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Shame: Lubavitcher Rebbe Street Sign Vandalized

A shocking and shameful incident has shaken up the Chabad community in Be’er Sheva, Israel: A sign bearing the name of a street named after the Lubavitcher Rebbe, OBM, was vandalized by unknown perpetrators.

The vandals painted over a portion of the sign that bears the dates of the Rebbe’s birth and passing – 11 Nissan 1902-3 Tammuz 1994 – leading many to conclude that this shameful act was perpetrated by radical ‘Mashichistim,’ commonly known as ‘Tzfatim,’ who take offense at any mention of the Rebbe’s passing.

The street in Be’er Sheva is the only one in the world named after the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi M.M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.

Photos by Shlomo Levi

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48 Comments

  • CHT

    To be completely fair: Did you ever see a street named after somebody, bearing the dates of birth and death? For instance, I am right now at Fulton Street. It does not say Fulton (1765–1815) Street.

    Tell me if you ever seen such dates on any street name named after a person?

  • for your info

    there is a street in tzfat Israel as well named after the rebbe and here to the sign was vandalized.
    if I am not mistaken it said shelita on it and it was sprayed on as well.

  • CR

    Carried out by one of the few remaining ‘ShILo”V’niks, obviously. The painted-over area states the years of the Rebbe’s life in our world.

  • From Tzfat

    BTW there is a street named after the Rebbe here in Tzfat and the same thing happened to it.

  • No need

    Classic case of people judging when they have no idea what actually happened. No one asked for an opinionated article. Report the story and let the masses come to their own conclusion. Barack Obama did the same thing with Trayvon Martin, and he was proven wrong. Don’t make the same mistake.

  • Yossi

    Many streets in Israel that are named after people state the years they were born and died.
    Unfortunately many Chabad chasidim cannot come to the reality that the Rebbe died. I know it took me a while, but it is time.

    • Learn the Rebbe's sichos

      The Rebbe still lives Beruchniyus. In fact, even more so then befor 3 Tammuz.

    • Milhouse

      So does every tzadik. That doesn’t mean they didn’t die. On the contrary, as we see in the piece of Zohar in the Maaneh Loshon, they are the ones Shlomo Hamelech calls המתים שכבר מתו, those who are “dead” only in the sense that they happen to have died, as opposed to resho’im, who are the real מתים even if they happen not to have died yet.

  • Rabbi Yirmi Cohen/Toronto

    To Reb Yossi # 14:
    Please, let’s not use the words for our holy Rebbe, that the Rebbe di……
    Surely we cannot compare The Rebbe, to other regular people who passed away.
    Yirmi Cohen

    • Milhouse

      Of course we can. It’s what happened. Moshe Rabbenu DIED. Avrohom and Yitzchok Ovinu DIED. The Baal Shem Tov DIED. The only people who did not die are Eliyohu, Chanoch, and R Yehoshual ben Levi, who did not die at all, and Yaacov Ovinu and Dovid Hamelech, who did experience גויעה but not מיתה. The Rebbe certainly didn’t enter Gan Eden alive, like RYBL; I guess it is possible that, like Yaacov and Dovid, he did not experience מיתה, but there is no reason to think so.

  • Kenderski

    Rabbiner-Schneerson-Platz in Vienna
    HaAdmor M’Lubavitch Street in Ramat Shlomo

  • Look carefully - it says Gimmel Tammuz

    If you look carefully, right in the center of what was painted over, it says, ג תמוז תשנ״ד

  • Dear Yossi #14

    With all do respect your way of expressing the Rebbe’s passing is extremely not befitting and not respectful to our Rebbe.

    “that the Rebbe died.” Died is very harsh word and the Rebbe through you and me and all those that do the Rebbe’s Mivtzoim and Shlichus is very much alive and vibrant. PLEASE be cautious the words that you use.

    • Milhouse

      “Died” is not a harsh word. וימת שם משה עבד ה׳. What is good for Moshe Rabbenu is good for our Rebbe too. He is still alive in every sense that really matters, but the fact is that he underwent the process of death that Hashem has decreed on all people, and is not with us in the way that living people are with us.

