I’m new here, I’d just like to point out that most of the publicity around this years Gimmel Tammuz didn’t originate in Chabad and was not directed by it.
For instance, the new Koren book on the Rebbe’s Torah philosophy, Engaging the Essence, was written by a Modern Orthodox academic and Talmid Chacham. There was definitely input from Chabad insiders, as the Rebbe’s Torah is vast and daunting to navigate even with an experienced guide and certainly without one. It was not commissioned by the Chabad establishment (unlike Joseph Telushkin’s biography that was published for the twentieth yartzeit).
The 18Forty podcast by Rabbi David Bashevkin is also in the midst of covering Chabad and the Rebbe. Rabbi Bashevkin is by no means a Lubavitcher and has no “dog in this fight”, he is simply genuinely fascinated by the Rebbe’s Torah and message and it’s relevance to the current moment. As he should be.
So all this conspiracy talk about the Chabad media conspiracy reminds me about the trope about how the Jews control the media (and everything else). There is a kernel of truth in both claims, as both Jews in general and Chabad in particular are influential and media savvy, but the obsession with that fact and the inability to consider the substance of the issues smacks of the same deranged jealousy and midos raos that animate anti-semites everywhere…