A friend gave me a copy of the book “Undaunted” about the previous Lubavitcher rebbe.  In my mind, I automatically assumed that it was about the last Lubavitcher rebbe, but then I learned that within Chabad, the “previous” rebbe is the Sixth Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn.

The well researched biography reflects his profound commitment to sustaining Jewish life, profound faith and sacrifice in the face of threats to the Jewish community including Stalinist communism, Nazi Europe, and apathy in America.

As the previous rebbe’s leadership in Chabad began at the same time as the morphing of Russia from an antisemitic Czarist nation to an antisemitic communist one, I was engaged immediately.  My personal connection to the plight of Soviet Jews began as an adolescent. I knew the history of Jews in Russia, but had never read a biography of someone who lived it as the Jewish leader that the previous rebbe was.  From the advent of communism, after being expelled from the USSR, across Europe, and eventually settling in the US, the Sixth Rebbe was always profoundly connected to and concerned about the plight of Soviet Jews. The underground network of Jewish life that he maintained, largely orchestrated from outside the USSR, was remarkable. The challenges he faced from within organized Jewish institutions outside Soviet Russia was also formidable.

My experience with Soviet Jews was shaped by the Zionist leaders among them in my lifetime: Hebrew teachers, Aliyah activists, and others who sacrificed so much just to embrace and propagate Jewish life. These were the leaders of the refuseniks and........

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