A synagogue’s decision to abandon a study course after a religious commentary was pronounced “racist” has been criticized as “outrageous” and “spineless” in the latest edition of the shul magazine.
London’s Hampstead Garden Suburb United Synagogue, one of Britain’s biggest synagogues, discontinued an adult-education class on the Tanya earlier this year, following objections by three senior congregants, the Jewish Chronicle reported. The Tanya is an 18th-century philosophic text written by the founder of Lubavitch Chassidism, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi.
In the current edition of the synagogue magazine, columnist David Lew denounced the decision.
“We Jews have suffered continuously from censorship and book-burning, usually by the Christians and occasionally self-inflicted.” Mr. Lew writes in his “Moans and Groans” column. “But to find it going on in our own community is truly outrageous, and the victory of the gang of three is bitterly disappointing. The shul’s reaction to the objections of those members was, to say the least, spineless.”
The protests had come from professor Steve Miller, a former vice-chairman of the synagogue, Vivian Wineman, the senior vice-president of the Board of Deputies, and member Dan Rickman.
Mr. Wineman said: “The text contains comments about Jewish superiority which we regard as racist and unacceptable. If the local church were running a course which said that gentiles were superior spiritually to Jews, we would think that should not be tolerated.”
He added: “The Board of Deputies’ slogan is ‘racism isn’t kosher.’ Do we mean that racism isn’t kosher for non-Jews, but all right for Jews?”
The synagogue had “done well”, he said, “to take a stand and say no. Lubavitchers are nice people, but Lubavitch philosophy has elements which are unacceptable.”
Prof. Miller explained that he felt a “small section” of the Tanya which talks about non-Jews is “frankly racist and morally objectionable. Whilst I wouldn’t dream of censoring what individual members do, I do feel that the shul should not be sponsoring a course which disseminated the Tanya.”
But Mr. Lew responded: “The shul was recently littered with posters advertising a communal lunch which depicted Jesus, and I have difficulty understanding the hashkafah [loosely translated as philosophy] which allowed images of a founder of a religion which has caused us constant misery for 2,000 years to be plastered around our premises, yet finds the teaching of a major work of Chassidic philosophy to be offensive.”
Bernard Taub, the chairman of HGS, would not enter into the conversation of the issue. “The whole thing is dead and buried,” he said.
Chosen People On at least three occasions, the Torah refers to the Jewish People as the Chosen People. Before we received the Torah, G-d tells the Jews through Moshe ‘and you will be unto me chosen from amongst all the nations’ (Shemos xix:5). As we are prepared for coming into the Land, we are reminded ‘G-d has chosen you to be a preferred nation from all the nations’ (Devorim vii:6). And finally, as Moshe prepares for his own passing, he reminds the Jews ‘and G-d has chosen you today, to be for Him as a Chosen Nation’ (Devorim xxvi:18). This… Read more »
It is inconceivable that a synagogue would ban the study of one of the standards of Chassidic “literature”. The Alter Rebbe is just esposing the view that is held in the Torah that the Torah and the World was created solely for the Jewish people. It was us that He chose and not the others. To say that the Tanya is racist and to ban it is tantamount to the same self hatred that was evident when the Rambam’s works were burned by Yidden themselves, not Christian censors. Please, in order for Mashiach to come and redeem us, and I… Read more »
there will be a response published next week by a Lubavitcher.
lol!!! Mr. David Lew is not Rabbi Shmuel Lew…
In the New Testament (the Chsristian literature) it says alot of ofensive things about Jews, we are called the “devil”, we are eternaly dammed-as we did not accept “you-know-who”, and yet i have not seen the british board of Deputies, or anyone for that matter, say anything. So to say that the Tanya is Racist, is absurd.
Mr Lew, quoted in the article, is not RABBI Lew. Mr Lew is a columnist in the magazine, not a chabad chosid.
Rabbi Lew could’ve explained what the tanya is about in the article, it would have done more good.
Why doesn’t Rabbi Lew explain Tanya, instead of the usual “self hating jews” rhetoric.
i find it hard to believe that someone should think tanya is racist
Self-hating Jews.
why would they do that?!
Wow !Three world famous intellectuals of the Hampstead Synagogue have declared that the Tanya is racist. Perhaps they should study the Torah too, because according to these three , it too would be racist, as would be the entire Talmud etc etc etc . Oh please, at least be credible.