{"id":175278,"date":"2026-03-12T08:02:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T16:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=175278"},"modified":"2026-03-12T15:26:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T23:26:02","slug":"accurate-criticism-makes-everybody-better-even-when-it-comes-from-outsiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=175278","title":{"rendered":"Why Is Chabad In The News?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chabad is taking a beating lately from people who know little about it. My first instinct, as someone who admires Chabad, is to call this evil and senseless. But first instincts are often lazy. Let me use my second and third.
\nThe hatred of Chabad makes sense. It has almost nothing to do with the virtues or vices of Chabad itself. Different groups have different interests, and when those interests collide hard enough, people fight and reach for ugly words. Jews thrived within American institutions over the past century, so most American Jews respect those institutions. The parts of America hostile to its own institutions tend to be hostile to Jews as well. How could it be otherwise? Jewish success in America was historically contingent. Circumstances have changed, and Jews will either adapt or suffer.
\nThe Times of Israel reports Mar. 6, 2026<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Tucker Carlson\u2019s latest baseless conspiracy blames Iran war on Chabad movement<\/p>\n

Far-right conspiracist claims Hasidic group is orchestrating \u2018global religious war\u2019; Jewish security organization warns of surge in violent antisemitic rhetoric online<\/p>\n

The far-right media personality Tucker Carlson led his Wednesday show with baseless claims that the war\u2019s aim was to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Jewish temple.<\/p>\n

The mosque is located on the Temple Mount, the site of the First and Second Temples, which were central to Judaism until both were destroyed in antiquity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are key players involved in this war, the one happening tonight, who believe that what we\u2019re seeing on our television screen and on Twitter will usher in a series of events that will begin with the destruction of the Dome of the Rock, Al Aqsa Mosque, and then the rebuilding of the Third Temple,\u201d Carlson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been going on a long time in public through, in part, the efforts of a group called Chabad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cChabad has been pushing in a pretty subtle way, unless you look carefully, for the reconstruction of the Third Temple,\u201d Carlson said.<\/p>\n

His evidence was a handful of patches worn by Israeli soldiers showing the temple that he claimed, without evidence, had come from Chabad.<\/p>\n

Carlson framed the conflict as a \u201cglobal religious war,\u201d sparked by Jews and fought between Christians and Muslims.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The accusations are empirically baseless. So the right question is not whether Tucker is wrong. He is. The right question is why he says it, and why it spreads.
\nI want to apply David Pinsof’s Alliance Theory, which starts from a simple observation: public speech is rarely about truth. It is usually a signal about coalitions.
\nChabad has strong ties to several high-status American alliances. Its rabbis appear at political events. Presidents and governors attend Chabad functions. It sits inside overlapping networks of Jewish communal leadership, pro-Israel advocacy, and parts of the American political elite. In that position, it becomes a symbol. Criticizing Chabad signals opposition to the larger coalition around it. Whether we like it or not, we are known by our friends and enemies. Most people never have the incentive to look closer than that.
\nCarlson has spent years repositioning himself outside what he calls the Washington consensus. His audience rewards him for challenging institutions that appear tied to elite networks. Within that structure, criticizing Chabad serves him well. It signals distance from the traditional Republican pro-Israel consensus. It signals willingness to name groups that many populist viewers believe are off limits. It aligns him with an audience that feels excluded from the alliances that run things.
\nOnce a high-status figure signals that a line of criticism is permissible, others join in. They do so not because they know anything about Chabad but because joining the critique signals membership in the populist coalition. The result is a cascade. One side opens a new line of attack. The other closes ranks. Observers pick the side that better matches their incentives.
\nIn this process, accuracy becomes secondary. The real function of the conversation is alliance coordination.
\nI want to bring in the framework David Pinsof calls likability determinism<\/a>. Most debates about groups collapse into whether the group is good or bad, admirable or sinister. Supporters defend its virtue. Critics attack its character. Nobody learns how the system works. The more useful question is what incentives shape the behavior of the group, its leaders, and its critics.
\nChabad, like any religious institution, runs on a specific incentive structure. Rabbis gain status by expanding the network of centers. Outreach is rewarded. Visible religious commitment is rewarded. Loyalty to leadership and donor relationships are rewarded. The organization spreads through entrepreneurial emissaries who build communities. None of that requires anyone to be a hero or a villain.
\nAccurate external criticism can improve that system when it exposes problems insiders are too close to see. Universities, corporations, and churches all change when outside observers identify incentive problems. But groups usually interpret outside criticism as hostility rather than information, and members gain status by defending the group’s reputation. The result is a familiar loop: critics call the group malicious, members call the critics bigoted, and both sides retreat into likability determinism.
\nThere is also a status dimension that predates Carlson. High-status groups historically could criticize others without consequence. As social norms shifted toward protecting certain minority groups, the rules around who could criticize whom became more policed. That produced a double standard: certain groups enjoy protection from criticism while others become open targets. Some people find that asymmetry infuriating, and Carlson has built a career on exploiting that feeling.
\nSeveral incentive layers explain why attacking Chabad works for him right now. First, it earns populist status by signaling independence from elite alliances that many viewers distrust. Second, transgression itself produces attention; if everyone praises a group, the person who attacks it gets disproportionate visibility. Third, American politics is undergoing a partial realignment on foreign policy, and Chabad, because of its visibility and its ties to pro-Israel networks, becomes a stand-in for that broader debate. Fourth, many people who join the criticism know nothing about Chabad’s theology or practices; they join to assert an outsider identity, to signal that they speak truth to power. Fifth, social media amplifies conflict, and posts attacking a visible religious group generate outrage and sharing, which pushes commentators toward sharper accusations than the evidence supports.
\nThe criticism is not mainly about Chabad. It is about incentives within several overlapping status games.
\nGroups that respond to criticism by trying to silence it often increase the incentive for outsiders to keep attacking. The controversy itself becomes the point. Groups that respond by explaining themselves sometimes reduce the novelty and attention value of the attack. That is hard to do when the criticism feels like an assault on identity, but it is the more effective path.
\nLike every group in the world, Chabad wants to feel special and also wants that specialness to stay out of the way of its success in the larger society. Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too. Minority groups feel the tension between internal and external criticism more sharply than most, because they operate with a stronger sense of vulnerability and depend more heavily on internal solidarity. Outside criticism, even when mild, gets filtered through the lens of historical fragility. The boundary around who can criticize becomes policed.
\nSocieties improve when criticism reveals incentive structures. They stagnate when criticism becomes a loyalty test.
\nTucker Carlson’s attacks on Chabad are a loyalty test dressed as journalism. The communities that survive these tests and grow stronger are the ones that learn to extract whatever insight the criticism contains, even from bad-faith critics, rather than treating every critic as an enemy.<\/p>\n

