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Carlebach-Inspired Shul Finds Home in Crown Heights

Jewish Week

Won’t you come home, Shlomo Carlebach?

Seventeen years after his death and several generations after he split with the Lubavitcher rebbe in the late 1950s, the charismatic — and controversial — leader of New Age Judaism has regained a haven in his native Crown Heights.

Chevra Ahavas Yisroel, the “people’s shul” that has become the talk of the Brooklyn neighborhood since its opening last winter, has found its singular congregational chorales to be a powerful calling card. The singing has drawn an estimated 2,000 worshippers — many of them in their 20s and 30s — to its Sabbath services so far. And at the center of its musical offerings are the celebrated compositions by Carlebach, perhaps the community’s most prodigal son.

This month, Ahavas Yisroel (Hebrew for “Love of Israel”) is gearing up for its first High Holy Day season. Its members — about 400 strong, equally distributed between men and women — expect attendance to easily exceed the 300-person capacity of its present quarters. And the music will no doubt soar.

The seamless wall of sound at Chevra Ahavas Yisroel is roof-shakingly big yet subtly delicate. But it doesn’t just build itself. “You’re listening to all the sounds, and you just feel what’s missing,” said choir member Yossi Silverstein. “You know to go high here, put some bass over there. The niggun [melody] is very complex. If the other voices are all on the same key, you try to make it more of a buffet.”

Music is but one prong of the youth-led synagogue’s campaign to re-access the primal vitality of chasidic worship. Its other two fronts are the introduction of the ebullient model of the Chabad House into Crown Heights itself and a quantum boost in the participation of women in synagogue life.

Any one of Ahavas Yisroel’s innovations alone may well have been enough to turn heads in insular Crown Heights. That Ahavas Yisroel opts for three at once suggests an encrusted community status quo as perceived by many disenchanted young local Jews.

“Every community can become set in its ways,” said the 25-year-old Rabbi Yehezkel Denebaum. Familiarly known as “Chezzie,” he bears a notable resemblance to the actor Johnny Depp. “It can happen to us too. But you want to fight it, so you don’t become stale.”

In fact, it’s a story familiar to New York’s several chasidic communities: young people chafing under what they see as an out-of-touch, autocratic, gray-bearded elite. Many have fled the neighborhoods, shedding varying degrees of religious practice. Some have found succor in organizations like Footprints and Chulent. Others have dug in their heels within familiar surroundings, groping for the rare counter-institution like Chevra Ahavas Yisroel.

The differences encountered by a visitor at Ahavas Yisroel, presently located in the ample basement of a large house on President Street, are few but telling. There is the music, of course. At other Crown Heights synagogues, as with shuls everywhere, liturgical ardor, not harmonic polish is the order of the day. If anything, Ahavas Yisroel’s intricate chordal mosaics most resemble the impromptu, often wordless sing-alongs that break out all the time between young chasidic men around study tables or in moving cars, but multiplied by several score.

The choice of tunes borrows heavily from the Carlebach songbook, but also the ample storehouse of traditional chasidic niggunim from many sects, including Lubavich itself.

Thanks to his music-steeped years at yeshiva, Silverstein knows his place in the up-to-200-member male chorus at Ahavas Yisroel. A travel agent by day, he admitted to past classical, non-chasidic voice training and hires himself out as a cantor. Singing with the Ahavas Yisroel congregation, he said, “maximizes my potential.”

According to Rabbi Denebaum, the ensemble of gifted amateurs harks back to the teaching of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the 18-century founder of the Lubavitcher movement: “Music is the pen of the soul.”

The rabbi emphasized that though Ahavas Yisroel is “Carlebach-esque,” borrowing something of the embracing spirit of Reb Shlomo along with his tunes, it’s not another “Carlebach shul” that happens to have planted itself inside Crown Heights. “We are 100 percent a Chabad shul,” he said.

But a less chatty one.

“The level of people’s talking at Lubavitcher shuls is, frankly, a little embarrassing,” said member Ilena Spencer. “It’s like they can’t wait for the davening to be over.

“Ahavas Yisroel may very possibly be the quietest shul in Crown Heights,” she said.

Spencer termed the arrival of Ahavas Yisroel in the neighborhood not only long overdue but “revolutionary.”

Outside of 770 Eastern Parkway, Lubavitcher world headquarters, Ahavas Yisroel may also be the most female-attended shul in Crown Heights. More often than not, the women present outnumber the men, including on Friday nights, not a traditional venue for females.

