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From the Abraham Schwadron Portrait Collection, National Library of Israel archive |
This article ꟷ based extensively on the research by Professor Wojciech Tworek[1] ꟷ examines the debate over the authenticity of one of the best-known portraits in Chassidic iconography; that of the Alter Rebbe, R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Chabad Rebbe.
Unlike the iconic portrait of the Baal Shem Tov which has conclusively been shown to be not of the Baal Shem Tov of Medzhebuzh (c.1700-1760) but rather of the Baal Shem of London (1708-1782) ꟷ there is much controversy over the portrait of R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812).
The portrait of R. Shneur Zalman is published in the haTamim (vol. 2 p. 755) anthology of the sixth Rebbe of Chabad, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, under the title “תמונת תואר פני קדש הקדשים, The picture of the image of the Holy of Holies...”
“This is a story about a portrait that some consider a portal to the holy. Others see it as a massive fraud perpetrated by Chabad to dupe believers…For believers, it is an object of near veneration. For others, the portrait is a fabrication of Hasidic propaganda…” (Tworek 2017:3-4).
Tworek examines conflicting accounts of the origins of this
image but adds to the discussion by suggesting a defence of R. Yosef Yitzchak
Schneerson using previously “untapped Russian- and Polish-language sources”
(Tworek 2017:5).
A means of communion
For many Chassidim, the portrait of their Rebbe is not just a picture, but a channel of communion with their leader. On one occasion, the Tzemach Tzedek (1789-1866), the third Rebbe of Chabad, and his son R. Shmuel, would:
סוגר את הדלתות...מעמיד את הציור על
השולחן...לובש בגדים וכובע של שבת וחגור באבנט ויסתכל בה שעה ארוכה
“…close the doors…and place the portrait [of R. Shneur Zalman] on the table…and, wearing their Shabbat garments, hat and belt, gaze at it [the portrait of R. Shneer Zalman] for a long period of time” (R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, haTamim, vol. 2, 763).
On this matter of gazing at iconic pictures in a manner of ritual veneration, although perhaps somewhat speculative, Tworek cannot help noticing:
“the similarity of the description of the Tsemach Tsedek’s and his son’s contemplation of the Alter Rebbe’s image to the description of the experience of [the] icon in Russian orthodox Christianity” (Tworek 2017:23, note 22).
The Chabad movement had strong roots in Russian
culture, being birthed by R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi which is on the border of
present-day Belarus and Russia (then, it was in the province of Vitebsk, in the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth). He originated from Liozna, 70 km to the east of Liadi. His successor and son, R. Dov Ber Schneuri (1773-1827)
known as the Mitteler Rebbe moved to Lubavitchi, also in Russia. The
next two Rebbes (the Tzemach Tzedek and and R. Shmuel Schneerson) remained in
Lubavitchi. Later, in 1915, R. Sholem Dov Ber Schneerson fled to Rostov, still
in Russia, to escape the advancing German army. It was only under the sixth
Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, that the movement left the Russian cultural
environment when he relocated to Poland and then to New York. It is also often
said that the relationship between a Chabad Chassid and his or her Rebbe
is like that of the old Russian to the Tzar ꟷ one of awe and bittul,
nullification. Many Chabad stories, songs and aphorisms centered around Russian folk expressions.
The emergence of the portrait of R. Shneur Zalman
R. Shneur Zalman passed away in 1812. His lithograph portrait, however, only emerged more than seventy years later in the late 1880s. And a concerted effort was only made to distribute the image among the followers in the haTamim anthology during the 1930s, under R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson.
It is alleged that the lithograph was made from a portrait painting of a live model, R. Shneur Zalman himself, but the original painting has never been located. The copies we see today are from a reproduction in the possession of Shemaryahu Schneerson of Warsaw, a great-grandson of R. Shneur Zalman’s son Chaim Avraham. The copies then circulated in various and slightly different versions (Tworek 2017:23, note 11).
