by Yaacov Behrman
<%image(20090311-berger.jpg|200|158|David Berger)%>
Much to my surprise, Prof. David Berger’s recent lecture at Yivo was entertaining, well structured and some of the quotes were even accurate. It amazed me because I had previously heard Prof. Berger speak on the Zev Brenner Show eight years ago, and back then he sounded disoriented, untrained and extremely boring. I guess, after deprecating and insulting Chabad for so many years, he’s actually getting good at it.
The crowd at Yivo that night consisted mostly of middle class Yiddish speaking secular Jews who, based on their applause, seemingly enjoyed hearing Prof. Berger depict Lubavitch as a radical, unbalanced and delusional sect.
Though Berger fabricated statistics and dishonestly described pamphlets like Nekuda Hachabadi, written mostly by young 19 year old Israeli yeshiva students, as a highly regarded textbook in the Chabad Movement. To his credit, he stayed away from attacking the Lubavitcher Rebbe personally. He kept his lecture focused on the alleged beliefs of members of the movement.