Further Reading:<\/p>\n

The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson<\/a> (2010) by Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman provides a rigorous, sometimes controversial, sociological portrait of the seventh Rebbe. The authors argue that Schneerson reinvented Chabad from a small, refugee-led sect into a worldwide force by blending traditionalism with American-style organizational logic. This book is essential for understanding how Chabad\u2019s “messianic mission” became a primary driver for its rapid institutional expansion.<\/p>\n

The Secret of Chabad: Inside the World\u2019s Most Successful Jewish Movement<\/a> (2015) by David Eliezrie offers a perspective from within the movement. Eliezrie, an active Chabad emissary, details the history and philosophy of the shlichim (emissaries) who build the Chabad Houses. The book illustrates the incentive structure of the movement: decentralized, entrepreneurial rabbis who are encouraged to build self-sustaining centers in any environment, creating a “global infrastructure” that operates with the efficiency of a multinational corporation.<\/p>\n

Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism<\/a> (2025) by Eli Rubin provides a comprehensive intellectual history. Rubin examines how Chabad used Kabbalistic concepts, such as tzimtzum (divine contraction), to navigate the shocks of the modern era. This text explains the “grammar of strategy” within the movement\u2014how it reframes historical ruptures and external opposition as necessary stages in a larger spiritual plan.<\/p>\n

Open Judaism: A Guide for Believers, Atheists, and Agnostics<\/a> (2023) by Barry L. Schwartz includes an illuminating section on the pluralistic landscape of modern Jewish thought. Schwartz examines how Chabad\u2019s messianic focus and outreach efforts have created both attraction and friction within the broader Jewish community. This helps explain why external criticism of Chabad often triggers a protective response from Jewish institutional alliances, even among those who do not share Chabad’s theology.<\/p>\n

The Menorah and the Mandate: Chabad-Lubavitch and the Architecture of Invisible Power<\/a> (2026) analyzes the movement as a decentralized force operating at the intersection of spirituality and geopolitics. The text examines how Chabad centers function as “spiritual embassies,” gaining access to political and economic elites across regimes. This book provides the sociological framework for understanding the “Alliance Theory” mentioned in your post: how Chabad\u2019s visibility and elite connections make it a symbolic target for populist factions challenging the “establishment.”<\/p>\n

Inside Chabad Lubavitch: A Case Study in Argentina<\/a> (2023) by A.J. Soifer delivers an investigative look at the movement’s growth and impact in a specific national context. Through interviews and research, Soifer uncovers the organizational strategies and internal cohesion that allow the movement to thrive during periods of political or economic instability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chabad is taking a beating lately from people who know little about it. My first instinct, as someone who admires Chabad, is to call this evil and senseless. But first instincts are often lazy. Let me use my second and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165,42944],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chabad","category-tucker-carlson"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t