The gender-centered ferment that has roiled other Jewish denominations has not passed over the chasidic world. “Women are not represented in the Crown Heights community,” said Sima Denebaum, 24, the rabbi’s wife and full partner in synagogue operations. “Most new shuls are set up by men for men. Some don’t even have a women’s section.

“Women are very spiritual, and Ahavas Yisroel allows access to that spirituality. It’s very welcoming. When you walk in for the first time, you’re given a smile and a siddur,” she continued, using the Hebrew word for prayer book.

Though they don’t sing with the men or lead services, women take a dominant role in planning events, running the synagogue’s public relations machine and creating their own religion classes.

As if to drive the point home, at sermon hour Rabbi Denebaum pushes back the separating curtain the necessary few inches, straddles dead center the invisible mark at the head of the sanctuary that divides the men’s and women’s sections and begins to preach to all.

Said Rabbi Denebaum: “In every Chabad House women are involved equally with the men. This generation of women are smart, they’re educated and they’re ambitious.”

The breaching of the wall between the comparatively freewheeling Chabad Houses and the tradition-bound homeland of Crown Heights was perhaps only a matter of time — and Rabbi Denebaum may be the perfect candidate to lead the charge.

The son of Chabad emissaries in Palm Springs, Calif., young Denebaum absorbed the pervasive West Coast spirit-quest vibe along with his aleph-bais. Coming of age, he alternated yeshiva studies with wanderings among Israel’s soulfully observant, “hippie Jews,” on a global trek from South America to Australia, with an American stopover for a tour of prison chaplainry.
This grounding, shared with some in his congregation, fits comfortably with the synagogue’s regular meditation sessions, music jams and drum circles.

At services, the rabbi accents his cantorial duties with hand-clapping, finger-snapping, lectern-pounding flourishes. He blends into the men’s snake dance that caps the prayers, moving around with the abandon of an underage raver.

While some neighborhood hardliners bemoan the growing permeability between Crown Heights and the world at large, many observers applaud its effects that create room for new institutions like Chevra Ahavas Yisroel.

“Historically, younger Chabadniks have continued to leave Crown Heights,” said Maya Balakirsky Katz, associate professor of art history at Touro College and the author of “The Visual Culture of Chabad. “On the outside they inevitably become more worldly, more educated. Their spirit of tolerance has really saved Chabad.”

The congregation’s swift expansion, from its inaugural service of 50 congregants in a converted flower shop, surprised everyone, Rabbi Denebaum and his charter members included. The new shul became the buzz of the local blogosphere. A short series of mostly favorable articles in popular blogs CrownHeights.info and Collive.com sparked several hundred emotional pro and con comments, an almost unheard-of volume, according to Collive.com editor Yehuda Seitlin.

“It no doubt hit a nerve,” said Seitlin.

Much of the criticism centered on social mixing of the genders and the character of Shlomo Carlebach, originally a pioneering Chabad shaliach, or emissary, who over the years alienated many fellow Lubavitchers with his long-ambivalent relationship with the sect’s late rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and reports of improprieties with female followers.

Today, controversy has subsided thanks to favorable accounts by visitors, avid membership by young sons and daughters of Crown Heights’ renowned dynastic families and support from some of those dynastic elders themselves.

Said Rabbi Shea Hecht, chairman of the board of the Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education and onetime official Lubavitch spokesman: “My hat goes off to them. We are a diverse community and we have to have diverse institutions.”
He lauded the synagogue’s attention to music and women’s needs in particular, adding, “As long as they look for guidance from the old-timers, they will do well.”

Some Crown Heights residents remain unyielding. One local educator, who identified herself only as Estee, remembered the Friday night when her teenage son came home horrified by the sight of men and women conversing outside Ahavas Yisroel’s walls.

“This kind of mingling may be appropriate in Chabad Houses outside Crown Heights,” she said. “It is not appropriate inside Crown Heights. It’s confusing to kids.”

One young man, who declined to give his name, expressed a more mixed reaction. He likes the synagogue’s spirited services more than the application of its no-talking policy, which he termed heavy handed.

“They call themselves Ahavas Yisroel, ‘Love of Israel,’” he said. “They could do things like that in a more friendly way.”

Nevertheless, he said he planned to attend the shul’s functions again, pronouncing the spring Purim party “out of this world.”

Sensing that the congregation may outgrow it current basement location in a home belonging to a member of the locally prominent Rubashkin family (another branch of which has figured more notoriously in the recent Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse scandal), Rabbi Denebaum is searching for more permanent quarters.