There are conflicting accounts of how this image of R. Shneur
Zalman found its way to Shemaryahu Schneerson in Warsaw.
1) The account of Zalman (Boris) Schatz (1867-1932)
The first version of events is presented by Zalman Schatz, known as the “father of Israeli art,” who later went on to found the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem. In 1888, when he was twenty-one years old, he wrote an article in haTzefira about a visit to an art collection of a Polish count. There, on display, was a portrait of “Rabbi Zalman Borukhovitch of Liadi,” dated 1796 (R. Shneur Zalman’s father was Baruch). The count told him that he bought the portrait from a general in St Petersburg. Schatz informed his friend Shemaryahu in Warsaw about the portrait.
The count gave Shemaryahu permission to make copies of the portrait and even
provided a letter attesting to the copy being “a truthful copy of a painting in
his possession.” Shemaryahu then got other letters from the Warsaw Beit Din,
and various Rebbes from the Kopust break-away branch of Chabad
also verified that the copies were identical to the portrait in the possession
of the count. The Kopust movement, one of many Chabad break-away
movements, was established in 1866 by Yehuda Leib Schneerson, one of the
seven sons of the third Chabad Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, after his
father’s passing [see Kotzk
Blog: 189) SUCCESSION BATTLES WITHIN CHABAD:].
2) The account of Chaim Meir Heilman (Beit Rabi)
In 1902, Chaim Meir Heilman published his book entitled Beit Rabi. He was a follower belonging to the Kopoust branch of Chabad. This was the first attempt to present an accurate history of Chabad rather than another inflated hagiography.
Heilman writes that the portrait was produced during the incarceration
of R. Shneur Zalman in St Petersburg in 1798. (The date next to the alleged signature of the painter can be read as 1796 or 1798). The claim is made that the head
of the police took a liking to R. Shneur Zalman and commissioned the portrait
to keep as a souvenir. The police official’s family eventually sold the
portrait to a count, after the head of the police had passed away. A Jewish
painter (which we can assume from the haTzefira article was Zalman
Schatz) saw the portrait while visiting the count and informed Shemaryahu
Schneerson in Warsaw. Heilman provided two extra details, the name of the count
was Tyszkiewicz and the painter was Golovachevski (Heilman, Beit Rabi,
1902:53a-b).
3) The account of R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson
Tworek (2017:7) explains that according to the sixth Chabad Rebbe, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, the Chassidim discovered the painting quite by accident. In this version, the third Chabad Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek was to have participated in a conference on Jewish education in St Petersburg in 1843. Owing to illness, he sent his son, R. Shmuel who was to become the fourth Rebbe, in his place.
Following the conference, R. Shmuel was invited to the home of a young man who worked for one of the Russian government ministers. This man happened to also be an artist and he wanted to draw the portrait of R. Shmuel. During the visit, the artist told R. Shmuel that his grandfather had been a prominent police official towards the end of the eighteenth century when a prominent rabbi had been arrested. His grandfather ordered that a portrait be made of the rabbi, and the family still had the painting in their possession. R. Shmuel asked to see the portrait and immediately concluded that the title “Zalman Boruchovitch from Liozna”[2] referred to his grandfather, R. Shneur Zalman.
R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson continues to narrate that the Chassidim were later to track down this young Russian man and eventually located him in a town, Tsarkoye Selo (now known as Pushkin), near St Petersburg. The Chassidim borrowed the portrait and left a deposit of ten thousand rubles. The portrait was then brought to Lubavitchi, where, as mentioned, the Tzemach Tzedek and his son, R. Shmuel, would dress in their festive finest, lock the doors and contemplate the portrait.
This account, by R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, goes on to emphasise the authenticity of his account by noting that R. Shmuel bore a similar resemblance to that of his great-grandfather, R. Shneur Zalman.[3]
R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson’s haTamim (vol. 2, p. 757) records that when the portrait reached Bobroyusk, there were still two surviving elders who had met R. Shnuer Zalman. One recognised the image, but the other was weak and had lost his eyesight. However, he asked two questions about the portrait:
1) Is his forehead depicted as high,
broad and wrinkled?
