Russian Chabad leader in blistering attack on Reform Judaism

An article in the orthodox Chabad’s main Russian magazine, has blasted Reform Judaism and outraged Reform leaders in Russia and the United States. Reform Judaism embodied "an approach toward things that is opposite to the approach of the Torah,” Berel Lazar, the leading Chabad official in the former Soviet Union and one of Russia’s two chief rabbis, wrote in the February issue of "Lechaim". Tensions between Chabad and the Reform movement have been simmering, but Lazar’s attack has intensified it. Leaders of the Union for Reform Judaism, as the movement is known in the United States, and of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, called Lazar’s words deplorable. Lechaim is a monthly magazine published by the Federation of Jewish Communities, a Chabad-led umbrella group. The magazine "Lechaim", which is free and distributed across the former Soviet Union, is one of the largest Jewish-interest monthlies in the area. "‘Reform Judaism’ cannot be seriously called a religion!” Lazar wrote in "Lechaim", and went on: “ ‘Reformed Judaism’ is just a code of rules created by the people for their own worldly comfort. There is no God there.”