Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn
Joseph Isaac Schneersohn (Hebrew יוסף יצחק שניאורסאהן; born June 21, 1880 in Lubavitch, Mogilev Governorate, Russian Empire; † January 28, 1950 in New York) was the sixth " Rebbe " ( spiritual leader ) of the Chabad movement, a Hasidic group within orthodox Judaism. He is also known as Rebbe Rayatz ( an acronym for Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak ).
Life and activities
Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, was born in Lubavitch, the only child of Rabbi Shalom Dovber Schneersohn (1860-1920), the fifth Rebbe of the Chabad dynasty. At the age of 15 he was appointed private secretary to his father. 1897, at the age of 17, he married a distant cousin, Nechama Dina Schneersohn. In 1898 he took over the management of Jeschiwat Tomche Tmimim. With the financial support of Jewish patrons, he founded weaving in Dubrowno and Mogilev, to create jobs for the Jewish population. During the Russo- Japanese War in 1904, he organized kosher food supply for Jewish soldiers. Between 1902 and 1911 he was imprisoned by the tsarist police four times for his activism, but released each time.
After the death of his father, Rabbi Shalom Dovber Schneersohn, in 1920, Yosef Yitzchak took over the leadership of the Chabad movement.
Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn was an open opponent of the communist regime and kept his followers explicitly to establish religious schools and Mikvaot (ritual baths ).
In 1927 he was arrested and detained in Schpalerno prison in Leningrad. He was accused of counter-revolutionary activities and sentenced to death. A worldwide protest from Western governments and the International Red Cross forced the communist regime, the death penalty in a three-year exile to turn to Kostroma in the Urals. Also, this judgment was set aside, and Schneersohn in 1928 to leave for Latvia approved. From 1934 to 1939 he lived in Warsaw and Otwock Poland.
After the start of the German attack on Poland in 1939, Schneerson escaped with the help Wilhelm Canaris in the United States. There he settled down in New York's Crown Heights, where he lived until his death in 1950.
In 1942 he founded the publishing house Kehot - an acrostic of Karnej Hod Torah (Hebrew, " rays of the glory of the Torah "). The three Hebrew letters are the year תק"ה (5505/1745), the year of birth of the founder of Chabad, Schneur Zalman. Kehot currently publishes over 600 titles in the field of Hebrew Chassidic philosophy. It publishes also in English, Spanish and Russian. with the exception of multi-volume work Sedej Chemed of Rabbi Chaim Cheskia Medini Kehot published exclusively books relating to the Chabad Hasidism.
In 1948, Schneerson in the newly established State of Israel Kfar Chabad village near Tel Aviv.
Schneersohn also posted in the late 1940 years young rabbi in several cities in the United States and Morocco, to support the local Jewish communities. He called this Shluchim Rabbi (Hebrew " Messenger "). This procedure was later continued by his son, R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson and much stronger.
Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn had three daughters:
Torah works
The Torah Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn of works are united in the series Sefer Ha - maamarim. Among these is the Sefer Ha - maamarim Yiddish Hasidic Torah commentary from the years 1941-1945, which were not the usual printed in Hebrew, but in Yiddish. Parts of his correspondence were published under the title Igrot Kodesh (13 vol ). In his Sefer Ha - Sichot (6 vol ) and Likkute Dibburim (2 vol ), he has published numerous traditions from the Hasidic movement, beginning with Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov to Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak 's own childhood. He had heard in the course of his life from related members of the Schneersohn dynasty or older Hasidim These traditions. Many of the traditional Hasidic stories are provided by Yitzchak Schneersohn Joseph with practical instructions for the service of God; sometimes he situates it in the context of the theoretical doctrine of Hasidism. In his Sefer Ha - Sichronot ( "Book of Memories", Vol 2 ) he describes many of these stories in a detailed version without theoretical derivations. The anthology of Chabad Chabad Sipure stories Ozar (18 vol ) uses a wide part of texts by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak.
In the years 1941-1945 Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak published the magazine Ha - ha - Kria we Kedusha, which should make the Jewish communities in the United States carefully under Nazi rule in Europe to the precarious situation of the Jews.