Thursday, "Gimel Tammuz" [the third day of Tammuz) on the Hebrew calendar, marks the fifteenth anniversary of the passing of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of blessed memory, when newscasters announced that the man arguably most responsible for outreach to the unaffiliated Jew-in-the-street in the past century had left this world.

“The Rebbe,” as he was known by Jews the world over, was the seventh and last spiritual leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic world movement, and his Chassidim observe the day with various events in every continent on the planet. His marriage did not bear any children, and the Chabad movement has felt it inappropriate to appoint a successor.