2) Is there a scar on his nose?
The scar on R. Shneur Zalmans’ nose
In addition to the resemblance of R. Shmuel to his
great-grandfather, the explanation of the scar on the nose of R. Shneur Zalman,
also attests to the apparent authenticity of the portrait:
“Perhaps the most colorful development of the myth of the portrait’s astounding accuracy is the story of the scar on the Alter Rebbe’s nose in the painting” (Tworek 2017:8).
According to Reshimot Devarim ꟷ a work recording the oral traditions of Chabad, by Yehuda Chitrik (1899-2006) ꟷ R. Shneur Zalman once took ill while staying at the Magid of Mezeritch. A doctor was summoned and declared that he was suffering from worms caused by intense concentration during study and prayer. The doctor suggested a remedy that would damage his nose. R. Shneur Zalman bore the scars for the rest of his life. Chitrik records that a talented painter from St Petersburg painted the portrait with the visible scars (Chitrik, Reshimot Devarim:72).
Did R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson write history or
hagiography?[4]
Regardless of the intricate details and imagery of some of the accounts, it is difficult to consider them to be reliable historical sources. The sixth Chabad Rebbe, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, is known to have tried to show the authority, authenticity and historicity of his movement:
“The Chabad Hasidic stories are particularly unhelpful in light of the fact that Yosef Yitshak authored an entire corpus of pseudo-historical writings elaborating on the history of the Chabad movement. These writings, dubbed by Ada Rapoport-Albert as ‘hagiography with footnotes,’ were written to support the politics and ideology of twentieth-century Chabad, rather than to produce a critical account of the movement’s history” (Tworek 2017:8).
In a different article, Tworek gives some examples of this:
“The most famous instance of Chabad’s grappling with history writing occurred during the leadership of Yosef Yizhak Schneersohn. Yosef Yizhak drew on old oral traditions and furnished new ones when necessary, as well as both genuine and forged documents (from the so-called Kherson genizah), to create a significant corpus of quasi-historical literature over many years, which was unprecedented in the Chabad tradition. Yosef Yizhak’s historiographical endeavor reached its peak with the publication of a series of articles entitled ‘Avot ha-hasidut’ (The forefathers of Hasidism), the talks collected in Likute diburim, and his memoirs, Der Lyubavitsher Rebn’s zikhroynes. The articles were published in the journal Ha-tamim under the auspices of the central Chabad-Lubavitch yeshiva in Otwock in the years 1935–37/8” (Tworek 2019:412-3).[5]
[See Kotzk Blog: 453) Kherson Geniza - the greatest Chassidic find / or forgery?].
Relating this to R. Yosef Yitzchak’s account of the provenance of the portrait of R. Shnuer Zalman:
“there is nothing that can prove or disprove the oral traditions concerning the recovery of the portrait by the Hasidim, recalled in ha-Tamim. Moreover, there is nothing that can make a non-Chabad reader of these stories believe that they are any different from Yosef Yitshak’s other stories about Chabad rebbes and Hasidim” (Tworek: 2017:8).
R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson was not the only Rebbe
who tried to establish authenticity for his movement through a portrait,
because the second Kopust Rebbe (of the break-away group from Chabad),
Shlomo Shneur Zalman Schneerson, placed a picture of his grandfather, the
Tzemach Tzedek, in his courtyard to try to lend an air of legitimacy to his Kopust
movement and show that the dynastic line of the original Chabad, passed directly
through Kopust.
