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Aug 29, 2022Liked by צמח

What is the source of this assumption?

"perhaps accused in the CCCP of being a Marxist Trotskyite"

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Aug 29, 2022·edited Mar 17Author

I have heard from people who looked into this history that he left Dnepropetrovsk under the assumed identity of Mark Gurary (actual Mitya Gurary has drowned) because he was either accused of being a Trotskyst or was about to be accused of being Trotskyst. Needs further research.

But since at that time many thousands of people were falsely accused of being a Trotskyst, I am starting to think this is not reflective of his actual ideology. What is not in doubt is that he was not observant.

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Aug 29, 2022Liked by צמח

Thank you for the response!

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Jun 3·edited Jun 3Author

P.S. It recently came out that Rayal authored a paper on the “Marxian theory of prices”. See here https://mentalblog.substack.com/p/archive-of-mark-gurari

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Aug 2, 2022·edited Mar 17Author

I have no idea who are the new Chabad, but someone told me that people no longer know who is Rashag or even the Rebbe. Let alone his long-lost brother, therefore the whole Schneerson spil is purely an abstract and irrelevant exercise. Are there different parameters to the group that we no longer know?

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I don’t know where you get the idea that he’s been turned into a tzaddik of some sort by chabad. In my experience, all that most chabadniks know about him is that his brother (the Rebbe) a. Hid his death from their mother, and b. Endeavored to have his mathematical notes published when they surfaced in the 70’s. Not much is popularly known about his life beyond a few basic biographical notes, either to the positive or the negative. Some still remember his daughter, but i don’t think she had anything particularly controversial to say about him either.

Perhaps you could argue that chabad discourages attention being paid to him because it wouldn’t be a good look or whatever, but that’s a far cry from actively trying to paint him as some sort of saint.

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A photo from the holy Tzaf comes to mind where meshichisten who know nothing about this man pray on his holy gave. Most don't even know that he was secular.

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