This year’s International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries (Kinus Hashluchim) is expected to be the largest ever in terms of attendance, as well as one of the most ambitious in scope and reach, as more than 5,000 Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries—and thousands more lay leaders, family members and admirers—will join the conference, which has moved to a virtual format this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The conference will begin Thursday, Nov. 12, and conclude on Sunday, Nov. 15, with the Grand Event—this year’s iteration of the annual Grand Banquet, which will feature addresses from attorney Nathan Lewin and Rabbi Mendel Kalmenson.
Lewin, a prominent attorney for more than 60 years, has repeatedly defended religious liberty, including dozens of cases over the decades securing the right to display public menorahs on government property. He was also one of Chabad’s main attorneys in the federal court case over ownership of the library of the Sixth Rebbe—Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory.
Kalmenson, a noted author and speaker, will keynote the conference after his book Positivity Bias has garnered widespread acclaim.
With rabbis tuning in from time zones as many as 22 hours apart, organizing live programming throughout the weekend is a challenge that has been met with innovative solutions, like the rolling melaveh malkah that will begin after Shabbat ends in New Zealand and continue around the globe, concluding in Alaska well over 24 hours later. But despite the challenges, organizers felt the conference, with its celebration of Jewish unity and uplifting of Jewish communities around the globe, had to go on.
“We see the global nature of this year’s conference as an opportunity rather than a setback,” said Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. “This year’s unique format will allow us to showcase diverse Jewish communities around the globe and the Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries at their helm.”
Grand Event to Stream Live
The Grand Event will stream live at Chabad.org/Kinus, beginning at 1 p.m. EST, and will be live on Twitter and Facebook as well. In keeping with the ongoing focus of the Kinus and Chabad.org on inclusion, the livestream will include closed captions as well.
As the conference goes worldwide, general sessions throughout the weekend will be hosted by Chabad-Lubavitch centers in England, Ukraine and Israel, among many others, as each community will display its unique flavor, as well as focus on the overall theme of the conference, which is how to overcome every obstacle emissaries may face in the service of the communities they lead.
Throughout the global pandemic, Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries have been at the forefront of the effort to bring Judaism to those affected, from the world’s largest Passover campaign that brought Seders-to-go to thousands of homebound individuals to innovative Shavuot celebrations to the High Holiday and Sukkot initiatives that enabled safe observance of Judaism. They brought food to the needy, supported frontline medical workers, rescued people stranded by the global shutdown, and enabled Jewish observance in some of the most isolated places.
In doing so, they answered the call of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—who dispatched them to countries around the globe and charged them to selflessly serve the physical and spiritual needs of their communities. To further this goal, in 1983 the Rebbe launched the annual conference, which would annually serve as a springboard for initiatives the Rebbe would launch to aid the emissaries in their task, many of which continue today. In addition, the Kinus is a time for rabbis from around the world to network, sharing ideas on how best to serve their communities back home and benefiting from workshops led by professionals on how best to meet the unique and evolving challenges they face.
Meeting the Challenges of a Global Pandemic
This year, sessions will focus on the challenges that the coronavirus pandemic has brought, such as overcoming Zoom fatigue; how to deliver education in the virtual world; and sessions focused on maintaining physical and emotional health at a time when both are under tremendous stress.
A simultaneous conference for the children of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries (Tzeirei Hashluchim) will also take place virtually with a suite of uplifting and entertaining events that they will tune into from across the globe—a beacon of inspiration at a time when many are isolated.
While the format of the conference will be very different than usual, its goals remain the same: to connect, to inspire and to uplift.
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