A Tale of Two conventions

With the conclusion of  both the annual  Agudah convention  and the recent Chabad  lubavitch kinnus hashluchim, while each is of a different nature, format and mission,  both have taken steps in reaching out to a broad audience with the help of social media and innovative programs. Live broadcast locations, live streams and updated tweets and emails reporting on the events.

The kinus hashluchim which has been a exclusive chabad event, has recently, drew more attention with much more publicity. Its been followed by many outside of chabad. Credit in large part to social media and online publicity. It got coverage even among so called litvish yeshiva websites that are more in line with Agudah than Chabad. The kiruv nature of it has a broad appeal reaching out to many across the spectrum.

 The recent Siyum hashas, Lefkowitz young leadership initiative, and the publicizing of advocacy and involvement of Agudah on behalf of the klal, has brought a new life and excitement to the convention and helped in reaching out to today's generation.


The convention used to be "the event of the year" covered by all newspapers, an event not to be missed. It was followed by all, Thousands flocked to the motzei shabbos keynote session in the Catskills (the Pioneer hotel, the stevensville), the Rye town Hilton and recently in New Jersey. The convention though is still the same in regards to the gedolim in attendance, the rabbanim and community leaders and activists. Today there are many more mosdos that also have events and shabbatons throughout the year, making the convention not as prominent and just another event among many.

The yeshiva community has grown tremendously and many of the newer generation did not grow up with the agudah as the previous generation did, where pirchei, tzeirei  and camp agudah  were an active part of life. The yeshiva world today  has a system of its own too. What used to be at the time, The Jewish Observer has now been taken over by many weekly newspaper and magazines that are not all Agudah affiliated thus people are not reading only about the Agudah news as used to be. All this appears to not show a reliance and involvement as it used to be. Still, the agudah is there for the klal, led by the gedolei roshei yeshiva, askanim that are advocating, fighting for yeshivas, for religious freedom, for bringing kavod shamayim.

Than as now, we  look up to the Gedolim to guide us and that is the only thing that counts.