By Tisaranee Gunasekara –
“Chabad wants to play a two-faced game, backing Israel’s most fanatic settlers on annexation but maintaining its non-political Jewish outreach image and funding…” ~ Rabbi Erich H Yoffie (Haaretz – 18. 6.2020)
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a Jewish-Israeli philologist. In 1997, her 13-year-old daughter Smardar was killed in a Palestinian suicide attack. Dr Peled-Elhanan could have embraced hate and vengeance; instead she chose to work for a just peace, joining a group of Palestinian and Jewish parents who lost their children to violence resulting from Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Rabbi Shneur Zalman, the Alter Rebbe, was founder and first leader (Rebbe) of the Chabad-Lubavitch Movement. He authored Tanya, the movement’s foundational text. According to Tanya, only Jews possess a divine soul. Non-Jews (known by the term nations of the world), have animal souls clothed in human form. “The souls of the nations of the world, however, emanate from…unclean kelipot which contains no good whatsoever… All the charity and the kindness done by the nations of the world is only for their self-glorification”. The Chabad Movement back the Greater Israel project, which forms the ideological basis for Gaza genocide, invasion of Lebanon, Iran war, attacks on Syria and a possible war with Turkey.
Nurit Peled-Elhanan and the Chabad-Lubavitch movement represent the two antipodes of today’s Israel. One accepts the common humanity of all people. The other subscribes to a Jewish- supremacist worldview dividing humanity into superior and inferior species.
It is the Jewish fundamentalist side of Israel that is seeking to expand its footprint in Sri Lanka via Chabad Houses and by forming alliances with Sinhala-Buddhist extremists.
In 2017, Rabbi Gilad Kariv, a leader of Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, revealed that the “Israeli government pours about 250million shekels ($70million) a year into Orthodox outreach activities…” The purpose of this munificence is to popularise a fanatical worldview among Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2017-06-15/ty-article/.premium/why-israel-is-spending-millions-on-orthodox-missionary-work/0000017f-ee33-da6f-a77f-fe3f9e0e0000). The Chabad movement is a key recipient of this generosity through its religious schools and welfare programmes. Money and ideology form the cornerstones of the Movement’s alliance with extremist minister Itmar Ben-Gvir who recently said that all Palestinians “are people who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They are not even people” (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-ben-gvir-gaza-netanyahu-kill-every-night/). His BBS-type Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) Party’s alliance agreement with Bibi Netanyahu included a clause committing Israel to “bolster and strengthen the Chabad movement,” reveals The Centre of Media and Democracy in Israel (https://www.shomrim.news/eng/chabad-ben-gvir-alliance).
So Hiriketiya, a surfing hotspot in Dikwella, Matara.
In setting up a Chabad House in this predominantly Buddhist village, the Chabad operator seemed to have followed the ‘two-faced game’ mentioned by Rabbi Yoffie. He/she signed a five-year lease for the 40-perch land with three villas to open a restaurant. (Can foreigners start businesses in Sri Lanka bypassing the BOI? Perhaps the NPP government’s equality-before-the-law boast doesn’t apply to moneyed foreigners any more than it does to influential monks like Pallegama Hemaratana). When instead of the supposed restaurant, a Chabad House was set up, the villages protested. The reasons for their protest varied from the aggressive behaviour of some Israeli tourists frequenting the place to its economic impact on local businesses. According to the fact-checking website Fact Crescendo, the agreement between the landowner and the Israeli national makes no mention of a Chabad house. Now the landowner has issued “a 14-day notice, in accordance with the signed agreement, requiring the Israeli national to vacate the premises” (https://srilanka.factcrescendo.com/english/sri-lanka-first-jewish-synagogue-hiriketiya-chabad-house-misleading/).
If the landowner sticks to his decision, the Hiriketiya problem might be solved. But the larger political issue would remain: the growing nexus between Jewish fundamentalist of the Chabad ilk and Sinhala-Buddhist extremists a la Sinhala Ravaya.
