Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Chabad Includes Woman in Delegation to President Obama

A Chabad delegation meeting with President Barack Obama included a veteran female educator, a nod to the president’s emphasis on the need for education for girls.

The meeting at the White House Monday was led by Rabbi Abraham Shemtov, the chairman of Agudas Chassidei Chabad, the umbrella organization for the Lubavitch movement.

Such delegations routinely meet with the president on or around the issuance of the annual Education and Sharing Day proclamation, marking an initiative launched by the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Until now, the delegations have comprised only males. This year, the nine-person group included Chave Hecht, a rebbetzin who has been teaching in the movement for more than 70 years, and Menachem Benjaminson and Chaya Goldstein, two 11-year-olds who are leaders in Chabad’s Jewish Children’s Corps.

In his March 31 proclamation, Obama made a point of noting Schneerson’s focus on educating women, saying he “worked to tear down barriers that stood in the way of girls who wanted to learn.”

In addition to education, the meeting included a discussion about Israel’s importance to Jews and about rising anti-Semitism in Europe.

The delegation presented Obama with a menorah, and he presented the delegation with a signed framed copy of his proclamation.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.