Posted on 02/25/26
Drive through any Israeli city and you’ll find streets named for rabbis and religious leaders, alongside politicians, biblical figures, poets, and friends of Israel - essentially anyone who has shaped the Jewish story. Only recently, however, have a handful of Israeli cities - including Rishon Lezion, Gedera, Dimona, Beitar Illit, and Kfar Saba - begun naming streets for one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the twentieth century: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
For decades he guided Israeli leaders, inspired soldiers and citizens alike, and transformed Jewish identity around the world. His portrait hangs in gas stations, army bases, and tefillin stands across the country - symbols of a movement that has become part of Israel’s spiritual landscape. Yet it took years for the Rebbe’s name to appear on the nation’s street signs.
The delay is striking. Though the Rebbe never visited Israel, his influence reached its highest offices. Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and Benjamin Netanyahu all sought his counsel, as did Presidents Zalman Shazar and Ezer Weizman, along with a number of generals and senior army officers. They traveled to Brooklyn to meet him privately, emerging deeply affected by his clarity, confidence, and moral conviction. The Rebbe spoke not in slogans but in strategy - urging strength in defense, integrity in leadership, and faith in Israel’s divine mission.
Why, then, did it take so long for his name to reach the map?
Some suggest that municipal committees viewed his complex legacy as ideologically sensitive. Officials wary of his followers’ messianic beliefs or his principled distance from secular Zionism feared that honoring him might inflame debate. Another factor is geography: Rabbi Schneerson never lived in Israel, nor did he ever visit, which may have made cities hesitant to include him among figures with a more direct physical connection to the land.
Yet the reason may lie deeper. The Rebbe’s influence in Israel has always defied categories. He was not a Zionist in the conventional sense, yet he was passionately devoted to the Jewish homeland. Though not a hawk, his vision of peace was grounded in realism: he spoke constantly about Israel’s need for strong security, urged Jews to settle the land, supported the IDF, and framed Israel’s defense as a matter of pikuach nefesh - protecting life. Thousands of Chabad chassidim serve proudly in the army - a striking contrast to much of the ultra-Orthodox world.
That same sense of commitment and responsibility defines Chabad’s presence across the country today. Its emissaries stand on street corners offering tefillin to passing citizens, deliver food to the needy, and open their doors to any Jew seeking comfort or connection. The movement’s credo of unconditional love - ahavat Yisrael - has softened the hearts of countless Israelis, religious and secular alike. Yet that same visibility also unsettles some who prefer faith to remain private, and Chabad’s confidence can challenge a society still negotiating the role of religion in modern statehood.
The Rebbe wasn’t a politician but a spiritual architect whose reach transcended left and right, religious and secular. His influence is everywhere precisely because it resists being confined to plaques or titles.
Walk through Israel and you’ll see it: the Chabad tefillin stand outside a mall, the soldier tying his straps before a mission, the Rebbe’s portrait smiling from a bus stop in Ofakim or Eilat. His name now appears on a few street signs, but his presence has long filled the landscape - a reminder that his message was never meant for a street sign but for the people on the street.
Gedaliah Borvick is the founder of My Israel Home, a real estate agency focused on helping people from abroad buy and sell homes in Israel. To sign up for his monthly market updates, contact him at gborvick@gmail.com. Please visit his blog at www.myisraelhome.com.