  • Anonymous

    To “CHT” (comment 1) think again:
    https://www.google.co.il/maps/@31.274827,34.796009,3a,15y,40.96h,92.65t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sx-Wwu6IuP1ldFoBhjRYq1g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
    https://www.google.co.il/maps/@31.264199,34.787275,3a,25y,101.98h,91.88t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZw3x3UBzBtsRs8gsR1yDMQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
    https://www.google.co.il/maps/@31.267015,34.783412,3a,15y,154.87h,98.28t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssyzuxNTgdXBQEhQq9EiZyg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
    https://www.google.co.il/maps/@31.246406,34.797009,3a,15y,149.62h,89.14t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sox8rCNaVWwL9geJkiwxDtQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

  • Yechi Melech Hamoschiach

    The Gemorrah in Sota ( end of first Perek) says Moshe Lo Mes.

    Whether Milhouse agrees or not !!!!

    • 100% and if i may add...

      To milhouse: the rebbe NEVER said the Frierdiker Rebbe di… not only that the Rebbe answered a pan to a person on rosh chodesh sivan 5710 “i derive very much satisfaction from your use of the expression zol gezunt zain when mentioning my revered father in the the Rebbe. this can be understood on the basis of what is written in tanya that the life of a tzaddik is spiriutal faith love and fear. and it is well known that the righteous continually advance from strength to strength.” also in a book called a partner in the dynamic of creation the Rebbe says ” ‘in taanis 5b our father yaakov DID NOT DIE; JUST AS HIS DESCENDENTS ARE ALIVE SO TOO IS HE ALIVE’ the same is true of each of yaakov’s descendents the jewish men and women of ALL SUBSEQUENT GENERATIONS. when a person’s children continue the positive activities which characterizzed his own lifetime then even after that person’s passing he or she is still ALIVE!” since We are the Rebbe’s children- for a teacher who teaches his student, is the students’ spiritual parent MORE THEN HIS OWN PARENTS,HOW MUCH MORE SO OUR REBBE -he is FULLY alive!

    • Milhouse

      The gemoro does NOT say that at all. It says there are those who say it. But the chumash says explicitly וימת שם משה, and that makes any other opinion irrelevant. There are only two people about whom the Torah doesn’t say וימת, and those are Yaacov and Dovid.

    • Milhouse

      Mr “100%”, so you claim no Jew ever dies?! The whole section of hilchos tum’as MEIS and hilchos aveilus doesn’t exist?!

  • What about...

    One point that no one brought up: If something doesn’t belong to you, for example this street sign, or the even pinah of 770, what gives you the right to vandalize it?! Is there some heter al pi halacha? ISIS feels justified in destroying priceless antiquities, but don’t seem to care that they don’t belong to them. How are these vandals any different?

  • CR

    So I guess street signs can be chalked up next to postage stamps in the category of “good intentioned bad ideas for honoring the Rebbe”.

  • Yechi Melech Hamoschiach

    To Milhouse

    I’m astonished at your comment. The Gemorah in Sotah noted above clarifies the Posuk. The Tsidukim did not believe in Torah Shebal Peh either.

    • Milhouse

      The gemoro does not “clarify” the posuk at all. It merely says there are people who have such an opinion. An opinion that contradicts a posuk is not Torah sheb’al peh.

  • Yechi Melech Hamoschiach

    To Milhouse #39

    I would trust the opinion in the Gemorrah more than Milhouse.

    When the Gemorrah says Yesh Omrim: ” Moshe Lo Mais” it ususally refers to Rab Mair . The Gemorah knew the posuk and clarifired it.

    Torah Shbal Peh was given over by Moshe Rabbeinu at Har Sinai whether you agree or not .

    • Milhouse

      First of all, “yesh omrim” in a mishna is not R Meir. Often it’s R Nosson, but many times it is not. Second, this is not a mishna. Third, it doesn’t matter who it is, when the posuk says וימת. The language of the posuk is above everyting else. Putting a gemoro ahead of a posuk is like putting an acharon ahead of a gemoro. The only reason we say Yaacov and Dovid “didn’t die”, is because at their passings the posuk says ויגוע and ויאסף, but not וימת. With Moshe the posuk says וימת, so he died. If “yesh omrim” say he is nevertheless עומד ומשמש, that’s wonderful, but it doesn’t change the fact that he died. Whatever מיתה means, as opposed to גויעה and אסיפה לעמיו, Moshe experienced it.