4) The account of Mordechai Narkiss and Avraham Schwadron
In 1938, six years after the artist Zalman Schatz had passed away, Mordechai Narkiss (1898-1957) and Avraham Schwardon (1878-1957) published an article in Haaretz. Narkiss was an art historian who worked at the Betzalel Academy that Chatz had established, and Schwadron (Sharon) was the curator of manuscripts and portraits at the National Library of Israel. Both Narkiss and Schwadron claimed that eleven years earlier, Zalman Schatz had confessed to painting the portrait of R. Schneur Zalman himself, using his living descendants as models. He committed this fraud, allegedly to help his friend Shemaryahu Schneerson who was experiencing financial problems at the time. Narkiss and Schwadron contacted an expert from Vilnius University who was unable to confirm that such a painting was ever a part of the Tyszkiewicz collection.
Schwadron then contacted R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, who was living in Poland at the time, for his response. The Rebbe did not reply but instead, his secretary sent Schwadron an angry reply accusing him of disrespect for the holy sages of Israel. Schwadron then sent another letter asking the Rebbe for his clarification on the origins of the portrait, but that went unanswered.
5) The account of Maya Balakirsky Katz
According to Maya Balakirsky Katz, in The Visual Culture of Chabad, the portrait is a forgery. Besides the financial benefits to the holders of the copyright, the forgery would serve as a quasi-ritual object as well. During the 1880s it could have well served as an aid in community building at a time of factionalization and disunity.
Balakirsky Katz explains that it was not only the portrait of R. Shneur Zalman that suddenly emerged during the 1880s, but also another portrait, this time of the third Chabad Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, that was ‘released’ at about the same time. These portraits would become:
“Hasidic representations of the glorious past, an uncontested and shared tradition to which they all, regardless of their factional affiliation, could cling” (Twolek 2017:14).
There were a number of significant succession battles within the Chabad movement splitting into different factions with different Rebbes and different titles. Later, during the 1930s, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson reprinted the portrait of R. Shneur Zalman, the founder of Chabad, together with documentation and stories to:
“present the Lubavitch faction as
the rightful heir of Chabad tradition. The alleged recovery and preservation of
the lost icons of the two founding fathers of Chabad was tangible evidence for
the legitimacy of the Lubavitchers’ claims to leadership of Chabad and in the
Hasidic community in general” (Twolek 2017:14).
This fits the timeline because, after the passing of the last Rebbe of Kopoust, Shemaryahu Noah Schneerson, in 1924,[6] R. Yosef Schneerson successfully turned Chabad into one united movement during his period of leadership. He took over the reins of the movement at a moment of tremendous crisis in the aftermath of the First World War.
“The Chabad movement, along with other streams of Jewish orthodoxy active in Russia, suffered an additional blow when the Russian Revolution brought the communist government to power. Anti-religious persecutions followed, leading to arrests, exiles, the destruction of religious institutions, not least of which Chabad institutions, in the Soviet Union” (Tworek 2017:20).
Many Chabad followers were forced to flee to safer havens and R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson took it upon himself to help not just his followers but Jews from all denominations. When he moved to Poland, he tried to rebuild his movement and still support those who had remained behind in the Soviet Union. Chabad was not yet a popular movement in Poland, except for those in the vicinity of Vilnius. He had to bring more people into the movement, even though they were not raised in Chabad. He attracted a wider audience through his storytelling and what he presented as the documentation of Chassidic history [See Kotzk Blog: 453) Kherson Geniza - the greatest Chassidic find / or forgery?]:
"The great Rabbi [Shneur Zalman] and founder of Chabad did not intend to limit [his movement] only to exceptional people, esteemed people, who are few in number. The great Rabbi, in his depth of wisdom, intended to combine and join two [different] worlds - that of the mind and the heart. He paved a broad and general way for all of Israel to walk, whether they are exceptional [Torah] scholars, or outstanding academics, or even very simple people. All have a place and a path within Chabad teachings. Each according to their talents" (haTamim, (vol. 2 p. 754, Translation GM).