Would the rabbi object if visitors came to services not for the religion, but solely for its exceptional music?

“No,” he said, “I wouldn’t mind. If they’re spiritually open, they might find something they were looking for, even if they didn’t know they were looking for it.”

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79 Comments

  • Shame

    Shame on CH someone who made the rebbe cry and gave the rebbe so muc tzaros and now we are following him and his nusach instead of following chabad and its nusach in CH!!

  • if you call yourselves Ahavas Yisrael

    then why are the comments from the rabbi’s wife and several of the Shul’s members looking down on Crown Heights and it’s OTHER shuls.
    For ex: “The level of people’s talking at Lubavitcher shuls is, frankly, a little embarrassing,” said member Ilena Spencer. “It’s like they can’t wait for the davening to be over.”-
    What a not nice comment to make about the Yidden in other shuls, to say that they can’t wait for the davening to be over…
    And here’s another one:
    “Women are not represented in the Crown Heights community,” said Sima Denebaum, 24, the rabbi’s wife and full partner in synagogue operations.
    It seems to me like this Shul might have Ahavas Yisrael for MEMBERS OF THEIR OWN SHUL, but not if you daven elsewhere. They want respect from others for their shul (Ahavas Yisrael), but they don’t give others respect for their respective Shul….
    A bit on the hypocritical side.

  • no one special

    I plan to be in C.H. for first days of succos. Would like to attend at least one shacharis in this minyan. Where is it.

  • Observation

    This reporter got it right: this shul represents a “split” from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. But they don’t seem to care…

  • To #7

    You’re obviously not from the brightest folks. One can make an observation without hating the person/thing that they are making the observation about. The two above mentiond examples are facts. When one has ahavas yisrael it does not make him blind to the situation or in denial about facts.

  • Just me

    Familiarly known as “Chezzie,” he bears a notable resemblance to the actor Johnny Depp. He blends into the men’s snake dance that caps the prayers, moving around with the abandon of an underage raver.
    It’s sentences like these within the article that make me think, Who wrote this?!!
    Aside from the author of this article, I agree with Estee’s son. Seeing the mingling made me very confused, I would understand if these were non-frum people coming closer which I am sure many are.
    On the other hand, I also feel like they may be frum people leaving further.
    All in all I hope they find a more permanent place to continue doing their great work.
    As for whether or not you should attend, I would say know yourself, and if you are capable of sitting through a different shul’s davening, do so.

  • no one special

    #7 Sounds like a Chabad House & therefore could produce some Ahavas Yisroel that might be contagious.
    A criticism that is not accurate is usually ignored, rather than acknowledged.

  • my thoughts

    I think the article sheds negative light on a good institution. It is not about being Carlebach, it’s a chabad shul. Many of our shuls sing Carlebach niggunim. The shul is not modern or inappropriate, it’s like a chabad house, that unfortunately got a bad rap.

    I do think Sema is wrong about women not being well represented in this community and that AY shul fixes that. Most women are home with their children on shabbos. We do not have an eruv (in accordance with the Rebbe’s hora’ahs) so the women who are going to shul are mostly single girls. Just for the record, single girls never went to shul- it is a new shtick. I am not against them attending shul but Sema, let’s call a spade a spade.

    And mingling is never called for.

  • YG

    #7: Your right on the mark

    #10: Then you never heard of the phrase, “Ahava mekalkeles es Hashura.”

    Someone who exudes genuine love of the other only sees the good in them. The same applies to hatred. It sort of jades a persons vision.

    A Cong. which touts themselves on baseless love for the other should not be maligning other Cong. within its own community, instead pointing to its own virtues, appeal and attractions that would call to people who may find interest in it.

    Anyway, as long as they are using their ‘Carlebach appeal’ to lure people in to experience Torah, Tefilla and the depth of Chassidus it should continue to succeed in its endeavors.

  • this shul..

    i don’t understand how you can be proud to open a “carlebach” style minyan when the Rebbe specifically asked carlebach to leave. it’s disrespectful. please open in park slope because i think you would do well there and people would appreciate it!
    not trying to be rude i really am being honest.

  • WOW

    there is something to be said that a majority of these comments are negative. i don’t know the shul very well but from reviewing this i don’t have a positive first impression

  • In the shadow of the tower of Bavel

    Maybe they are just mirroring what’s going on in the community at large. Just as with the politics infesting the more learned classes, there is a tendency for the group of people, with its group spirit and group identity, to become the spiritual center. There is a Chazal that one cause of the problems of amei ha’aretz is that they call “Beis HaKnesses” “Beis Ha’am”.

