Local Rabbis Head to World’s Largest Jewish Leadership Conference

This coming week, Rabbis Dovid Flinkenstein and Moshe Teldon of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life & Learning, will join 4,600 rabbis and communal leaders from all 50 U.S. states and more than 90 countries, hailing from as far away as Laos and Angola, Ghana and Uzbekistan, at the International Conference of Chabad Emissaries in Brooklyn, NY.

The annual event, which started in 1983 with 63 participants and is now the largest Jewish gathering in North America, is aimed at reviving Jewish awareness and practice around the world.

The rabbis—each embracing multiple roles and responsibilities—explore relevant issues, and learn from professionals and colleagues with years of experience. The topics covered run the gamut of their concerns: combating antisemitism; stemming the tide of assimilation; understanding troubled relationships; inclusion; and a conference within the conference for rabbis who serve students on college campuses, ensuring a lasting impact on the next generation of communal leaders.

“The gathering is an opportunity to refocus our energies on heeding the Rebbe’s call to reach every Jew with love, whoever they may be,” says Rabbi Flinkenstein. “Every year I come back fired up.”

This year’s conference brings added significance as the world marks 50 years since the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, considered the most influential rabbi in modern history—initiated the “Mitzvah Campaigns,” a historic undertaking that took Judaism beyond the institutional walls, impacting millions of Jews with no or minimal Jewish engagement. The conference will include a visit to the Rebbe’s gravesite in the New York City borough of Queens.

Additional highlights of the five-day conference will be the “class picture”, where thousands of rabbis pose for a group photo in front of Chabad world headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. As well as the closing banquet, where the rabbis are joined by supporters and lay-leaders from their respected communities, for a sit down dinner, which set a record for being the largest in New York.

The conference also serves another vital purpose; it represents an opportunity to connect with other Chabad emissaries, and recharge their personal energy. This gives the participants, especially those going back to far and isolated outposts, an exhilarating send-off, coupled with the sense that they are not alone.

Another dimension to the conference is networking. “There’s so much innovation out there,” Rabbi Teldon said. “There are times I learn more from my on-the-spot conversations in the hallways with old friends than at the scheduled sessions.”
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To watch a live streaming of the closing banquet, which holds the record for the largest sit-down dinner in New York, visit ChabadWilmette.com/Kinus on Sunday, November 19, at 4:45 PM.