"Unauthorized" (Meshichist) Chabad Houses

Okay, I just found out about this phenomenon in conjunction with the recent terrorist attack in Pune, India. The attack is suspected to have been directed towards a nearby Chabad house. That Chabad house, however, is not authorized by the main New York Chabad, due to its being a major center for Meshichism (Yechi adoneinu moreinu v'rabbeinu melech hamoshiach l'olam vaed). To find out more on the subject of Chabad messianism read Wikipedia and once you've familiarized yourself with the quite thorough information there, go to Frum Satire for even more details.

Anyway, I figured I might as well list as many "unauthorized" Chabad Houses as I can. Doing this will make me a lot happier than working on Senior Design, that's for sure.

Chabad Tokyo Japan

This is somewhat upsetting. Apparently the U.S. Ambassador to Japan went to the Meshichist Chabad house for Chanuka, and the picture has him wearing a Yechi yarmulke.

Now, on the one hand I would like to praise the Rabbi there, as I tend to doubt that Ambassador John Roos was born Jewish (his last name is Dutch, and of course he spells his first name with an 'h' like the Gospel dude rather than like the son of King David) or converted with an Orthodox rabbi (that is assuming he did convert at all). Now, I certainly still would consider him Jewish as long as he did convert, but very few Orthodox rabbis would, and yet this Rabbi (Binyomin Edery) does.

I'm really tempted to write to the Honorable Ambassador Roos about this, though, because he may not be aware of the Meshichist issue.