  • Good work!

    Very interesting – thanks for sharing. My only issue is, if it something good, which it clearly seems to be, as well as found a niche in the community, when describing it should NOT in any way come at the expense of putting/talking down to anyone else in the community, which 2 women do in the article..There is clearly enough positive to go around, no need to take a swipe at other Shuls or people!

  • good and bad

    i think its amazing that people who wouldn’t go to shul otherwise now have a place, however i’m concerned that it represents the wrong ideas. i went twice and the people there seemed to have the attitude of “i’m soooo awesome because i’m modern” and it was EXTREMELY L-A-M-E. i hope i’m wrong.

    ~a concerned soul

  • All starts form education

    As long as our frum schools keep on treating all of the students with a cookie cutter method and not giving the proper attention to each Bochur or girl there will be a need for Shuls like this in CH

  • Kan Tzivah

    Number 3 you are gerecht. A Gut yohr, may we remeber who we are and what our purpose is. And may we make it to the finish line NOW!

  • David Yarus

    So many thoughts… more so on the comments than the article.

    All in all, I moved to NY to find a strong, young Jewish community. After some searching, I decided to live in the Upper West Side. Four months ago I was introduced to Chevra Ahavas Yisroel and can honestly say I’ve never experienced anything like it, outside of Israel! I am there almost every other shabbos, travel to and from CH for weekly shiurim, and found EXACTLY what I was looking for. CAY.

    A) The davening is absolutely beautiful. If you haven’t experienced it yet, do yourself a favor and check it out. Be ready to sing, dance, and truly “celebrate” shabbos with other beautiful chevra doing the same.

    B) The people are holy. Straight up. I’ve met some of the most amazing people in my life through this shul. Truly inspired, deep, beautiful yidden dedicated to bringing light into this world.

    C) The events are out of this world. Shiurim, jam sessions, drum circles, soup and chassidus, bbq’s, you name it. I’ve left each CAY event that I’ve attended feeling uplifted and inspired to learn and grow.

    There is no other shul I’d rather be at. When I’m away for the weekend, shabbos doesn’t feel the same. It’s that special.

    If you’re frustrated that we’re on your block or in your neighborhood, donate a building for us to move into close-by! If you’re frustrated that your kids/grandkids absolutely love this shul when you’d rather them go elsewhere, talk to them about it! If you’re frustrated about the niggunim we sing, teach us some of your favorite – we’d love to sing them as well!

    Most importantly, check it out! It’s easy to hide behind anonymous names on blogs and leave critical comments without ever experiencing the shul for yourself, just going off of rumors and hearsay… My name is David Yarus, and you’re all invited to join me for the full Chevra Ahavas Yisroel shabbos experience.

    Warning: you may never want to daven anywhere else!

    Shalom in the home,

    @DavidYarus

    PS – All related info @ http://Facebook.com/ChevraA…
    PPS – listen to CAY jams @ http://soundcloud.com/Chevr…

  • Out of town Chassid

    I went to visit my cousin there in CH. Well he took me to this shul for Shabbos and I had a wonderful time. Yes there was more singing than I am use to and the Nusach was definitely Lubavitch. Plus there were a variety of age groups from young to old and everyone was very friendly. Bottom line the name of this shul is very fitting “Chevra Ahavas Yisroel”. What made the biggest impression on me was how the Rabbi did Havadaloh it was amazing. I would love to attend this shul again!

    Leshanah tovah tikateiv veteichateim!

  • Old Timer in CH

    I do not understand what everyone is so bothered about. About 60 years ago we had in CH all kinds of people. Now it has come around and other people besides LUBAVITCH CHASSIDIM have come back to crown heights. Let us hope that reform does not come back.
    As previously we can do mivtzoyim with the Jews on Eastern Parkway again.

  • From strength to Strength

    Greetings and Blessings,

    In opening, I have found the sound of chassidic tunes bellowed through your weekly prayers music to my soul.

    It’s noteworthy to mention:

    This is surely not a “Carlebach” Shul, but rather a spirited Crown Heights community Chabad Shul. Such a distinction ought to be clearly made in order to instill in those who come to the Shul and enjoy it’s atmosphere a pride in Torah no less than their pride they have in their Jewish identity.