The Seven Noahide Commandments and the world of Chabad
The Chabad Movement’s ultimate object is the dawn of the Messianic Era. A precondition for this “perfection of the world” is the spreading of the seven Noahide commandments among all the people of the world. Even in the here and now, global stability requires “a level of civilised conduct, which can be achieved only when non-Jews also observer their mitzvot” (the Noahide commandments) (https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/380332/jewish/The-Mitzvot-of-Non-Jews.htm).
The seven Noahide commandments are moral laws based on the Jewish-Talmudic tradition. The Chabad Movement and other orthodox Jewish sects believe that these laws are binding on all humanity. According to Chabad teaching, the first advocates justice, the fifth prohibits murder, suicide, or injury, the sixth forbids stealing, and the seventh forbids the eating limb of a living creature. These would be acceptable to most people, Jewish or non-Jewish. The fourth prohibits not only incest and bestiality but also adultery and homosexuality, making it acceptable to traditionalist of all religions. The unbridgeable gap comes only with the second and the third commandments banning blasphemy and idolatry.
The third commandment forbids idolatry. According to Chabad teaching, this “Prohibits the worship of any human or any created thing. Also prohibited is the making of idols and involvement with the occult.” (Ibid). In other words, no images of the Buddha, gods, Jesus, Virgin Mary, or saints. No Samadhi statue, no Reclining Vishnu (Andra Pradesh), no The Pieta. (The Bamiyan Buddha wouldn’t have survived in a Jewish state ruled by the Chabad Movement). No bodhi puja, no Dharshana, no saints’ feasts. No worshipping of monks either, or even one’s parents or elders.
Chabad website explains why the movement is absolutely intolerant idolatry, including “a civilised idolater in the privacy of his home…with a job, a family, a mortgage, donates to the World Hunger Fund and Greenpeace – and happens to have two or three or several dozen (idols), all lined up on the dashboard of his car.” The Chabad asks, “Why does Judaism make a cardinal sin of it, demanding total eradication of idolatry in every corner of the world?” The Chabad answers, because all universal ethics come from the Torah (https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3201/jewish/Whats-So-Terrible-About-Idolatry.htm).
The second commandment forbids blasphemy, the disrespecting of the God by word or deed. According to Chabad Japan, “The sin of blasphemy carries the possibility of capital punishment by speech alone, even without action… Gentiles are commanded to fear and honour God” (https://chabadjapan.org/emor-the-prohibition-of-blasphemy/).
Do the Sinhala-Buddhist extremists who see Israel and the Chabad movement as allies in their battles against Tamil, Muslim, and Catholic/Christian Lankans understand the nature of the beast they have embraced?
Having petitioned the IGP on behalf of the Hiriketiya Chabad House, Sinhala Ravaya leaders led by Akmeemana Dayaratane thero held a press conference flanked by two Chabad rabbis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNbBfTxmXyI). Their absurd defence of the Chabad project would have been laughable had the stakes not been so high.
They claimed that Chabad Houses are being set only to provide kosher food to Israelis on Fridays and Saturdays. Perhaps they should take the time to read what Chabad Sri Lanka says about what a Chabad House offers – Festive Shabbat meals, prayers, an active synagogue, a mikvah (a special pool or bath used for ritual immersion, and kosher food.
According to the Sinhala Ravaya, the mushrooming of Chabad Houses in Sri Lanka is not a problem because Judaism is not into conversions. Obviously, they haven’t heard of President’s Trump’s older daughter Ivanka Trump who converted to Orthodox Judaism and adopted the Yiddish name of Yael to marry Jared Kushner. Incidentally, Chabad website even has a section on how to convert to Judaism (https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2972927/jewish/How-to-Convert-to-Judaism.htm).
