Oxford University L'Chaim Society

The Oxford University L'Chaim Society was a student society at the University of Oxford from 1989 to 2001. At its peak, it was the second-largest society within the University of Oxford.Michael A. Jolles and W. Rubinstein (editors) (2011), The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 116.
==History==
The Oxford University L'Chaim Society was established in 1989 by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who had been sent to Oxford by the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson in 1988.Boteach, Shmuel (1994). Moses of Oxford (2 volumes). London: André Deutsch, Vol. 1, pp. xix-xx. Accordingly, at its onset the society formed part of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. However, L'Chaim Society evolved to become an independent interfaith, debating society, with thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish members. The society grew to be the second-biggest student organization ever in Oxford, with a membership that reportedly included over 5,000 non-Jews.
The society held communal Sabbath dinners every Friday evening. It organized numerous other events and brought to Oxford famous guest speakers from politics, arts, and culture, including a significant number of leading Zionists. They included six Israeli prime ministers (namely Yitzhak Rabin, Yitzhak Shamir, Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert, Ariel SharonAriel Sharon, Israeli Housing Minister (and later Prime Minister of Israel) visits Oxford in 1991 to speak at the Oxford University L'Chaim Society and Benjamin Netanyahu), former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, UN Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, British politicians Norman Lamont, John Patten, and David Young, U.S. General Robert C. Oaks, Israeli Supreme Court Vice President Elyakim Rubinstein, Mossad Director Isser Harel, Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, Nobel Prize winning author Elie Wiesel, Zionist activist Natan Sharansky, novelist Haim Be'er, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, historian Benzion Netanyahu, banker Edmond Safra, UK Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi/singer Shlomo Carlebach, singers Michael Jackson and Boy George, football player Diego Maradona, and actor Jon Voight.Cory Booker and the Orthodox rabbi were like brothers. Now they don’t speak., Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post, May 31, 2019.It’s very hard to be a proud Jew here, Naomi Firsht, The Jewish Chronicle, January 4, 2016.Jenni Frazer (October 17, 2019). "‘I come from a pretty broken place’ - Shmuel Boteach, self-styled ‘America’s rabbi’ and friend of celebrities, opens up; He talks about Michael Jackson, Roseanne Barr, and the end of his relationship with Democrat presidential hopeful Cory Booker," The Jewish Chronicle.
Some Orthodox patrons became concerned about the direction of the group and the percentage of non-Jewish members, and Boteach was asked to remove some non-Jewish students from the society; others wanted him to exclude gay students. Boteach refused on both counts, and converted the L'Chaim Society from a student society into an charitable organization outside the university.
===Charity commission investigations===
According to a report in the Observer in 1999:
:For an orthodox Jewish rabbi, Shmuel Boteach has an unorthodox way of doing things. The New York-educated cleric drinks vodka, allows non-Jews to join his Oxford-based debating society and sees nothing wrong in using Playboy magazine to push his ideas on 'kosher' sex. He is also on first name terms with Mikhail Gorbachev and former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. But this weekend it is not Boteach's radical approach to spreading Hasidic Jewish teaching that is shocking British Jewry so much as allegations about the activities of his Oxford University L'Chaim Society and its associated charitable trust. L'Chaim is Hebrew for 'to life'. And according to the 32-year-old rabbi's detractors, Boteach - 'Shmuley' to his friends - has taken the society's philosophy too literally.
:Last week the Charity Commission froze the trust's bank account, citing concerns about 'the application and control of the charity's funds'. The commission wants to question trustees about payments to meet the mortgage on Boteach's £400,000 home in north London. The Observer has also learnt that Boteach and his family have the run of a large house in Oxford, albeit thanks to the generosity of an unnamed Israeli benefactor. Perhaps most damaging are reports of widespread staff disaffection with Boteach's management style amid allegations that while fund-raising for Jewish causes he has been using employees of L'Chaim to promote the financial interests of major donors.
:According to documents obtained by The Observer, in June 1997, Boteach's then executive assistant at the L'Chaim Society, Esther Flint, wrote to Rabbi J. Gutnick, a multimillionaire, in Melbourne, Australia, offering to help him in 'developing awareness' in Britain of his mining projects. The letter began: 'I understand that a significant element of the job is devoting time to promoting your companies to the financial markets of UK and Europe. Therefore Rabbi Boteach thought it pertinent I contact you in order that I may introduce myself.' Soon after, Flint resigned. Boteach acknowledges that Gutnick, who made his fortune in gold mining, was a key donor but claims Flint's offer was never taken up. 'There was no question of a tit for tat arrangement,' he told The Observer. The Charity Commission is pressing ahead with a formal investigation and has asked to meet the trustees this week to clarify a series of transactions - including cheques drawn on the trust's account for Boteach's salary and payments for this year's fund-raising dinner and a car pool for L'Chaim employees.
