3. The Founding of Chabad- Lubavitch in South Africa
3.2 Chabad’s outreach philosophy and its application in Johannesburg 114
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once comprised his small core of followers still speak of being “mesmerised” by this talk and attribute it and other talks to their becoming keen volunteers for Lipskar’s outreach activities in Johannesburg, and for eventually becoming emissaries themselves.107
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According to this worldview, it made little sense to expend large resources to obtain full observance by a relatively small group of people when the same resources could be more efficiently spent by persuading a wider audience to follow a few additional commandments.
Moreover, Schneersohn considered it crucial to introduce Jewish observance to as many unaffiliated Jews as possible as he saw their re-identification with the Jewish people as part of the redemptive process. After comparing the coming of the messiah to the Revelation at Sinai, he cited the homiletical work Deuteronomy Rabbah which states “that were the Jews [at Mount Sinai] to have been lacking even one individual -- even one on the lowest level -- the Divine presence would not have been revealed at the Giving of the Torah.”113 Pursuant to this interpretation, the Rebbe surmised that the messiah could likewise only appear if every single Jew, irrespective of his or her level of observance, had been taught to identify as a Jew. It followed then that it was vital to educate as many Jews as possible in basic Judaism for no one knew if and when the critical number would be reached to induce messianic redemption. This led the Rebbe in 1967 to launch his first worldwide mitzvah campaign, directing Chabad organizations and emissaries to set up booths for laying Tefillin
[phylacteries] by any Jew identifying as such and agreeing to do so.114 This was followed over the next decade by campaigns that included encouraging women and their daughters to light candles on the Sabbath eve. These campaigns probably placed Lubavitch in contact with more Jews than any other Orthodox organization.
Loyal to his Rebbe, Lipskar was eager to implement this type of outreach. Soon after the High Holidays and still in his first year, he arranged for a mobile Sukkah which he parked outside the popular Checkers supermarket in Yeoville in 1972. Assisted by the youth of his community, he approached any person exiting the supermarket and ask them whether they were Jewish. If the person answered affirmatively, and if he appeared positively inclined, they would offer him to shake the four species as is customary during the festival. This public and assertive approach was foreign to South African Orthodoxy.115 This type of activity expanded over the years to become a hallmark of Chabad and was regularly featured in the Jewish and general press. Other initiatives included a public sukkah in the centre of town;116
113 Letter (no. 492) from the Rebbe to unnamed recipient, May 1949.
114 Kaplan, “The Mitzvah Campaign of Tefillin”; Silberberg “The Tefillin Campaign in Halacha.”
115 See Hazdan, interview.
116 “Central city Sukkah did brisk “business,” SAJT, 15 October 1980; “City Sukkah Succeeds,” SAJT, 22 October 1982. “Central City Sukkah,” SAJT, 23 September 1983.
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an annual Purim festive meal and Purim activities for children;117 blowing the shofar at various hospitals for Jewish patients and doctors;118 touring the length and breadth of the country during the summer holidays in a giant mobile caravan known as the Mitzvah tank;119 lighting a giant Chanukah menorah in one of the central malls of Johannesburg;120 and arranging a parade with impressive floats on the minor holiday of Lag B’Omer.121
On the whole these activities appear to have been welcomed by the community at large and received positive notice in Jewish newspapers.122 Criticism of Chabad did
occasionally appear in the press, as we shall discuss later, but rarely was it focused on these energetic initiatives. Chabad was also involved in many educational innovations, but did not set out to produce Torah scholars, certainly not out of the unaffiliated.123 In contradistinction to the Kollel’s belief that only those involved in fulltime learning were qualified to engage in outreach, Chabad believed that the emissary and other outreach workers could ill afford to advance their own knowledge at the cost of less engagement with the non-observant. A decade before Chabad’s involvement in South Africa, the Rebbe specifically criticized those who prioritized study over outreach. He asserted that since the previous Rebbe, Yosef Yitzhak Schneersohn, sacrificed his personal growth for the sake of the Jews at large, there was no excuse for an aspiring Torah scholar not to make a similar sacrifice.124 Following suit, Lipskar was also critical of those movements in Johannesburg that he felt could have been more energetic in their educational endeavours.125
3.3 Rabbi Goldman and the Chabad House
Aside from running outreach activities, Lipskar also set about building his own
congregation. Initially he did not imagine that his congregants were ready for full observance
117 OH, “Lubavitch Discotheque”, Zionist Record, 31 March 1978; “Grand Affair”, SAJT, 12 March 1980; “Lively time at Lubavitch Purim dinner,” Zionist Record, 3 April 1981; “Lubavitch Parcels for Purim,” SAJT, 11 March 1981.