      (By the way, if Yaacov wasn’t physically dead when the embalmers got hold of him, he was definitely dead after they were through with him. Rashi had no way of knowing what Egyptian embalming entailed. His body which is buried in Me’oras Hamachpeilo has no internal organs. It cannot physically function. Nevertheless, the posuk tells us (by omission) that he did not experience מיתה. Whatever that term means (see the Ramban) it didn’t happen to him.

  • i'm 100%.

    To milhouse: “my claim” as you “claim” is based on the Rebbe. and i specifacally brought proofs of “my” claim from the Rebbe. YOU are disagreeing with the Rebbe M”HM?!

    • Milhouse

      It’s your claim that nobody ever dies. The Rebbe certainly did not believe that! When the Rebbe’s brother, mother, and wife passed away he sat shiva, when the Frierdiker Rebbe passed away he wrote hk”m and said kaddish, and he spoke constantly about “vehokitzu veranenu shochnei ofor”, when according to you there is no such thing as a shochen ofor because nobody ever dies! Of course we all believe in hash’oras hanefesh, and that is what the Rebbe is talking about.

    • i'm 100%.

      To milhouse: dont make up something i didnt even write. i didnt write one statement that no one ever dies that was YOUR CLAIM. as much as the Rebbe might have written what “you claim” the Rebbe specifecally said my proofs before and u are disagreeing with the Rebbe M”HM words “claiming” they die – no they dont! now “my claim” is as follows- u want to believe someone is alive thats what itll be, you want to believe someone is dead thats how itll be – the choice is in YOUR hands. i believe, as it says in tanya “they are here more then they were before…” even the tzfatim will not tell u “we bet right here we’ll see the Rebbe MHM walking phyically down kingston ave” it can happen any minute- yes but not yet, and yet the Rebbe MHM is walking down kingston every day! its not called The Rebbe’s shchuna for nothing!

    • Milhouse

      “100%”, you cited, as proof that the Rebbe didn’t die, a letter in which he comforted a family by telling them that so long as they follow in their dead father’s footsteps he will be “alive” in their memory. That is all. If you expect us to take this to mean that the person will retroactively not have died at all, then it follows that nobody ever dies, and entire sections of halacha are useless. This is enough to prove that you are misusing the Rebbe’s letter to make a point that the Rebbe did not mean at all.

    • i'm 100%.

      To milhouse: wrong again! not only in memory we are living with the Rebbe every day just as the same way we have to “live with the times” as u know the famous saying of the Rebbe regarding the parsha. the lesson of each parsha should bbe applied each week by us when we do apply we are LIVING with times are avos etc… and they are alive!especially the Rebbe “he’s alive more then he was before” answering to your statement “no body dies”. once again you are disagreeing with the Rebbe’s words. also how come the wicked are called dead even when they are alive? how much more so in the spiritual side, the Rebbe is FULLY ALIVE! maybe by this following example you can understand what the Rebbe is refering to: a person can daven and daven. a- daven out of habit lip service or b- chayus, geshmak and devekus. which one is dead and which one is alive? you’ll tell me Hashem says daven, are rabbanim say pray. i’ll tell you in kitzur shulchon oruch it states Hashem doesnt want lip service, He wants chayus. (if u want i’ll look it up to tell u mamash the words) i hope YOU’LL understand the Rebbe’s words!

  • Reader

    What a couple of morons Milhouse and “I’m 100%” are. Two anonymous morons engaging in a moronic anonymous disagreement that absolutely no one including me cares one iota about because I’m also writing anonymously and who should care what an anonymous “Reader” writes? If you guessed “No one” then you’d be correct.

    • i'm 100%.

      Wrong! first G-d cares and second if i didnt care i would have not replyed. may G-d help u see that you are not alone and He is here for you and the only thing He’s waiting and asking of you, is your return to Him!