# Their target, however, is secular Jews. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 14, 2008, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578 "2008-09-14T18:09:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/1 "2008-09-14T18:09:52Z")
Amusing slice of life [The Crown Heights Lubavitchers](http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-08-27/news/the-crown-heights-lubavitchers/) > [@](#): > > Like many other young men in Crown Heights, Itzik Balulu studies the Talmud and other Jewish texts from early in the morning to well into the night. > > But you should see his ride. When he’s not ensconced in 770 Eastern Parkway, the center of the Chabad-Lubavitch universe, the 26-year-old Israeli and his crew drive around in a blinged-out Cadillac, a regular kandy-kolored streamline baby. Oy vey. > > The Caddy, which they bought a few years ago, is bright yellow and covered with enormous decals featuring a “King Messiah” crown and a picture of the messiah himself: Rebbe Menachem M. Schneerson. A dollar bill is attached to the upper right corner of the windshield—a symbol of the rebbe’s practice of handing out dollar bills to his visitors to give to charity. > [@](#): > > Kanevsky’s is a world of constant miracles. Pictures of the rebbe plaster the walls of her third-floor apartment. Every night, she and her friends put on a trance CD of traditional Yiddish hymns set to techno music, and they dance for hours. They take belly-dancing classes that can start at midnight. Her cell-phone ringtone plays the Hebrew messianic slogan Yechi ha Melech, which roughly translates as “Long Live the King Messiah Forever and Ever.” She answers the phone with these same words. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/2 "2008-09-14T20:25:08Z")
Yep, they’re the local loonies. Still, as crazy fundies go? You rather have them as neighbors, or the Phelpses? They feel Schneerson is the messiah? Well, they’re wrong, objectively, by the tenets of mainstream judiasm, but there are worse things to be wrong about. At least they’re having fun with it. ---
**Author:** ![Avumede](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/avumede/32/7235_2.png) [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/3 "2008-09-15T03:44:35Z")
I thought that only a small segment of Lubavitchers believe Schneerson is the messiah. The rest are, comparatively, sane. ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/4 "2008-09-15T04:14:42Z")
Nobody really knows how to quantify how many Lubavitch people are messianists, but I will say that in the (admittedly nonrandom) sample of those I know or have met, the majority of them are, some more publicly than others. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/5 "2008-09-15T05:01:26Z")
> [@Avumede](#): > > I thought that only a small segment of Lubavitchers believe Schneerson is the messiah. The rest are, comparatively, sane. You mean this tiny group is already undergoing a schism? ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/6 "2008-09-15T05:28:59Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > You mean this tiny group is already undergoing a schism? You kidding? The Hasidim are all about schisms. Their schisms have schisms. You really need to read Boychiks in the Hood. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/7 "2008-09-15T10:27:43Z")
Far as I can tell, most of them think he’s the messiah. Just some are more public about it than others. But yeah, get two jews in a room, you got three sides of an argument. Just because it’s an old joke doesn’t make it any less true. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/8 "2008-09-15T10:39:39Z")
People don’t really realize how wild the Hasidim can get. Lots of people just assume they’re like a Jewish version of Catholic monks - old guys with big beards who sit around all day and pray. The truth is that Hasidism started out as a youth-rebellion movement. Jews in Poland and Lithuania who had undergone decades of suppression by the government became discontent with the Orthodox Rabbis of their communities, viewing them as the old establishment that needed to be torn down. Early Hasidim would have all-night rituals where they’d drink massive amounts of wine and liquor, and literally dance, jump around, and spin in circles until they worked themselves up into a trance, and would shout out stream-of-consciousness prayers, like the “speaking in tongues” that the Pentecostals are known for. It was, for its time, a totally far-out thing, almost like the hippie movement of the 1960s. (I learned all of this from a very, very knowledgeable professor of Jewish history, years ago. It was quite an enlightening class.) The Hasidic Jews’ culture is extremely far-out. It’s just that very few people really know about it, beyond the superficial appearances of the guys in black coats. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/9 "2008-09-15T18:00:21Z")
It’s an oversimplification, but if I ever have to try to explain Hassidism or Sufism, it’s easy & to-the-point to say, “Well, imagine Pentecostal Orthodox Jews or Muslims.” ---
**Author:** ![please921](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ad7895/32.png) [@please921](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/please921)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/10 "2008-09-16T00:45:20Z")
> [@Avumede](#): > > I thought that only a small segment of Lubavitchers believe Schneerson is the messiah. The rest are, comparatively, sane. I think you’re getting the Lubavitch sect mixed up with the general group/movement of Chassidim. All Lubavitchers are Chassidish, but not all Chassidim are Lubavitch. There are dozens of different Chassidic sects whose beliefs about the Messiah vary as much as the design of their hats, but as far as I am aware, only the Lubavitch sect believes that Schneerson is the Messaiah. ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/11 "2008-09-16T01:09:33Z")
Not all Lubavitchers believe that the departed Lubavitcher Rebbe is/was the Messiah, either. There’s a definite schism within the group, and I know people on both sides. **FriarTed** , if Hasidim are the Pentacostal Jews, what does that make us ordinary Orthodox folk? Baptists? Sometimes, one really gets to missing the old Happy Jewish Guy smiley ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/12 "2008-09-16T01:13:21Z")
> [@GilaB](#): > > **FriarTed** , if Hasidim are the Pentacostal Jews, what does that make us ordinary Orthodox folk? Baptists? > > Sometimes, one really gets to missing the old Happy Jewish Guy smiley Don’t be silly. It doesn’t make you Baptists. It makes you either Catholic or, ironically enough, Orthodox. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-target-however-is-secular-jews/463578/13 "2008-09-16T05:28:25Z")
Y’know, I often say “If Judaism isn’t fun, you’re doing it wrong.”