Russian Prosecutors Raid Chabad School Over Books That Allegedly Teach Students to Hate Non-Jews

CHABAD’S Or Avner school in Yekaterinburg (Russia’s third largest city) was raided last week and books were confiscated, the JTA reported based on a report by local news media.

The raid reportedly took place after prosecutors launched an investigation prompted by a complaint by a parent of a high school student at the school who complained the school’s students were being taught things that infringe on the rights of members of other religions and are taught to hate non-Jews.

The local Jewish community reportedly asked Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is closely linked to Chabad, to stop the investigation, and the Russian Jewish Congress also protested the investigation.

“Allegations of extremism, witchcraft and black magic in the Torah have been sought for in the Middle Ages. If any were found, it would have already been banned and not only in Yekaterinburg,” German Zaharyaev (pictured), a vice president of the Russian Jewish Congress, said.

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the non-Chabad Orthodox Chief Rabbi of Moscow, reportedly challenged prosecutors to “find a single Jew who, based on the Torah, targeted mosques or churches.”

An official of the local prosecutor’s office said the books confiscated in the raid were textbooks, not Torahs.

The so-called bible of Chabad hasidic thought, the Tanya, contains the following passage (end of Chapter 1 — page 5 in the bilingual edition published by Chabad’s official Kehot Publication Society):

מה שאין כן נפשות אומות העולם הן משאר קליפות טמאות שאין בהן טוב כלל

…The souls of the nations of the world [e.g.,non-Jews], however, emanate from the other, unclean kelipot which contain no good whatever

כמו שכתוב בע׳ חיים שער מ״ט פרק ג׳: וכל טיבו דעבדין האומות לגרמייהו עבדין

as is written in Etz Chayim, Portal 49, ch. 3, that all the good that the nations do, is done out of selfish motives.

וכדאיתא בגמרא על פסוק: וחסד לאומים חטאת — שכל צדקה וחסד שאומות העולם עושין אינן אלא להתייהר כו׳

So the Gemara [Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Batra folio page 10b] comments on the verse, “The kindness of the nations is sin” [the biblical Book of Proverbs, 14:34] — that all the charity and kindness done by the nations of the world is only for their self-glorification…

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Source: Failed Messiah