(a town in the Urals). The foreign intervention for the Rebbe’s freedom was intense and did not let up. American President Herbert Hoover (then the Republican presidential candidate) involved himself directly and the Rebbe was released and allowed to go to Latvia in 1929. The release of Rabbi Schneerson was remarkable in a country where the government itself murdered 20 million of its own citizens.
The nine others who openly defied Mother Russia, and risked their lives to keep Judaism alive, were arrested in 1938, tortured and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment. One man, Simon Yakabashvili, escaped and fled to Toronto.
From Latvia, the Rebbe traveled to British Mandate Palestine and then to the United States where he had a meeting with President Hoover. His followers begged him to stay in America but he refused as he felt that it too irreligious. He went to Poland in 1934.
The Rebbe would not leave Poland after its capture by the Nazis in 1939 and remained in Warsaw. Washington again intervened on behalf of the Rebbe and he received diplomatic immunity in 1940. He arrived in New York on March 19, 1940, effectively transferring the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters to America.
In New York he faced a new threat: a largely apathetic Jewish world. He said, “America is no different” and that even in such a materialistic country, the Torah could take root and flourish. He established yeshivas, day schools, youth clubs, publishing house for Jewish books and social services. Hundreds of people turned out to hear his public lectures. He targeted America as a whole, sending out small groups of highly trained rabbis to teach Torah across the nation – a method used by Chabad today.
In 1948 the Rebbe founded Kfar Chabad near Tel Aviv, Israel. Today it is a community of 400 Chabad families.
He passed away in 1950. In his seventy years, he personally stood up to and confronted three major threats to Orthodox Jewish life: Tsarist Russia with its pogroms, Communism and its war against religion and assimilation in the melting pot of America.
Rabbi Schneerson initiated a worldwide movement to bring Jews back to their religious heritage and observance. He was devoted to helping resettle Jewish refugees after WWII. He published hundreds of commentaries, articles and essays. He also kept a diary documenting the history of Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidism.
The Rebbe had no sons. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, his son-in-law, became his successor.
The seeds the Rebbe planted are visible today all over Russia. When he left in 1929, his underground infrastructure of Jewish life continued, spreading the teachings of Torah and Chassidism.
Today, there are hundreds of synagogues, Jewish schools and mikvaot that the Rebbe himself had built. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, they emerged from the cellars and attics into vacant Communist Party buildings. The Communist plan to destroy the Jewish religion had not succeeded, mainly due to the valiant efforts of Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Schneerson.