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Continuing season two of Torah in Ten, we are pleased to present the eighth class by Rabbi Chaim Miller, Editor-in-Chief of Kol Menachem on this week's topic, “The Rebbe on Racism”.

Torah in 10: The Rebbe on Racism

Continuing season two of Torah in Ten, we are pleased to present the eighth class by Rabbi Chaim Miller, Editor-in-Chief of Kol Menachem on this week’s topic, “The Rebbe on Racism”.

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9 Comments

  • liberalhunter

    I heard a story about Rabbi Goldberg who studied many years ago in Chabad’s school in Paris. He had only one problem with Judiasm: It bothered him how the American bochrim had this word “schvartza” and looked at these black folks as some form of lower creatures. At the time, bochrim prepared for years for their trip to NY to the Rebbe, and he made it known that his one problem with Judiasm (racism) he will discuss with the rebbe when he gets to New York for yechidus.

    Sure enough he arrived in NY. On his way out of the airport, he was hit in the head with a 2 by 4 swung by a black man. He survived the blow, but when it came to his yechidus, his questions had been fully resolved and there was no need to discuss this gashmius stuff.

    The message here is that to all the poeple who complain that Crown Heights chassidim disrespect “shvartze’s,” that’s because you live in white suberbs where you never saw crime activity. We welcome you to spend a couple of days here in CH, but when your purse is scratched don’t say we didn’t warn you.

    Every single CH resident, Black or white, has at one point in their lives dealt with a mugger, a gang, or received a blow or slash from a knife or from a fist. If you live here, you’ve had it.

    In the sheltered environment of academia you will not learn about this criminal activity since it involves disrespect to the minority race of the mugger. Come here in CH and you will see a reality of THREE communities: 1) Jews 2) Blacks 3)Gangster kids (I’m intentionally not mentioning their race). All we want is to clean our streets from crime. Even the riots were not caused by our community’s blacks. It was caused by OUTSIDE GANG activists.

    And why do we make such a fuss about crime? because we are a people who study g-d from an early age, and we learn very early that stealing and killing are against our God. You begin to look at criminals as if they are not God’s people. If the criminals are of a particular race, they are then embarrassing their entire race for their behavior.

  • Messy stuff

    Are you KIDDING me? A black person snatches a handbag, and his whole race is involved. A Jew abuses a child. Is HIS whole race involved? Are you saying that there are no crimes within the Jewish community? I KNOW there are! They might not be the SAME type of crime, but stealing funds/physical attacks/physical abuse/child abuse/sneaky deals,etc. go on in our Jewish community. Your story about Rabbi Goldberg sounds pretty fishy to me. How could a learned man make a complete turn-around on a racial issue based one ONE incident on his way out of the airport? It makes no sense that one incident would render a generalization and total switch of beliefs. How learned could he have been? If there is crime perpetrated by some blacks in CH, then that’s CH. You have some mixed messages, I think, in your response. Why would you disrespect “shvartzes” as a group in one breath and in another breath say some “shvartzes” have been victims of a crime? To me, that says a portion commits crimes and a portion doesn’t. And a portion of Jews commits crimes and a portion doesn’t! Maybe the difference is, those Jewish criminals usually perpetrate a crime with or to other Jews! What a mess!

  • question

    thank you,

    but its not so clear to me

    what about ata bichartonu?

    rabbi, you need to reset your mike.

  • To Rabbi Miller, A Question

    If we go back to the essence, to atzluts, don’t we find that Jews have a portion G-d. How does that not conflict with your translation of the wider picture, in which essentially we are the same??

  • Mic

    Make the recording level lower….it;s on the bottom right of your garage band….

  • liberalhunter

    I guess we need to learn chassidus instead of solving the world’s problems from our pajamas.

    The libraries of chassidus are so huge I don’t know where to start so I just say forget it

    besides, how come through all these years there is no decent intro to chasidus? A surgeon once asked me which books I started with so he will know where to begin, so I told him, “kunres umayon” – but it just didn’t seem to fit. I don’t think there is anything that teaches chasidus in English that I know of