David Berger (historian)
- For the victim of the Munich massacre, see David Mark Berger.
David Berger is a professor of history at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, and a visiting professor at Yeshiva University's Bernard Revel Graduate School. He has gained notoriety for advocating a purge of Chabad Hasidim from Orthodox Judaism. Impartial reviewers have noted that Berger has "emerged as a would-be Torquemada on the Orthodox scene, demanding a policy of 'intolerance' and 'exclusion' toward those he deems to be heretical to Orthodoxy."[1]
Education
Berger received a bachelor's degree from Yeshiva College in 1964. He then went on to Columbia University where he completed a master of arts degree in 1965 and his doctor of philosophy in 1970. He received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America.
Attack on Chabad
Summary
Berger, an expert on Jewish responses to Christian claims of Jesus' messiahship and divinity, began to attack what he viewed as similar assertions made by religious leaders of the Jewish Chabad movement shortly after Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson's reported passing in 1993. Berger claimed that such assertions could not be squared with traditional Jewish texts. An example of Berger's prooftexts is the passage in the Talmud which shows that R. Akiva set aside his previous assertions of Bar Kokhba's messiahship following Bar Kokhba being put to death. To Berger, Chabad's viewpoint on this issue is outside the pale of Orthodox Jewish belief. Berger has been highly disappointed by the Orthodox establishment's indifference to his charges of heresy. He himself does not hold any position of authority within the Orthodox community.
Supporters
Berger's views are shared by many of the leaders of right-wing Orthodox institutions, especially the elite Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Israel, and of the Rabbinical Seminary of America in New York. Rabbi Aharon Feldman, the dean of Ner Yisrael Rabbinical College in Baltimore, Maryland, wrote a widely-disseminated letter in 2004 which stated that Orthodox Jews should not pray in Chabad messianist synagogues, usually called "Chabad houses" to distinguish them from establishment Orthodox congregations, and that rabbis who hold such views should not be respected.
Berger is a highly popular figure in Modern Orthodox circles. He is respected for his enduring contributions to Jewish-Christian dialogue as well as his research on the the Jewish-Christian debates during medieval times. Following Yeshiva University President Rabbi Norman Lamm's announcement that he would retire in 2001, Berger placed second on an online poll which asked who Lamm's successor should be. In 1996, largely at his behest, the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest organization of Modern Orthodox rabbis in the United States, approved the following resolution:
- In light of disturbing developments which have recently arisen in the Jewish community,the Rabbinical Council of America in convention assembled declares that there is not and has never been a place in Judaism for the belief that Mashiach ben David will begin his Mesiianic mission only to experience death, burial, and resurrection before completing it.
Criticism
As Berger admits, the criticism of his attacks on Chabad have come from some unexpected sources. Berger writes that David Singer, an impartial reviewer, "attributes to me bitterness, rage, barely controlled hysteria, egotism, absurdity and nonsense, all in the service of my aspiration to emulate Torquemada." [2] Berger cl
Works
- Berger, David. The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001 (ISBN 1874774889)