    In light of the above, of the hundreds of Chabad songs appropriate for prayer, there are surely many jubilant and spirited enough for the youthful vibe of this Shul.
    The peak of song during the services in a prayer following Lecha Dodi sung in a traditional Chabad tune is surely a good example.
    While many other streams of orthodoxy may have few established tunes to choose from, and immediately fall-back on the well-known Carlebach repertoire, no such limitation can be found in Chabad.
    Surely the youth (those less affiliated included) would be inspired more and more progressively by pure classical chassidic tunes.
    With the numerous choices of tunes, more of the prayers can be conducted in song, this too helping those less familiar with the prayers (especially those generally recited quietly) to become accustomed to them.

    Furthermore, as the Rebbetzin is very active in the Shul and ensures that the young women who attend feel welcome and comfortable, and surely does her job very well, it is not necessary to open a mechitza even a little bit for drashas and the like in the hope that this will have more of an impact than the Rebbetzin’s hard work, especially when this may take place during prayers and Torah reading, a time when ensuring purity of thought through action (the very presence of a mechitza) is of the utmost importance. It is noteworthy to mention that continuing this practice will likely cause embarrassment to any young man should he find himself having to address the congregation in this manner he may and should feel uncomfortable doing.

    On a more decisive note, it is common in “Carlebach” Shuls to pass the Torah through the women’s section. It is my understanding that this is clearly forbidden according to Halacha. I would like to reiterate the importance of setting an example of warmth, joy and unity and what is referred to today as ‘trippiness’ specifically in the spirit of Torah.

    May the Shul be a beacon of a progressive unwavering unapologetic pride in the ways of Torah and Chassidus, affecting all it’s congregants with this contagious empowering pride.

    Good News.

  • little yid

    a shliach wrote that he has two minyanim also a beginners minyan in his chabad house
    the Rebbe said no jew is a beginner and the beginner minyan is not apropriate and should be stopped
    you can look it up

  • Actor Johnny Depp

    1) How dare you drag my name into a shul!

    2)I don’t get it. Why does it have to be a “congregation”? Can’t it just be a social society? Then you do what you want and no one can criticize. How about an after davenen “singing (swinging) kiddush club” with the drinks not the only thing mixed.

    3) My information is that the Lubavitcher Rebbe was exceptionally tolerant of people who didn’t know better. Often furiously intolerant of those who do (or should.)

    4) As we approach R“H listen to the story that the Rebbe told at a farbrengen (in 1963?).

    It was known that R’Levi Yitchak of Berdichyev had the effect of blessing barren women just by his reading the haftorah of Chana, who begged Hashem for a child.

    Well once a rather loose girl became pregnant. When confronted (by the tznius squad?) she said it was from the haftorah she heard. Then the Rebbe smiled, and said ”It really was a passing soldier, but she connected it to the Berditchyever.“

    So back to my first point. It really is your own confused state of mind, that it ”has” to be a shul, with Carlebach songs (that were not allowed by the whole spectrum of frum manhigim in the ’60’s), and you call it the Rebbe’s desire?

    Keep my name and reputation out of this. Go make a kiddush club (or for better atmosphere in a dim-lit melaveh malkeh club.) The whole shpiel, sing and dance, goes better with mashke. Didn’t the Berditchyever say so?

  • Dr. Touchy Feely

    Thank you for endorsing my concepts of spirituality.

    May you go from strength to strength, and get to where Reb Shlomo was – the real touchy-feely.

    That’s when you get the real emotional closeness and high. Take it from Reb Shlomo. He was a talmid chochom, you know.

    P.S. When you get to the real touchy feely, it will be worth while tripping along to Professer (HaTomim) Zalmen Shalomy (Schechter.) He has a special touch, especially for those who take the trip.

  • no one special

    #30 stated: “….. to pass the Torah through the women’s section. It is my understanding that this is clearly forbidden according to Halacha”

    Please name the source(s) of such a psak.

  • Did you really say that?

    It’s hard to believe that Jews who proclaim to be in a “higher place” than most that attend this shul could say some of the things they say in these comments.

  • der epple falt nisht veit fun boim.....