118YG, “A hectic month,” Zionist Record, 10 November 1978; “Blowing Shofars for the Sick,” SAJT, 24 September 1982.
119 “The Trek of the Mitzvah Tank,” SAJT, 18 January 1978.
120 “Chief Rabbi to Light up Chanukah candles,” The Star, 8 December 1981. “Large Crowds at Chanukah Festivities,” The Jewish Herald, 5 January 1982; “Festival of Lights,” The Citizen, 3 December 1982.
121 “Join the parade!” Zionist Record, 2 May 1980.
122 See for example, Russel Sadowsky, “Jolly Shofar Blowers (letter to the editor), Jewish Herald, 26 October 1982.
123 Later, upon setting up their own educational institutions, they eventually established a Yeshiva, but that was a decade later (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubavitch_Yeshiva_Gedolah_of_Johannesburg ).
124Letter from the Rebbe to unnamed recipient July 8, 1965
https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/letters/default_cdo/aid/2201431/jewish/On-the-Urgent-Need-to-Spread-Torah- to-All-Jews.htm, accessed on 7 December 2021.
125 See Lipskar, interview. Interestingly, though he differs with Ohr Somayach on philosophical grounds, Lipskar is impressed with many of their initiatives.
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and for adopting the rigorous Hassidic lifestyle and garb, yet a fair number appeared to have done so. Looking back, he attributed the success of this period to the conservative nature of South African society at that time and its strict emphasis on group differences. Since Jews were classified as white but felt uncomfortable among the Afrikaans and English-speaking populations, he surmised that it drove a higher than usual number to a fuller embrace of Judaism.126 Others point to the fact that many of the newly observant members who joined Lipskar’s Hassidic congregation were formerly associated with the Kollel who preferred the rabbi’s fewer demands and less intensive study schedule. Naturally, this caused friction between the two innovator movements, but the tensions do not appear to have left any lasting marks.127
Lipskar’s growing congregation diverted his attention from his larger outreach projects. Realising he needed an assistant, he reached out to his former New Yorker study partner, Rabbi Yossy Goldman, who agreed to join him in 1976.128 Soon after Goldman’s arrival, Lipskar charged him with opening and directing a Chabad House in Yeoville. This venue was to serve as the centre for designing outreach projects, aimed at all Jews,
irrespective of their level of observance.129Almost immediately on becoming director,
Goldman launched a Jewish radio hour, the “Jewish Sound”, which aired Sunday evenings on shortwave Swazi radio. He featured Israeli and Hassidic songs, as well as excerpts of Jewish plays, which were read in this new emissary’s mellifluous radio voice.130 Not only did this showcase Chabad’s pioneering spirit, but since it was exempt from paying hosting fees to Swazi radio owner Izzy Kirsh, it also presumably managed to earn Chabad modest revenue by selling advertisements on the show.131 These funds would come in handy for Goldman’s other technological innovations which included the development of the Torahphone. Every week Goldman recorded a one-minute message on the portion of the week or other Jewish Holiday that could be accessed by any telephone across Johannesburg.132 In-person programs
126 Ibid.
127 Former Kollel members have anonymously described Chabad’s “poaching” of Kollel members. In Bacher, interview, Bacher admitted to this, but analogized it to young people shopping for different ideas.
128 See Yossy Goldman, “Being a Shaliach in South Africa”(video presentation) at https://www.torahcafe.com/rabbi-yossy-goldman/being-a-shliach-in-south-africa-video_ffd94a747.html.
accessed on 7 December 2021.
