Scenes from the Chabad Lubavitch annual group portrait

Jewish leaders from around the world gathered in Crown Heights over the weekend — and took time out for a photo

Thousands of rabbis from all 50 states and 100 countries descended on 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights on Sunday for an annual group photo.

At the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters on this unseasonably cold day, people clasped hands and hugged, greeting each other as a loudspeaker boomed out the instructions for the “emissaries” to take their place for the photo. They are among the 6500 rabbis and Jewish leaders visiting New York for the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries, an annual event “aimed at strengthening Jewish awareness and practice around the world,” according to the official flyer of the event.

(Photo by Stephanie Keith)

“I’m honored to be a part of the rabbinical delegation,” Rabbi Menachem Stern, a chaplain serving in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, told Brooklyn Magazine. “We serve as a lighthouse in the storm of the tumultuous world, where we are that rock that people could lean on, that light that people could gravitate to when they are in trouble.”

There were emissaries from places as far flung as China and the Ukraine on hand for the photo, which is taken to create a visual record of the growth of Chabad Lubavitch, a sect of Hasidim that dates to the 18th century. The multiday event includes workshops on how its shluchim, who function much like missionaries to the Jewish people, can be more useful — whether on college campuses, in day schools, teaching adult education or in other forms of outreach.

Photo by Stephanie Keith

This year’s gathering, of course, convened as a brutal war between Israel and Hamas drags on. “We are strong for the soldiers that are in the front lines and for the hostages and for the families. We resolve to intensify our efforts to bring more light into the world,” said Rabbi Yair Rosenthal, who traveled from the town of Sderot in Israel near the border with Gaza.

The theme of bringing light into the darkness through prayer and community was a constant throughout the gathering.

Photo by Stephanie Keith

“It’s just amazing time to be able to come in during these very trying, difficult times to be able to be there, to get over the hump and to be able to see happier, brighter times more peaceful, times for the world over,” said Rabbi Levi Klein, who traveled from Memphis.

Once the photo session concluded, the rabbis hugged, laughed, danced and went to prepare for a big banquet to be held a few hours later.

Here are a few more scenes from the day.