Showing authenticity and emphasising a direct and authoritative Chassidic line of transmission originating with the Baal Shem Tov would serve his cause with other groups of Chassidim outside of Chabad and the wider world. When haTamim was published around 1937, it was the oracle of the Chabad Yeshiva system known as Tomchei Temimim in Otwock close to Warsaw. The list of students, from that period, shows that most of them did not come from Chabad families but from other groups of Chassidim such as Gur and Kozienice. Apparent historical documents and artefacts such as the Kherson Geniza (which included many artefacts and approximately one thousand letters):
“Yosef Yitshak used these documents in his enterprise to construct an authoritative version of Chabad history and the history of Hasidism in general, an enterprise that was different in form and content from other more common Hasidic factions’ hagiographical storytelling. By elevating Chabad hagiographical traditions to the status of historiography, Yosef Yitshak presented Chabad as legitimate in the eyes of the modernized part of the Jewish community” (Tworek 2017:21).
The portrait of R. Shneur Zalman, could also help in this regard:
“[T]he icon of the founder of the movement, republished in Poland, was meant to inculcate newcomers with a feeling of belonging to a long and sacred tradition… the publication of the portrait of Shneur Zalman in the journal, which targeted first and foremost yeshiva students of predominantly non-Chabad background, should be considered part of Yosef Yitshak’s broader strategy to incorporate prospective Polish Jewish followers into the cultural world of Chabad. It enabled them to make a personal connection with the Schneersohn dynasty and to make them feel at home in the Chabad tradition” (Tworek 2017:20-1).
In a fragmented community with refugees who did not always
belong, the portrait R. Schneur Zalman could serve to direct the new and old followers
to his descendant, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson and divert them from joining
the other Chabad break-away groups. As we have seen with the Kapoust
break-away group, they too used a portrait of the Tzemach Tzedek as indicators
of lines of authority directed toward themselves (also descendants of the
Schneerson family, maintaining the same family name).
Documents in defence of R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson
In haTamim, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson also includes facsimiles of two historical Russian documents dated 1888 and 1889. These documents may shed some light on the history of the portrait.
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A sample of the Russian certification by the Polish Count Józef Tyszkiewicz in 1889. |
The documents certified that the portrait of R. Shneur Zalman was copied for Zalman Schatz (the founder of the Bezalel Academy) and that it came from the collection of Józef Tyszkiewicz (the count who had bought the portrait from a general in St Petersburg). There is a carbon copy of the original painter’s signature, and Schatz is granted permission to make copies of the portrait and to distribute it.
I should mention that I asked a Russian speaker to translate one of the documents for me, and he noted that there were two spelling mistakes:
"There are two spelling mistakes in the letter. First one in the word "увидемся" (should be "увидимся". This mistake could be made by a not-so-educated native Russian speaker. The whole style of the letter, however, points to the fact that the writer is highly educated. The second mistake is in the word “похожа”, which should be “похоже”. This is a mistake of the word’s gender’s ending (feminine instead of neuter), and this mistake would not have been made by a native Russian speaker" (Simeon Khazin).
Tworek, however, is convinced that within the documentation provided by R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, one can find clues that may indeed point towards the authenticity of the portrait of R. Shneur Zalman. Tworek maintains that the names of the alleged artist, Golovachevski, and Count Józef Tyszkiewicz, as recorded in haTamim, may be accurate. The problem may have arisen when the names were transliterated from haTamim in various other accounts.
The signature as produced in haTamim looks like “K.H. Glovachevski” but it may be “K.I. Golovachevski.” If that is the case, there was a Professor Kirill Ivanovitch Glovachevski (d. 1823) who taught at the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg. In his day he was a well-respected portrait painter commissioned to paint leaders like Empress Catherine the Great. The problem with this identification, though, is that the signature reproduced in haTamim seems to look more like K.H. than K.I. Glovachevski. The Russian speaker I consulted said it could be K.I. K.H, or even K.M:
As for Count Józef Tyszkiewicz, his family were the largest landowners in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and they supported the arts, even donating art to museums. They were also known for their hospitality and financial support of up-and-coming artists. This may explain why Zalman Schatz was visiting with him.
