Lev Leviev in NYT Mag

Sunday's NYT Mag had a profile of Bukharan-Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, who is among the biggest Jewish philanthropists in the world. It was an interesting piece in general, highlighting some of Leviev's quirks and vague contradictions and also shedding light on his upbringing and business acumen.

One aspect of the piece that struck me as odd was its treatment of the Chabad movement. As some of you who know me know, I am a big fan of Chabad, so I would be remiss to admit that it's hard for me to be unbiased, but I will try.

First of all, the author (or editor?) likely mischaracterized Rabbi Eliezer Shach's (zt"l) feelings about Chabad. While I am not familiar with the exact quote, I find it highly unlikely that a Chabad critic like Shach would call it the sect closest to Judaism...Christianity perhaps, but not Judaism--note that this is not my feeling but my understanding of the misnagdic Shach's thoughts.

My bigger issue with Chafetz's piece was the following:

Most of the 300 rabbis are Chabadniks, adherents of the Brooklyn-based Hasidic group Chabad — fundamentalist, missionizing, worldly and centered on the personality and teachings of the late Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe. Chabad is anti-abortion, regards homosexuality as a sexual perversion and generally finds itself aligned with other fundamentalist religious groups on American domestic issues.

It seems to me that the writer--knowing the typical NYT Mag reader is left-leaning--is trying to unfairly paint Chabad. Yes, Chabad may be officially anti-abortion--like nearly all of traditional Judaism--but in the US at least, it almost completely avoids politicizing the issue. Furthermore, regarding homosexuality, Chabad, again like all of traditional Judaism, regards male homosexual acts as abominations, but the choice of the word, "perversion," creates an unfair bias in the reader's mind, in my opinion. Chabad is generally considered to be the most moderate of all haredi and hasidic groups, especially in the US and Leviev's association with them is tainted by the choices of words and phrases to describe Chabad.