The Rabbi Goes West: Soul-saving Hasidim in Montana face neo-Nazis to the right, 'reform' Jews to the left

By Liam Lacey

Rating: B-plus

“You don’t have to be Jewish but…” goes an old expression, which is applicable to The Rabbi Goes West (available in a limited window until Thursday through Vimeo). 

The film is a documentary about Chaim Bruk, a member of the Orthodox Hasidic movement known as Chabad Lubavitch.  A gregarious and funny guy from Brooklyn, New York, Bruk moved with his family (which, in the course of events, increases to five adopted children) to set up a Chabad center in the town of Bozeman, Montana. 

The Bruks in Montana, saving apostates one soul at a time.

The co-directors of the film are Boston-based Gerald Peary and his partner, Amy Geller. (Full disclosure: Gerry, also a film scholar and journalist, is a longtime friend of this writer.) We catch up with Bruk about nine years after his move to Montana, as he’s part-way through his mission to append a kosher mezuzah to the door of every Jewish household in Montana (there are about 2,000 Jews in the state). 

(For the information of goyim, like me, the mezuzah is a kind of protective amulet, a piece of parchment, inscribed with Hebrew verses from Deuteronomy, placed in a decorative case,  with the goal of fulfilling the Biblical commandment to “write the words of God on the gates and doorposts of your house.”)

But Jews don’t proseltyze, do they?  In the case, of the Chabad Lubavitch sect, yes: The group’s goal is to bring Jews – the secular, reform and conservative -- back to an orthodox tradition, with the understanding that the recruitment of non-observant Jews is a step toward bringing the Messianic era.  

The issue is that the mezuzah is, in a sense, the toe in the door. Bruk, who calls himself “God’s salesman”, starts by visiting a gas station and asks to be directed to any Jews in town. He rings the bell, introduces himself, and offers a free mezuzah for their door. That leads to an invitation from him to a Hanukah party at his shul, and then to religious services. 

In the process, he’s accused of poaching area congregants from the Reform rabbi, Ed Stafman, and the Conservative rabbi, Francine Roston. They view his version of Judaism as dogmatically cultish. In a sense, it’s a classic Western stand-off, though the skirmish is about rustling human souls, not longhorn steers. Could an outside threat convince the two sides to recognize their common interests? 

Not exactly.  A crisis point comes with the election of Donald Trump and the recrudescent anti-Semitism: A group of Neo-Nazis decides to launch mail and cyber-attacks against the Jewish community in Whitefish, Montana (the home town of white supremacist spokesman, Richard Spencer). Jewish leaders such as Rabbi Roston respond by promoting inter-faith initiatives, increased security and by spreading awareness of  anti-Semitism. Bruk’s response was to see the attacks as an opportunity to promote the faith, by sending a Torah to every Jewish home in Montana.

You definitely need not be Jewish to see the age-old dichotomy between reason and revelation played out in this micro-community in small-town America. Liberals like Rabbi Stafman view religious tradition as a source of cultural information, not an antique rule book. Meanwhile, fundamentalists like Bruk have a growing audience for their belief in gender roles, the sacred Jewish homeland and the coming Messianic era.  

Pray for us all, literally or metaphorically, in whatever faith you choose.

Directed by Gerald Peary and Amy Geller. Written by Gerald Peary. With Chaim Bruk, Francine Rostonl Allen Secher, and Ed Stafman. Available until Thursday, June 4 on Vimeo.