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Turkish newspaper makes ‘ludicrously outrageous’ claims about Chabad

Chabad’s “record of centuries of serving the needs of Jews and all people in need speaks for itself,” said spokesman Rabbi Motti Seligson.

Headquarters of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Headquarters of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Headquarters of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Headquarters of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

A Turkish newspaper with Islamist loyalties unleashed a series of bizarre allegations against the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

The Millî Gazete, which is associated with the Millî Görüş movement, accused Chabad of being part of an international criminal-espionage conspiracy, which it said promotes LGBTQ issues. The report cited an unnamed Cypriot official.

The official told the publication that Chabad works with the mafia, commits many crimes, launders money and leaks information to the Mossad, Israeli intelligence.

“Chabad-Lubavitch is a Jewish, religious, non-political movement whose record of centuries of serving the needs of Jews and all people in need speaks for itself,” Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesman for Chabad, told JNS.

“These ridiculous, antisemitic conspiratorial claims are so ludicrously outrageous they don’t deserve a response,” he said.

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