The Age of Messianic Reproduction: The Image of the Last Lubavitcher Rebbe in Chabad Theology
The smiling face of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known fondly as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, is a well-known sight to even secular Jews. Staring out of billboards, key-chains, and newspapers, Schneerson, despite his death in 1994, appears everywhere. The Rebbe’s portrait is a devotional image for many mem...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
[2017]
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| In: |
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2017, Volume: 85, Issue: 3, Pages: 775-805 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Schneerson, Menachem Mendel 1902-1994
/ Charismatic
/ Image
/ Spread of
/ Chabad Lubavitch
/ Khabad
/ Benjamin, Walter 1892-1940, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit
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| RelBib Classification: | BH Judaism |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | The smiling face of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known fondly as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, is a well-known sight to even secular Jews. Staring out of billboards, key-chains, and newspapers, Schneerson, despite his death in 1994, appears everywhere. The Rebbe’s portrait is a devotional image for many members of the Lubavitch-Chabad sect. For those familiar with Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” the many copies of Schneerson’s portrait appear to contradict the singular holiness, or “aura,” of the beloved image. By investigating Chabad’s use of the Rebbe’s portrait through Benjamin’s concept of aura, this article shows that Schneerson’s portrait has maintained ritual power while participating in the capitalistic consumption of images. Finally, due to Chabad’s Messianism and outreach efforts, the act of reproducing the image itself has become a part of Chabad’s theology, creating a new paradigm for how religious images retain aura. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4585 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfx002 |