The Israel lobby has created a new history for Sri Lanka, according to which Israeli-Lankan relations go back to 4,000 years (perhaps Ravana visited Solomon in his dandumonara?). According to Sinhala Ravaya, “Throughout history, we have received priceless legacies from Jews…” The Chabad movement is here to perpetuate this ancient tradition of bestowing ‘priceless legacies’ on us. “These rabbis are carrying out a programme called Hatikva for Lankan children from poor families to gain an education.” Never mind that Hatikva (Hope) is a “A Yeshua centred compassion ministry to the state of Israel” (https://hatikvaproject.org/about/). Its purpose is poverty alleviation within Israel and no in Sri Lanka. A worthy object given that overall poverty in Israel stands at 21% with a 28% rate of child poverty (https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-885066). In 2019, before Gotabaya Rajapaksa took over, poverty in Sri Lanka was only 14.3%.
The Sinhala Ravaya claims that there are 29 temples in Israel. There are three Diamond Way Buddhist Centres belonging to the Tibetan tradition in Israel – Beer Sheva, Haifa and Tel Aviv- Tibetan Buddhism (https://www.karmapa.org/centers/country/israel/). The only Theravada Temple is inside an apartment complex in Greater Tel Aviv, a small concession driven by Israel’s dire need of Lankan workers.
In this ongoing dance of deception, who is the deceiver and who is the deceived?
Ignorance, Cupidity, or Gullibility?
In August 2026, Israelis informed Donald Trump about a supposed Iranian plot to assassinate him while attending a NATO summit in Ankara.
According to a report in The Washington Post, though President Trump believed the story, the US intelligence agencies said they had ‘low confidence’ in it. “US intelligence officials were sceptical about an Iranian assassination plot against President Trump that was relayed by Israel while he was in Turkey.” A former CIA official said the incident “fits a broader pattern of Israeli intelligence reporting that some officials see as designed as much to shape presidential decision making as to inform it.” Even Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused to buy the story, opting to fly in the ‘threatened’ aircraft (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/08/12/cia-had-low-confidence-iranian-threat-before-trump-switched-planes-turkey/).
Was the Israeli story about an Iran-inspired attack on Israeli and American tourists in Arugam Bay in September 2024 real? Or was it a plant aimed at shaping the decisions of the new Anura Kumara Dissanayake government, diluting the JVP’s traditional support for Palestine and pushing the new administration in a more pro-Israeli direction? If so, it almost worked. For several months, the NPP government treated any support for Palestine on the part of Lankan Muslims as a sign of actual or incipient terrorism. This juxtaposition reached such an absurd level that in March 2025, someone made President Dissanayake believe that a young Lankan Muslim boy who pasted an anti-Israeli sticker on a waste bin to express his outrage at the murder of children in Gaza was a dangerous terrorist.
It is perhaps no accident that the first warning about a (Muslim) terror attack in Arugam Bay targeting Israelis came in November 2023 from Sinhala Ravaya. Its national organiser accused Muslims of Arugam Bay of threatening Israelis and trying to get them out of Sri Lanka over the Gaza war. He had no proof to offer. Only vitriol. He also accused 224 out of 225 parliamentarians of being pro-Palestinian and told them not to “nurture extremism”, warning that this could lead to another incident like the Easter Sunday attacks.
In 2025, more than 65,000 Israelis migrated from Israel. Cyprus is a favourite destination for such migrants who set up new communities with Jewish-only apartment blocks, cafes and schools. Political interference follows on the heels of these geographic and economic incursions. According to right wing Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom (owned by the family of Jewish-American tycoon Sheldon Adelson and distributed free in Israel), Hamas and Iran are operating in Turkish Cyprus trying to undermine Israel. If the problem reaches strategic levels, Israel should invade and liberate Turkish Cyprus, the article advocates, in an operation which can be named Poseidon’s Wrath (https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/northern-cyprus-is-also-an-israeli-problem/).
Is Sri Lanka to become the next Cyprus, to go from reliable supplier of pliant labour and safe haven for IDF tourists to welcoming second home for Israelis seeking safer shores? Or is the aim of the Israeli lobby the election of a more pro-Israel government? What is the deal between the Chabad Movement and Sinhala Ravaya? While the government and the opposition are locked in a needless conflict about the retirement age of judges, are plans being made to ignite another minority threat, another terrorist problem, another ethnic/religious clash?