Rabbi Yossi Newfield grew up in the heart of the Chabad-Lubavitch community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He is currently working on a memoir on his formative years within the Chabad Movement.
Yossi Newfield
By Yossi Newfield
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Yiddish World The British Chief Rabbi that never was
Rabbi Louis Jacobs was ostracized by the British Orthodox rabbinate but his view of Jewish theology resonated for me
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Yiddish World I was sure the sun revolved around the Earth. That’s what they taught us in yeshiva.
To get a secular education, my grandmother had to tutor me in basic English and math
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Yiddish World Former rabbinical student recalls the moment his belief in the Lubavitcher Rebbe vanished
Yossi Newfield was a firm believer until a former teacher pointed out what Maimonides had written about the requirements for the messiah.
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Yiddish World How I, a Chabadnik, discovered Chaim Grade’s novels
In the Chabad yeshiva in Crown Heights, where I was a student in the early 1980s, Yiddish literature was non-existent. Sure, we spoke Yiddish in school and we read the text of the Rebbe’s Yiddish sermons, but Yiddish literature was never mentioned. Then again, we didn’t read English literature either. We studied the Torah, Talmud,…
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Culture The Night We Lost The Messiah Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
The balcony curtains suddenly parted. The Rebbe sat motionless surrounded by his three trusted rabbinical aides. On cue, the singing and chanting began: “Long live our Master, Teacher and Rebbe, King Messiah, Forever and Ever!” Hundreds of men dressed in black suits stood shoulder to shoulder on the synagogue floor craning their necks towards the…
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Community My father had an MD from Harvard. How could he deprive me of an education?
When I was 14 years old, my father gave me a small, tattered book that was printed in 1829 by the Maskilim, the Jewish secular intellectuals. The book was part of a journal published by the Enlightenment Movement in Eastern Europe called “Bikurei Haitim.” When my father gave me the book, I was attending Oholei…
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Community NYC Is Cracking Down On Yeshivas — And The Satmar Rebbe Has Declared War
For years now, the Hasidic community has feigned compliance with New York State Education laws. While Hasidic yeshivot don’t typically provide much secular education at all, they have at least claimed that they were complying with the law. However, a recent speech by the Satmar Rebbe Aron Teitelbaum disabuses once and for all the notion…
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Community Brooklyn Hasidim Lost A Vote — Which Might Save Their Children From A Life Of Poverty
In a last-minute backroom deal in April of 2018, a New York State Senator managed to dramatically reduce the ability of the government to enforce educational standards at Jewish day schools. Senator Simcha Felder, an Orthodox Jew who ran as a Democrat but caucuses with the Republicans, represents large swaths of the Hasidic community in…
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