    This is the grandson of a guy, who, for who-knows-how-many years, was the “rabbi” of a “place of worship” (I DARE NOT CALL IT A SHUL!), in Nashville – that DOES NOT HAVE NOW, NOR EVER DID HAVE a KOSHER mechitza!?
    Yet, notwithstanding that fact, he was not shunned or criticized at all, and even is still considered a “top person in Lubavitch”!?
    He also was the ONLY one who – directly AGAINST the Rebbe’s orders – shook hands with Barry Gurarie during the seforim court case!?
    He also PERSONALLY ADVISED naive yungeleit to accept positions in places that had either NO MECHITZA or one that was not kosher?!
    He also told people that by wearing a hat & jacket – you can “alienate” people – DIRECTLY THE OPPOSITE of what the frierdiker Rebbe instructed anash to do?!

  • Is their a posek that can respond?

    In the Freideker Rebbe’s minyan on Simchas Torah, the Torah was passed to the women. Was it against halachah?

  • let me be

    why is everyone so negative, so what if we set up a tselem b’heichal, and so what if we walk around like we’re at the beach, and so what if we spit the rebbe in the face, so what if I’m pulling down the level of frumkeit in the community, it’s non of your buissness, I can do what I want, and I’ll even quote from chazal and from chassidus that I’m right.

  • Shimon L

    Seems to me that we sang We Want Moshiach Now with Shlomo Carlebach’s Mikimi-mikimi tune in Gan Yisroel every year, and probably several others, and no one said anything about that making the Rebbe cry.

  • chaim

    Is CH about being one type of person? What happened to thinking?
    Is there not many ways to reach out to hahem and why cant one be chabad but yet take on other things too? We all pick and choose don’t we?
    – I am not perfect so I cannot judge you for being imperfect, as imperfection cannot judge perfectly.

  • im confused

    this place sounds nice in some ways but i read so many negative comments..this stuff has to stem from somewhere. but you know what..instead of judging i shall go check it out myself! until then, goodluck!

  • The new Rebbe

    Chezzy is like the knew REBBE… Its like
    Amazing …when he starts to sing the crowd startd when he stops
    They also stop, when changing tune, the same ….. Its just amazinh
    What goes on therr!!z

  • R L

    the Rebbe didn’t allow Moshiach Times to have *drawings* of little girls and boys playing together. If the girls were on the swings, the boys were on the slides. Or there was a tree between where the girls and boys were sittng. There was always a mechitza – even in a drawing of little children.

    Here here is no mechitza in the pre- and post-dvenning social gatherings. This mingling is a sin. It is not CHABAD! IT IS NOT TORAHDIK.

    May you have much success in finding a new location in PARK SLOPE, And take all the chabad-but-not-frum-ANYMORE crowd with you. Crown Heights is he Rebbes shchcunah. If you don’t like it, leave. There are more than enough frum chassidim and baalei teshuva who would love to move into Crown Heights, so please make room for them – they deserve your respect as they are moving up the ladder, not down.

  • To # 30

    30. curious wrote: Just wonder if the women there are dressed al pi halacha”
    hello? Were you drinking t their kiddush? Even if every woman there would be dressed 100% tzniusly, sheital covering every hair; collar bone, elbows and knees covered; legs covered; and garment are not tight or flashy; and no red nail polish, etc etc the ATMOSPHERE IS THE ANTITHESIS OF TZNIUS!
    this is a very sad moment for klal yisroel, for chabad, for the Rebbe.
    The King is in the field, nd if He’s crying, it ain’t from Hay Fever!

  • For what it-s worth, my two cents...

    770’s women’s section was always full Friday nights. Not so in non-Chabad shuls.

    Addendum to #48: The Rebbe wanted the same number of girls and boys in
    the cover photos on Moshiach Times, but of course separated as you describe.

  • It-s a Lubavitcher shul y-all!

    Reading all these comments gives me that whole “welcome to the 90s” feel.

  • i disagree

    Im sososo tired of these stupid comments. I personally think half of the lubavitch community in crown heights are idiots. lubavitchers always preach that they are the best and yet they dont accept others. Hashem looks at a person for the good that they do and that they try to be good people and make the right choices.

    i personally LOVE chevra ahavas yisroel. i hardly open up a siddur because i personally pray in other ways – however every single friday night i go to CAY and the songs and prayer full of love and every neshama there elevates my own neshama and i feel more connected to gd. i am SO grateful that this shul opened! May it continue to attract more and more people!

  • Nisht Gut

    I think its disgraceful, yes and extremely disgusting that this kehila would dare to enter crown heights, the Rebbes schuna and the place of beis moshiach. Carlbach was asked by the Rebbe to leave, so why would this carlbach group dare return!?