:Boteach says L'Chaim's trustees took legal advice before setting up the trust account to meet the mortgage payments on his London home and were assured that it conformed to charity regulations. He maintains that the house was being used for fund-raising dinners and charity-related work. According to Boteach, the investigation is little more than a 'witchhunt' got up by his enemies in the Jewish establishment who have always disapproved of his talent for self-promotion. But former employees tell a different story, claiming his private face is at odds with the engaging image he presents in the media and on chat shows like Oprah Winfrey's. They say Boteach makes impossible demands on staff and when they fail to meet expectations they are sacked or persuaded to resign. In one two-year period, Boteach dismissed six directors of the Oxford society, accusing each of gross misconduct. The allegations were strenuously denied and one former director is now threatening to sue for libel over alleged comments Boteach made to the chairman of the trust's governors, Michael Sinclair.
:As long as Boteach attracted speakers like Gorbachev, Peres and Diego Maradona to Oxford, and the donations continued to pour in, he continued to enjoy the confidence of the trustees. By 1995 the turnover from L'Chaim events was £183,000 - far more than any other Oxford student society - and two years later donations to the trust totalled £450,000. But by now the university proctors were becoming concerned that L'Chaim was being run as a business and no longer complied with the membership rules for a student society. As a result, Boteach wound down L'Chaim's Oxford activities and began spending more time in London. By 1998 he was riding high. His first book, The Jewish Guide to Adultery, giving Talmudic advice on how to improve one's marriage, had been serialised in the Daily Mail and he had just sold his second, Kosher Sex , to Playboy for a reported £200,000.
:Then, last April, Katrin Levy, a journalist on a north London Jewish newspaper, began to investigate reports of staff disenchantment. Instead of publishing her findings she decided to show them to the paper's proprietor - Michael Sinclair, chairman of L'Chaim's board and Boteach's boss. 'By going to Sinclair I hoped he would investigate the allegations and act on them,' says Levy. The next day Levy was told to hand her documents back to Boteach. She refused and went to the police, who passed the documents to the Charity Commission, triggering this week's events. Levy subsequently left her job. Sinclair declined to comment to The Observer. Instead, the trustees issued a statement claiming the allegations were 'utterly without foundation' and the society had done 'absolutely nothing wrong'. But the damage to Boteach's reputation may have already been fatal. Yesterday the Chief Rabbi's office told The Observer that although Boteach had been invited to participate in an end of Sabbath prayer service at the prestigious New West End Synagogue in central London, he did not possess the appropriate United Synagogue rabbinical 'practice certificate'. Boteach said: 'This is an ongoing attempt to silence individuals like myself who have never been accepted by the mainstream Jewish establishment.' https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/sep/05/theobserver.uknews1
==People==
*Shmuley Boteach - founder
Presidents of the society included American Baptist Rhodes Scholar and future U.S. Senator Cory Booker, Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, Hebrew language revivalist Ghil'ad Zuckermann, and American Mormon and future president of Southern Utah University Michael Benson.Rabbi in spotlight over 'Kosher Sex', Thomas K. Grose, USA Today, February 12, 1999.Cory Booker Refused to Meet With Ron Dermer and Elie Wiesel Over Iran Deal, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Observer, February 22, 2016.Researcher Profile: Prof of Linguistics & Endangered Languages
Other Oxford University students who were members of the Oxford University L'Chaim Society include Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman, Australian politician Joshua Frydenberg, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and British-Italian United Nations official Maurizio Giuliano.Stop Ostracizing Those Who Marry Out, Shmuley Boteach, Huffpost, July 22, 2007.
==See also==
*Oxford Chabad Centre
==Resources==
*https://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/features/it-s-very-hard-to-be-a-proud-jew-here-1.56759
*https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/sep/05/theobserver.uknews1
*https://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/301211/jewish/Who-We-Are.htm
*https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/intense-iran-debate-at-the-oxford-union/
==See also==
*Chabad-Lubavitch UK
*Chabad-Lubavitch
==Notes==