NEW YORK (RNS) — When Chani Friedman stepped into the Ohel, the small open-ceiling structure that houses Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s grave in Queens, she immediately felt comforted.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, spiritual leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, made an imprint on her at a young age, especially for his efforts to put Jewish women at the forefront of the organization.
“I remember the Rebbe looking into my eyes and believing in me. It’s not something you could put into words. It’s something you could see,” she told RNS, remembering her first encounter with the Rebbe at age 11.
“Coming here for me is like a child opening up his arms to be picked up by his mother,” she said of the visit to the Rebbe’s grave on Thursday (Feb. 20) as part of the Chabad International Conference of Women Emissaries. “That’s how it feels.”
Last week, Friedman traveled from Ashdod, Israel, to New York for the 35th annual conference. She was among 4,000 Jewish women leaders, known as shluchas, who convened in the city where the Chabad movement is headquartered to engage in fellowship, workshop sessions and brainstorming.
A branch of Hasidic Judaism, the Chabad movement was founded in the late 18th century and traces back to Belarus. Under the leadership of the Rebbe, who ran the organization from 1950 until he died in 1994, the movement increased its reach, becoming one of the most dynamic Jewish organizations in the world.
Chabad today is made up of thousands of emissaries worldwide with centers in 111 countries. The organization largely aims to meet any Jew — religious or not — where they are, without a paid membership system like most synagogues.
According to a 2021 Pew Research Center Study, 16% of American Jewish adults said they participate “often or sometimes” in activities or services of Chabad, half of whom are Reform or Conservative Jews.
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In Ashdod, Friedman and her husband co-direct a Chabad house, a community center that provides religious support and shares the Rebbe’s philosophy. The couple works under the lead of her parents, who were sent to Ashdod as emissaries by the Rebbe in 1976.
She explained that the pair work as a team in alignment with the Rebbe’s teachings, sharing an office and making all decisions together.
“We don’t even think about how the work is being divided. That’s the way it is. We do everything together. We’re working together,” she said.
Thousands of Jewish women leaders pose together for a group portrait outside Chabad-Lubavitch Worldwide Headquarters in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (Photo by Nehorai Edri/Kinus.com)
Though running a Chabad center is consuming, Friedman, 45, said having been raised in a Chabad household, she never envisioned doing something else. Just as she followed her parents’ path, she hopes some of her 14 children will, too.
When he took over the movement, the Rebbe began sending out couples as emissaries, determining both men and women were essential to establishing Jewish communities. Under his direction, women began to take on more responsibilities in the organization.
In 1953, the Rebbe created the Lubavitcher Women’s Organization to educate and encourage women to contribute to the Chabad mission, according to its website. And though he was critical of modern feminism, his vision made Chabad stand out among Orthodox Jewish traditions as women took on public roles, led organizations and built communities, conference attendees explained.
Every year, the conference is an occasion to reminisce over the special mission the Rebbe entrusted with Chabad’s women leaders.
On Thursday, the shluchas visited the Ohel during the death anniversary month of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, the Rebbe’s wife. In the building’s entrance lobby, videos of the Rebbe’s numerous speeches to women played in a loop. At the Rebbe’s grave, women spread torn-up paper notes on which they wrote their prayers.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson during the Lag BaOmer parade in Brooklyn, New York, May 17, 1987. (Photo by Mordecai Baron/Wikimedia/Creative Commons)
When she returned from the Ohel, Ayelet Leibman, a shlucha from Rishon LeTsiyon, Israel, had tears in her eyes. In front of the Rebbe’s grave, surrounded by fellow Jewish women, the 37-year-old felt moved. Their presence, she said, honors the Rebbe’s vision of women’s leadership.
For Leibman, the Lubavitcher Rebbe was nothing short of a feminist, though she noted he pushed men and women to work hand in hand while celebrating their differences.
“I think the Rebbe took the wives from the back and put them in the front,” she said. “It goes in a straight line with feminism, but he said (women) shouldn’t be like the man because you are more than the man. You have such powers that the whole world needs. It was a revolution — a womanly revolution.”
Chava Green has a Ph.D. from Emory University in Atlanta and wrote her thesis on the “Hasidic face of feminism.” She told RNS ahead of the conference that the Rebbe’s teachings on women’s roles could be summarized in the concept of akeret habayit, referring to a woman’s responsibility to set “the tone and the atmosphere of her home, and influences her husband and children.”
Green, who grew up in a secular Jewish household and was involved in feminist advocacy groups in college, said Chabad’s approach to gender roles resonated with her when she explored the religious aspects of her Jewish identity. A women’s studies major, she felt called to explore how feminism and Hasidism intersected in her work.
“I felt that growing up kind of in the millennial generation, (it) wasn’t really clear to me what it meant to be a woman,” she said. “I felt that the message I got was ‘Girl power — you can do anything you want.’ But there was no kind of clarity or path to womanhood, which many people think is emblematic of the freedoms of feminism.”
On the contrary, she said, Chabad’s vision of gender roles clearly delineates men’s and women’s roles in society. Chabad also differs from other Orthodox movements, in which women historically have not held leadership roles in religious life and were prevented from studying the Talmud and where the segregation of sexes was stricter, she noted.
Though Rivkah Slonim, associate director at the Chabad Center for Jewish Student Life at Binghamton University in New York, identifies as a “Hasidic feminist,” she doesn’t think the Rebbe’s efforts to give women more responsibilities were a response to the feminist revolution happening in the secular world in the 1950s. Instead, she believes his efforts echoed his work to get all parts of the community involved.
“It’s not so much about women having a role, it’s more about the Rebbe understanding, in a very clear, very strong way, that everybody has to use all of the resources that they’ve been granted — all of the resources they can marshal — in service of something larger,” she said. “It’s about maybe harnessing that energy in a more prominent way and celebrating the importance of the feminine energy.”
On Sunday, the last day of the conference, the emissaries celebrated at a gala in Edison, New Jersey. During the traditional roll call, organizers celebrated the presence of emissaries from Singapore, Australia, France, Aruba, China and all around the world.
Chabad-Lubavitch International Conference of Women Emissaries participants attend a gala at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center, Feb. 23, 2025, in Edison, N.J. (Photo by Itzik Roytman)
Orthodox content creators — referred to as “shluchas of the cyberspace” — also received a tribute. Miriam Ezagui, a 38-year-old nurse from Maryland, was one of them. On TikTok and Instagram, where she has a combined 3.6 million followers, Ezagui tries to demystify the Orthodox lifestyle for viewers. She hopes to create positive representations of Orthodox women with her content, she said.
“A lot of the Orthodox Jewish lifestyle was represented through the lens of people that broke away from religion and had trauma associated,” she said. “I came from a different perspective. I didn’t grow up religious, and I’m religious now, and I’m sharing my love and pride.”
In her videos, she discusses everything from motherhood to Shabbat observance and Orthodox views on intimacy. Though she doesn’t identify as Chabad, many ideas she shares come from a Chabad lens, she said. The Rebbe championing women and his beliefs that technology could be used to share the Torah deeply resonate with her.
“I think there’s a misconception in the world at large that Jewish women are supposed to be tucked away and hidden,” she said. “And the Rebbe didn’t believe that message. He knew the strength of the Jewish home was that the woman was the foundation.”