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Happy Birthday!
Menachem Mendel Schneerson
was born Nisan 11, 5662 - April 7 in 1998.
(4/18/1902 ce) (d6/12/94)
Lubavitch Chasidim will celebrate the ninety-sixth birthday of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
(their charismatic leader from 1950 to his death in 1994.)
The interesting part is that it is definitely not like just any commemora- tive Birthday
holiday such as Washington's Birthday - traditional Jews generally commemorate
the yarhtzeit, the death anniversary, and only note the birth date for living people.
Shades of Rastafarians!
Chasidic ways have been studied by a number of folklorists, notably the eminent
Dr Sheldon Posen. This is coincidentally interconnected as April 7 is also the birthday
of Dr Posen's sometime partner Ian Robb (eg, in Finest Kind) who was born in 1948.
Happily, Robb remains among the corporeally living and among those few who sing superbly.
(I heard the Lubavitcher Rebbe sing one time - I wasn't too impressed though.)
© Abby Sale - all rights reserved
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