An Advocate for Education

This year, National Education and Sharing Day falls on March 29. Established by President Jimmy Carter on April 18, 1978, the day honors Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson and his accomplishments in promoting education. 

The Life of Rabbi Schneerson

Born on April 18, 1902, in what is now Mykolaiv, Ukraine, Schneerson was considered a gifted child, mastering the entire Talmud and all of its early commentaries by the age of 17. After receiving rabbinical ordination, Schneerson moved to Berlin in 1928, then left for Paris in 1933 after the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. While in Paris, he took a two-year course in engineering and continued his religious and communal activities on behalf of his father-in-law, the sixth Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. Schneerson fled Paris prior to the Nazi invasion, and he eventually escaped Europe and arrived in New York in 1941.

In 1942 he launched the Merkos Shlichus program, where he would send yeshiva students (individuals dedicated to the full-time study of Jewish religious texts) across the United States to teach Jewish people in isolated communities. Schneerson also established a school for girls in Paris in 1947, and he worked with local Parisian organizations to provide housing for refugees and displaced people. Following his father-in-law’s death in 1950, Schneerson took his place as rebbe (a spiritual leader) and served for four decades. During this time, he established many centers of education, known as Chabad Houses. He also founded adult and youth organizations to encourage high-level Torah education for women, which had previously been limited to men. Schneerson died on June 12, 1994.

Congressional Gold Medal

President Bill Clinton awarded Schneerson a Congressional Gold Medal posthumously in August 1994 for his “outstanding and enduring contributions toward world education, morality, and acts of charity.” Schneerson remains the only rabbi to receive a Congressional Gold Medal, and 10,000 bronze replicas were produced and sold.