be punished if he kills even a non-Jewish embryo while a Jew should not be punished even if he kills a Jewish embryo? The answer can be understood by the general difference between Jews and non-Jews: A Jew was not created as a means for some [other] purpose; he himself is the purpose, since the substance of all [divine] emanations was created only to serve the Jews: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' means that [the heavens and the earth] were created for the sake of the Jews, who are called the 'beginning.'
"This means everything, all developments, all discoveries, the creation, including the 'heavens and the earth' - are vanity compared to the Jews. The important things are the Jews, because they do not exist for any [other] aim; they themselves are [the divine] aim." (Schneerson, Gatherings of Conversations, 1965; quoted in Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, London: Pluto Press, 1999, pp. 59-60)
