Rabbi Shmuel Butman, 81, Raised the Jewish Profile in New York and Beyond

by Menachem Posner – chabad.org

He was a sight to behold: A rabbi with a flowing beard riding by helicopter from Midtown Manhattan—where he had just presided over the kindling of the “World’s Largest Menorah”—to Brooklyn, N.Y., in a frantic effort to make it home before the onset of Shabbat.

For five decades, Rabbi Shmuel Butman, director of the Lubavitch Youth Organization, was among the most iconic rabbinic profiles in the tri-state region and a familiar face in the state capital, described by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul as “a central figure in New York’s Jewish community.”

To the countless men, women and children who participated in the yearly lighting of the World’s Largest Menorah at Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza, he will forever be remembered for his prominent role in the annual event, his booming voice announcing the participating dignitaries, and encouraging the crowd in joyful singing from high-atop the cherry-picker. “May the lights of the Chanukah menorah that everyone is putting up throughout the world,” he would commonly sign off, “usher in the eternal lights of Moshiach and the great redemption for all.”

Butman passed away late on Monday, July 22 (17 Tammuz), 2024. He was 81 years old.

Scion of a Distinguished Family

Shmuel Menachem Mendel Butman was born in the Soviet Union on the eighth day of Chanukah, 3 Tevet, 5703, (Dec. 11, 1942) to Rabbi Shneur Zalman and Yehudis Butman.

Yehudis was the daughter of Rabbi Mendel Schneersohn—a great-grandson of the Tzemach Tzedek, the third Chabad Rebbe—after whom he was named. Rabbi Shneur Zalman Butman was a member of the Chabad “underground” and worked tirelessly to ensure that Jews were able to live observant Jewish lives, to the extent that Communist authorities exiled him to Siberia for four years.

By the time Shmuel was born, the family was living in the city of Frunze, today Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. At that time, the Central Asian city was a haven for Jews fleeing the Holocaust.

In 1946, the family took part in the “Great Escape,” joining hundreds of other Chabad Chassidim who were prying their way out of the Soviet Union under assumed Polish identities, eventually making it to the west and settling in Paris.

There, the family became part of the burgeoning community of Chabad refugees. It was there that young Shmuel first met the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—who would become a guiding figure in his life. The Rebbe was there to accompany his mother, Rebbetzin Chana, who had recently escaped the Soviet Union, to the United States.

Since Rebbetzin Chana was living in the Butman home (Yehudis Butman was the first cousin of her late husband), the Rebbe became a frequent visitor, coming to see his mother twice daily. In appreciation for the family’s care for his elderly mother, before leaving the Rebbe gave them all gifts. For young Shmuel, he picked out a tricycle.

This was not the Rebbe’s first time in the French capital, having studied there in the 1930s and escaping with his wife prior to the Nazi invasion. Years later, Butman wrote a Hebrew book, Harabbi BePariz (“The Rebbe in Paris”), documenting the Rebbe’s years in the city.

In 1954, the family moved to Brooklyn, and Shmuel was enrolled in the central Chabad yeshivah there. In 1962, while still a teen, he was dispatched by the Rebbe to serve as his emissary to the Chabad yeshivah in Lod, Israel.

Immersed in Communal Activities

With the Rebbe’s blessing, following his 1966 marriage to Rochel Geisinsky he joined the staff of the fledgling Lubavitch Youth Organization (known by its Hebrew acronym, Tzach). The Rebbe had founded the organization in 1955 to lead many of Chabad’s outreach efforts, and it was under the direction of Rabbi Dovid Raskin.

While there are today hundreds of Chabad centers, schools and organizations in the New York area alone, Butman recalled in a 2011 interview with JEM’s My Encounter With the Rebbe Project, that he was only the organization’s second employee (the first was Rabbi Leibel Alevskly, now director of Chabad of Cleveland).

In the early years, many of Tzach’s major activities centered around college students, holding Shabbatons on college campuses and also hosting students for large weekend gatherings in Crown Heights, the Chabad movement’s Brooklyn epicenter.

Butman would also travel to communities all over the tri-state area to host evenings focused on sharing Torah and mitzvot, giving people an opportunity to taste Chassidism’s uniquely spiritual and uplifting view of Judaism and Jewish life.

In the course of his activities, Butman was in close contact with the Rebbe, often submitting notes with questions and updates several times a day. The Rebbe, in turn, would often reply with brief jottings, showing a keen interest in even the smallest of details.