In the letter by Józef Tyszkiewicz reproduced in haTamim, it mentions that a certain woman, Evgenya Żermundzka, arranged for a copy to be made of the original portrait. It turns out that Evgenya Żermundzka was Zalman Schatz’s first wife and also an artist.
“A close reading of the documents provided by the Lubavitchers suggest that it is rather unlikely that they forged them when and where the critics have said. The inclusion of seemingly irrelevant and yet largely coherent information may point to their authenticity” (Tworek 2017:19).
Ironically, another support for the authenticity of the portrait may lie in a mistake the editors of haTamim made, by referring to Józef Tyszkiewicz as האדון הרוסי, or “Russian Lord.” Józef Tyszkiewicz, the owner of the portrait, was not a Russian Lord but a Polish Count, and one of the most prestigious of the Polish nobility. He wrote his letter in Russian but signed his name in Polish and this led the editors of haTamim to think he was Russian. This mistake makes it rather unlikely that the letter was forged assuming that the forger would have researched the matter.
Venerating pictures or words?
We have seen how some have venerated the portrait of R. Shneur Zalman almost on a ritual level. Others, however, seem to have been a little reticent about the portrait ꟷ perhaps as if they knew something no one else was aware of. Levi Cooper brings the following anecdote:
“Rabbi Avraham of Sochaczew, author of Avnei neizer, was once hosted by one of his disciples in Warsaw, who was a very wealthy man. [The wealthy man] showed him a lovely drawing of the Rabbi, author of the Tanya [Shneur Zalman of Liady], The Avnei Neizer said: The best impression of the Rabbi is obtained by studying his books” (Yehudah Grinshpan, Chiyucha shel Torah, 1993:78).
Cooper points out that while R. Avraham of Sochaczew “emphasized
written legacy over portraiture.” Others, including people outside of Chabad
like R. Joseph B. Soloveitchick (although he once called himself a “Clandestine
Chabadnik”) “waxed on the value of
the (alleged) portrait of Shneur Zalman” (Cooper 2015:107, round brackets are
Cooper’s).[7]
Conclusion
Taking all these accounts and interpretations into consideration, it is difficult to determine with absolute certainty the status of the famous and iconic portrait of R. Shneur Zalman, the founder of Chabad:
“It is one example among many of Chabad’s yearning to acquire for its hagiography the recognition and status merited by properly footnoted history. If proved genuine, the portrait would verify Chabad’s history. If proved fake, it could be seen, in analogy to the Kherson documents, as yet another forgery, perhaps not produced by Chabad but endorsed by the movement and cynically put into use to serve its topical purposes” (Tworek 2017:21).
The research into the portrait of R. Shneur Zalman is not
over yet. Perhaps it is still too early to attempt to draw absolute conclusions
either way, at this stage.
[1]
Tworek, W., 2017, ‘Between hagiography and historiography: Chabad, scholars of
Hasidism, and the case of the portrait of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady’, East
European Jewish Affairs, vol. 47, no.1, 3-27.
[2]
There is some confusion over the name Liozna and Liadi, and HaTamim (vol.
2, p. 769) suggests this is because R. Shneur Zalman first live in Liozna and
later moved to Liadi.
[3]
See haTamim vol. 2: 755-769 for various details.
[4]
“Hagiography” is praise and emotive literature with the intent on venerating an
individual as opposed to detached and factual recording of history based on historically
reliable sources.
[5] Tworek, W., 2019, ‘Beyond hagiography with footnotes: Writing biographies of the Chabad Rebbe in the post-Schneerson era’, AJS Review, vol. 43, no. 2, 409-435.
[6]
The date 1923 is sometimes given.
[7]
Cooper, L., 2015, ‘Towards a Judicial Biography of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of
Liady’, Journal of Law and Religion, vol. 30, no. 1, Cambridge
University Press, 107-135.
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