Anshe Libowitz אנשי ליובאוויטש: The Nazi Who Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe

The Nazi Who Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe - Tablet Mag.

When war broke out on Sept. 1, 1939, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, was staying in Otwock, a resort town outside of Warsaw where he’d established a Chabad yeshiva. The Rebbe was suffering from multiple sclerosis, he was overweight and a heavy smoker. He walked with difficulty.

The journey from Otwock to Warsaw was only 60 kilometers, but perilous. The Luftwaffe’s Stutka war planes bombed and strafed traffic and destroyed rail lines, leaving mutilated bodies and dead horses littering the road. Roadside ditches were filled with Poles hiding from the planes, which they called “death on wings.”

The Rebbe arrived in Warsaw with his family and a group of students, hoping to catch a train to Riga, Latvia, where Mordecai Dubin, a Chabad follower and member of the Latvian parliament, had arranged Latvian citizenship for the rabbi and his family. But Rabbi Schneersohn found the Warsaw train station destroyed and was forced to seek shelter among Chabad followers in the city.

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"Belief in the coming of Moshiach and awaiting his imminent arrival is a basic tenet of the Jewish faith. It is clear, however, that conjecture as to the possible identity of Moshiach is not part of the basic tenet of Judaism. The preoccupation with identifying the Rebbe (zatza"l) as Moshiach is clearly contrary to the Rebbe's wishes. Together with the whole of Klal Yisrael we pray for the fulfillment of our collective yearning for Moshiach, in the spirit of the timeless Jewish declaration: ‘I await his (Moshiach's) coming each and every day." Vaad Rabbonei Lubavitch

“Ich halt [I hold] that Brisk is more anti-Zionist than Satmar. For a simple reason I’ll tell you. To Chabad and Brisk, yahadus is identified with Torah, with knowledge, with a conceptual system. As such, it is universal. You cannot say ‘On that spot of land there is a covenant between God and his people, and in another geographical spot there is no covenant.’ The Torah is the center.... This is Rav Chaim. This is Chabad also... Chabad speaks very little about Eretz Yisroel.” Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

I will pursue with delight Thy commandments which I have come to love. Tehillim 119:47

My son, forget not My instruction, and may your heart keep My commandments for they shall add length of days and years of life and peace to you. Misheli 3:1

The end of the matter, everything having been heard, fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the entire man. Koheles 12:13

זְ֭מִרוֹת הָֽיוּ־לִ֥י חֻקֶּ֗יךָ בְּבֵ֣ית מְגוּרָֽי׃

Your laws are a source of strength to me wherever I may dwell. Tehillim 119

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The Nazi Who Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe - Tablet Mag.