129 Mendel Lipskar, “Transcript of Speech on Chabad’s Activities” (SAJBD Archives), undated.
130 David Brown, “You do have to be Jewish”, The Star, 22 September 1976; “The Jewish Sound is Catching On,”
Jewish Herald, 5 October 1976; Advertorial, “The Jewish Sound: Sixth Anniversary Supplement,” SAJT, 8 October 1982. This report states that many of the Jewish Sound’s features were copied by radio stations across England, Australia, and the United States.
131 See Rabbi Yossy Goldman, interview by author, (Johannesburg, September, 2019).
132 “Torahphone two years old,” Jewish Herald, 8 February 1983.
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at the Chabad House included weekly lectures in ethics and Hassidism for a co-educational group of young adults, special classes for the elderly, and the annual gender-segregated day camp for school children.133 These initiatives were not reliant on technology but were distinguishable from those of other institutions by their savvy branding and careful appeal to the public.134 This marketing strategy probably attracted some wealthy backers. Even if some programs charged fees, these would not have been sufficient to cover this scale of activities.
Certainly, Lipskar and Goldman understood, like Chabad emissaries the world over, that fundraising was part and parcel of their mission. Even so, exact information as to the sources of the funding is unavailable.
In 1986, with the Rebbe’s blessings, Goldman officially left Chabad to assume the position of rabbi of the Sydenham Highland North Congregation, a synagogue that probably had the largest attendance in Johannesburg.135 While it appears that nothing overtly
Lubavitch was introduced to this synagogue , it is noteworthy that most of the other
rabbinical staff at that shul were themselves attached to Chabad. Furthermore, this position most likely paved the way for Goldman to become chairman and later president of the South African Rabbinical Association for many years.136 In any event, Goldman’s departure from Chabad activity coincided with the geographical expansion of Chabad. Whereas most Lubavitchers during the 1970s were concentrated in the Yeoville and Observatory areas, many gradually migrated north to Orchards and Sydenham, especially after Chabad’s premier educational institution, the Torah Academy, was established in that area in 1981. Since the school also housed an attractive synagogue, it became popular with the Chabad members and, in a matter of a few years, its number rivalled that of the original Chassidim shul in Yeoville.
This migration, which accelerated during the mid-1980s, arguably marked the end of the formative period for the Chabad movement in Johannesburg. From the beginning of the 1970s Chabad played a major role in the revolution of Orthodox life in Johannesburg. In the decades that followed, as we shall note in a later chapter, it continued to grow as a strong faction of the Orthodox observant community, but its role appears to have assumed a very different character.
133 “Project T.E.A.C.H Teaches,” Zionist Record, 10 December 1982. “Engaging the Ageing,” SAJT, 25 June 1982. “Johannesburg’s First Jewish Day Camp,” SAJT, 19 June 1979.
134 For example, the public lectures were called T.E.A.C.H (Torah Education at Chabad House).
135 See Goldman, interview. Though Goldman had left Chabad, the synagogue that employed him permitted him to continue broadcasting the Jewish Sound, which he did, for the next twenty years.
136 Goldman, interview.
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In concluding this outline of Chabad’s history and founding, it is important to revisit an aspect unique to Chabad that was not found in any of the other Orthodox camps in
Johannesburg.137 This was attachment to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. As mentioned, his outreach philosophy accounted for the movement’s emphasis on reaching as many Jews as possible.138 The attachment each emissary feels toward the Rebbe (who passed away more than a quarter of a century ago) is a source of major division between Chabad and the other organizations.
The heads of the non-Hassidic movements have all had their mentors, whom they
occasionally cite as inspirations. Lipskar and Hazdan, by contrast, constantly remind their audiences of the continued impact that their relationship with the Rebbe has had on them.139 Goldman has even argued that the Rebbe’s assurances that South Africa would remain a hospitable place for Jews was responsible for sustaining Jewish life in the Republic
throughout tumultuous 1980s and 1990s.140 In the sections which follow, where we analyse the general impact of the pioneering innovators on the broader community, the Rebbe’s shadow looms large in all controversies involving Chabad.