  • dovid

    we need to do somthing about improving the tznios in ch look when you go down lee av are 13 av the way girls walk around for the new year lets wish arself a happy and helthy new year and give the rebbe alot of nachas

  • Dovid

    I see from all the nay sayers if logic and reason does not win your arguments you can follow the path like comment 48 and lie. Shlomo Carlebach niggunim are not against Halacha. Shem Rah is. But it is clear those who have a problem it has nothing to do with Torah or Chassidus but rather culture.

  • shloime freundlich

    to #39 How dare you write like that about Rabbi Zalman Posner a older jew a older Chassid and gentlman(not part of the Chabad Russian culture) who is now sick.The rebbe trusted him to talk and write books on Jewish Mysticism talk to symposiums about Judaism he wrote Think Jewish the first book of its kind.Transleted Likutei Amarim Tanya etc. He gave Chabad emissaries the tools to teach Chassidus. About how kosher the partition was at Sherith Israel Nashville, TN
    I dont know ,I heard him talk many times in a hat and jacket .You can call him at his sons home in Palm Springs CA and ask forgiveness .Do you have no shame to drag a old man through the mud on the eve of Rosh Hashna

  • Not holy and not sweet

    I am practically allergic to most of Carlebach’s music, and I will not refer to him as anything but Carlebach, ever since I saw him “perform” years ago, in all senses of the word. (Victims of his have told me stories as well – he had no control over his tyvos.) I also know of a respected shaliach who happens to be a big fan of his music (no accounting for taste) but who makes it clear that Carlebach himself was a menuval and a freak.

    On the other hand, we all know the situation in Crown Heights. We also know that Chezzy and Sima Denebeim are not doing or encouraging the kind of things Carlebach did. They are just meeting a need, an unfortunate need when it comes to children of Anash who lost their way, but a very understandable need for some less conformist baalei tshuva and for Jewish Park Slope types who are moving into CH.

    We are not Jewland New Square and we can’t throw people out of the shechuna. We can, however, allow and encourage those who are not 100% part of our world to find their way even if it isn’t exactly our way. Better that they should do this in CH and under the guidance of a young Lubavitcher couple than in some other non-frum or far lower standards framework.

    Even if I still lived in CH you would not catch me dead davening in CAY except maybe on Purim or if I was passing by and they needed a minyan on a weekday. But I am happy to see that others, who otherwise might not go to shul at all, are crowding in there.

  • Woman of Slander

    Amazing…nearly every woman from Ahavas Yisrael quoted in the story slanders Crown Heights. I attend the shul frequently and have defended it multiple times but the truth is, but I am completely turned off by these attacks on Crown Heights them come out in every story about the shul.

  • Ahuva

    David your description of this shul left me really wanting to go there and experience shabbos there or yom tov.
    thanks

  • CH newbie

    I moved to CH three years ago, and started shlepping EVERY Shabbos to a nearby Chabad house (an hour walk each way!) because the shuls in this neighborhood were so boring, uninspiring, and even rude. Nevermind that you can’t hear the davening over the men talking. Lecha Dodi, in most shuls, is sung by like two people and mumbled by the rest. My shliach from my old community told me to move home rather than become spiritually bored and uninspiried here, cv’s, which is the worst thing for a BT such as myself. I have been told to “get out of my seat/the way” at a CH shul reported to be “friendly” to newcomers. My Hebrew isn’t great, so I like an English/Hebrew siddur, which is often nowhere to be found in CH, etc. (There are exactly two ratty old copies in 770, and a few in Empire Shteibl. Other than that, I’ve never seen any. For RH, I’m donating some new copies to 770.) YASHER KOYACH to Ahavos Yisoel for even trying to bring uplifiting davening back to CH. May we all be zoche to have the BEST davening again, with the Rebbe, in 770, again RIGHT NOW.

  • Maura Jacobson

    “nearly every woman from Ahavas Yisrael quoted in the story slanders Crown Heights”

    Lets break this nugget of wisdom down for clarification purposes only.

    Exactly two women from ahavas yisroel were quoted; One of them the Rebbetzin Denebaum and the other, a congregant.

    So essentially you’re saying “nearly all of the TWO women quoted, slandered crown heights”. “Nearly” means not all which in this case would mean only ONE of the women quoted slandered crown heights.
    So said another way, “ONE woman slandered crown heights”. And you’re turned off as a result. Good. I was just checking.

    Parenthetically, I seriously doubt if the shul needs you to defend it at all, let alone “multiple times”.

    Have a delightful day!

