World
Chabad rabbis set record in longest ever Zoom meeting
The annual meeting, taking place virtually this year, spanned 4 days
November 19, 2020 14:00
The annual meeting, taking place virtually this year, spanned 4 days
November 19, 2020 14:00Lubavitch emissaries forced to stage their annual convention digitally this year have set an unexpected record — for the world’s longest Zoom meeting.
After embarking on a farbrengen, a traditional Chasidic celebration of story and song, to mark the end of Shabbat, delegates were still farbrenging four days later.
What was previously thought the longest Zoom marathon, in New Zealand, lasted less than a full day.
Thousands of Lubavitch shluchim (emissaries) from across the globe normally converge on the movement’s home in New York for the occasion, but this year it was virtual.
Australian delegates started the farbrengen for a melaveh malkah (post-Shabbat party), some 16 hours ahead of their American colleagues. Gradually, as Shabbat went out, Lubavitchers from different time zones joined in and they simply kept on going.
There were 11 different programmes but all in the same Zoom room, and at any one time there was an average of 500 participants conversing in English, Yiddish, Hebrew or other languages.
Rabbi Mendel Kalmenson, of London’s Jewish Belgravia, who gave one of the keynote addresses at the convention, said: “The same medium shluchim have used for the past half a year to inspire their communities has now become the medium by which they are receiving inspiration from each other.
“The fact that there are shluchim rejuvenating Jewish life across 100 countries and many time zones is what has allowed this unique and global rejuvenation to take place.”
Whether this is the longest farbrengen ever, historians of Chasidism will have to judge.
Another UK participant, Rabbi Shmuel Lew, principal of London’s Lubavitch Senior Girls’ School, said, “I can’t believe even in Russia 200 years ago they had something going on this long.”