For example, Butman once submitted for the Rebbe’s review a script for a radio advertisement encouraging people to celebrate Purim. In his note, the Rebbe pointed out that he had neglected to mention that the Megillah is read not just on Purim eve but on the following day as well.

Another area of his work involved visiting the incarcerated, bringing the light of Judaism even to those whom society had forgotten.

Just as Butman was involved in many activities that no one would ever know of, conversely, one of his highest-profile projects was one of the most recognizable Jewish events in the world: The “World’s Largest Menorah,” situated outside the iconic Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street in Manhattan.

Butman first placed a giant menorah in that location in 1977, when it was proudly kindled by New York Mayor Abe Beame. Every mayor of New York City has attended the menorah-lighting since, among other dignitaries, often joining Butman for the cherry-picker ride to the menorah’s pinnacle. The gleaming 32-feet-high sculpted bronze structure that Butman faithfully lit every year since 1986—36-feet including “shamash”—was designed by Yaacov Agam, Israel’s most collected artist, and is seen by hundreds of thousands every year.

“This menorah stood in miniature on the Rebbe’s desk and the Rebbe personally okayed the form of this menorah,” Butman would remind the gathered every year. Hundreds of news outlets cover its kindling, bringing the message of the Chanukah lights to millions more.

“The menorah stands as a symbol of light and determination for all people regardless of race, religion, color and creed,” Butman reminded the crowd in 2021, as Mayor Eric Adams stood at his side. He would then lead the crowd in the traditional singing of “Maoz Tzur,” encouraging the gathered—whom he’d invariably refer to as his “wonderful, wonderful choir”—to join along.

Additionally, one of Butman’s most public events—one greatly treasured by the Rebbe—was the annual Siyum Harambam, the completion of the three-chapter-a-day study cycle of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah.

While hundreds of siyum celebrations are held worldwide, Butman organized the main event in New York that is traditionally attended by prominent rabbis and leaders from across the Jewish world.

One year, the Rebbe called Butman in for a private meeting in his home. He instructed Butman to put together a book showcasing the siyum celebrations, giving him just three weeks to get the job done.

Also at the Rebbe’s behest, Butman headed an association of all descendants of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Rebbe of Chabad who is known as the Alter Rebbe, hosting an annual get-together attended by many prominent rabbis and leaders in the Chassidic world who share this lineage.

Another one of the projects he spearheaded was the first Jewish Children’s Sefer Torah, an initiative of the Rebbe to unite all Jewish children through the symbolic purchase of a letter in a special Torah scroll. Today organized out of Israel, more than four decades later the program is running strong, with the ninth Torah soon to be completed.

National Initiatives

President Jimmy Carter inaugurated Education and Sharing Day in 1978, a day focused on the importance of moral and ethical education and timed to fall out on 11 Nissan, the Rebbe’s birthday. Following the president’s lead, dozens of governors and mayors around the United States followed suit, an annual tradition that has only grown in the decades since.

It was Butman who led this effort in New York State, where rather than one single day, the governor traditionally declares a series of days, corresponding to the years since the Rebbe’s birth, dedicated to education. For example, this past year, Hochul declared “122 days of education” in honor of the Rebbe.

Another one of Butman’s many initiatives was hosting a sukkah at the United Nations. In fact, he recalled that that sukkah was the place where in 1984 he first met an aspiring young Israeli diplomat named Benjamin Netanyahu. Following their meeting in the sukkah, Netanyahu came to celebrate Simchat Torah with the Rebbe in 770, and a connection was formed.

As a Chabad representative, he would often bring elected officials to the Rebbe for blessings and advice. In one instance, he recalled in his interview, in 1990 he brought New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan to visit the Rebbe.

The senator expected the Rebbe to make requests on behalf of the Jewish community or advocate for policies that would benefit them. Instead, however, the Rebbe asked him to make accommodations for the Chinese-American community, who needed help learning English and acclimating themselves to American life.

Following the interview, Moynihan expressed his amazement at the religious leader who cared for other communities as if they were his own, asking why that would be the case.

“Why?” reflected Butman. “Because the Rebbe cared, the Rebbe cared for everyone.”

In addition to his wife, he is survived by their children: Rabbi Velvel Butman, Rabbi Yossi Butman, Yehudis Newman, Chana Korf, Bassie Munitz and Dassie Heber; in addition to grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He is also survived by his sisters, Leah Kahn and Miryam Swerdlov.