  • Yisroel King

    To clarify and defend R Posner, The mechitza in Nashville TN is not a mechitiza that any chosid would ever hold by (being the lowest permissible height al pi halacha) this posed no problem because R posner did not daven in the shul on shabbos (weekdays being in a smaller room with a kosher mechitza). Nashville was his shluchus given to him by the Frediker Rebbe, the shul and congregation had already been there for 50 years prior. Everytime I saw him at shul or outside he was always dressed like a true chosid. He was the one who showed me (through example) how to be a chosid of the Rebbe.

  • CH is on life support

    face the truth CH, this shul did not come from nowhere. You have loads of disaffected people who were looking for some authenticity & found it thru chezzy. this shul would have flopped 20 yrs ago.
    today with every rav, RY in CH being #1 political animal, #2 semi chossid when it fits their agenda, people are looking for something simple authentic accepting, and chezzie provides it.
    all the power to him!!

  • Chatche Faigin

    #53 seems like you have no idea what your talking about asked to leave by who when where quote your fictional story source please oh wait thats righ it never happened just a rumor

  • A big chevreman

    Who do they think they are to be bringing Ahavas Yisroel into Crown Heights? If anyone feels that it’s hard for them to keep to our standards of Tznius, Kashrus, and Sinas Chinam, let them live somewhere else! We understand that you’re struggling, and you try to do what you can, but if you can’t even think of one nasty thing to say to someone, you don’t belong in our neighborhood!

  • to 62

    You left out a few important points:
    He DID attend the Shabbos/Saturday services – so, whether or not he “davened” is irrelevant – He gave a passive “hechsher” to that un-kosher mechitza. period.
    Second; He went to Nashville to work at a day school. He was NEVER sent by the Frierdiker Rebbe or anyone else to take a job in a Conservative Temple!? This came about because he needed more money than he was getting at the day-school.
    Third; I really can’t wait for the load of tiniff as to why he shook hands with someone whom the Rebbe EXPLICITLY instructed EVERYONE GOING to the courthouse NOT TO HAVE ANY CONTACT WITH WHATSOEVER!? Yet, the good ole’ “chossid” listened to every single detail?!
    You can defend, explain, interpret all you want, bottom line is;
    tiniff is shmutz is dreck is tiniff is garbage.

  • Sad fact about 770

    The sad fact of the matter is that 770 is a total turn off and off-limits to many, many Chassidim. When will the Rebbe zt”l’s shul be cleaned out – I mean take down the Meshichist signs and activities – and returned to its former glory?

  • brad pitt

    lets set the record straight chezzi does not look like jonny depp at all! more like george lopez with a beard!

  • SM

    Not having much Ahavas Yisroel myself, I just want to bless those who uphold those very important values the Rebbe held so dear; like spewing hatred publicly, spreading loshon hora (thanks for all the dirt on Posner….I had no idea he was such an evil guy)and insisting that anyone who doesn’t hold to your standard get the heck out. I bless you all that the Aibershter should only judge you as harshly as you judge others.

  • My neighborhood too

    To all those who claim this is “their neighborhood” and no one else has a right to do anything different in Crown Heights – I have some startling news for you:

    You don’t “own” the neighborhood. You are way out of bounds to try to dictate to other people what to do. This is America, and it is a free country, especially with regard to religious freedom, the centerpiece of its founding and constitution.

    Please learn to live and let live. If you don’t like it leave it. Go back to Russia if you think it is better there.

  • Simple

    This shechuna needs rabbonim so desperately. Our youngsters are crying out for authentic guidance. Without it there is no clarity.

  • YK

    I’m sorry to whoever number 69 is that Rabbi Posner’s greatness as a chosid and a yid intimidates you and makes you feel bad about yourself which has led you to lie publicly about someone in such sad and embarrassing way. I know he would forgive you. May you inscribed and sealed.

  • 69

    and you are obviously doing EXACTLY what the Rebbe told you to do. interesting that you are the only one who got the loshon hara shulichus. He would be proud, your really good at it.

  • So fed up with your negativity.

    in response to the comments about women’s slander…. perhaps they are saying it b/c there is truth to it, and for you… the truth hurts. They wouldn’t say it otherwise. True, its not tactful, nor positive, which is unfortunate, but that’s the way they feel. DEAL WITH IT.Perhaps you should do something to improve the situation. Somone once said, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. PICK YOUR SIDE OR SHUT IT. Its frickin ELUL, find some love and spread it.