Candace Owens’ Distorted Take on Chabad’s Beliefs

By Sruli Schochet

I never thought I would utter these words in my lifetime, but where is Nancy Pelosi when you need her? She is very good at forcing people into retirement after they have had a very bad debate performance. We could really use her help right now.

By now, if you are Chabad and belong to even one WhatsApp group, you have seen our beloved Rebbe maligned in front of tens of millions of people. On a televised debate hosted by Piers Morgan, political commentator Candace Owens brought up statements of the Rebbe in order to prove that she is not an antisemite.

She was debating Shmuley Boteach and was trying to make the point that he is associated to a fringe group of radical supremacist Jews.

Rather than defend the Rebbe and Judaism, Boteach chose to argue about personal insults and threats he alleges Owens made against him. Which just goes to prove, while there is no “I” in “Team”, there is a big “ME” in “Shmuley.” His was an unfortunate and cringeworthy performance that did little to better the perception of Jews by the masses.

The be sure, even if Owens can spin each antisemitic statement of hers as being taken out of context, that is a lot of dog-whistling she has to defend. When well-known white supremacist and rabid antisemite Nick Fuentas complains on his podcast that Owens is stealing all their talking points, you know your messaging has a problem.

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So how do we address these raised issues? Now that your co-workers have watched this debacle, what do you tell them? Is Chabad a supremacist fringe group? Do Jewish people believe in supremacy?

This argument has gone on since the beginning of time. Owens is not unique in accusing Chabad of being a fringe extremist group. When the famous blood libel, the Mendel Beilis case, occurred in 1911, the Russian government knew they had a problem on their hands.

Since their evidence was flimsy and unrealistic, they tried to flip the script that Judaism as a whole would not do this. They said that Beilis, although not religious himself, came from a Chabad family and was therefore part of a fringe fanatical group of Chassidim that performed these crazy rituals.

That is why the Rebbe Rashab was so involved in the case and in making sure Beilis had the best defense possible. This is a short summary of a fascinating piece of history, but goes to show that this has been an infamous antisemitic talking point for years.

Every religion claims supremacy. If you felt another religion was more supreme, you would go and join that one! Muslims believe non-muslims are infidels. Christians believe if you don’t accept you-know-who then you are damned to eternal hell. To put that in context, they believe a murderer, rapist or even Hitler himself, who accepts you-know-who, will enter into the gates of heaven, but a Jewish child gassed in Auschwitz, who went to his death singing Ani Maamin, that he still awaits Moshiach every day, is dammed to the fiery inferno of damnation. That sounds pretty supremacy-ish to me.

Ironically, Owens belongs to a faction of Chistianty known as Vatican I. In 1965 The Second Vatican Council got together and instituted the Nostra Aetate, Latin for “In Our Time” which changed their relationship with Jews and stopped blaming them for the crucifixion of you-know-who (the battle cry of every Jewish massacre throughout history). Candance rejects all that and believe the Jews are still the root cause behind all bad things in the world.

The difference is what this “supremacy” means to each religion. What makes Judaism unique, is that we don’t feel that the supremacy of our religion means we force conversion or persecute others. In fact we don’t even proselytize, and we discourage conversions! We fully believe that you can be a non-Jew and still be accepted into Heaven, by just doing the Seven Noahide laws and being a good person.

No one personified this more than the Rebbe! He, more than anyone else in Jewish history, encouraged his adherents to reach out to Jews and non-Jews alike and focus on bringing more light into the world. As a result, multiple Presidents declared the Rebbe’s birthday as “Education Day” even after his passing. To claim that this holy individual stood for anything other than world peace and love for all humanity, is just a blatant lie at worst, or pure ignorance at best.

I will conclude with the words that my father of blessed memory wrote in a public letter to Shmuley Boteach some 12 years ago: “HaBoteach b’Hashem chesed yesovevenu” – while it is imperative that we defend ourselves and our religion from baseless accusations, it is our utter and complete trust in Hashem that will stand up and protect us in the end. May it be His will that we be reunited with our beloved Rebbe, with the coming of Moshiach speedily, Omain.

During her interview on @PiersMorgan Candace Owen @RealCandaceO referred to what she termed “radical Judaism” and characterized the iconic Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, as someone who “preached Jewish supremacism and hatred of all non-Jews.” These words are a sickening… pic.twitter.com/nkPwbjY7wM

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) September 5, 2024