Conference of Women Chabad emissaries
Conference of Women Chabad emissariesShmuel Amit

More than 3,000 women from all over the world attended the conference of Chabad-Lubavitch women emissaries in New York.

The women operate Chabad Houses in 100 countries, including South Korea, Taiwan, Nigeria, Barbados, Malta and others.

The conference is held annually around the yahrzeit (date of death) of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, the late wife of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and focuses on female-Jewish activism.

The organizer of the conference, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, said that many emissaries have reported a significant wave of recent visits to Chabad Houses. The women say that the reason for this is "the desire to know the sources of Judaism as a tool for realizing and empowering women."

There is, of course, also an Israeli angle to the conference. Apart from special sessions that dealt with Israeli hikers around the world, a delegation of hundreds of Chabad women emissaries from around Israel also participated in the conference.

"Chabad Houses are the most popular Jewish address in the world, and therefore, of course, they appeal to the female half of the population. The emissaries who run the Chabad Houses are in fact fulfilling the Rebbe's vision of connecting the female perspective to the Jewish perspective," said Rabbi Yosef Aharonov, chairman of the Chabad mission in Israel.