Months before Iraqi Scud missiles began to rain on Israel, long before the ground war began, the Brooklyn-based Lubavitcher rebbe predicted that the Persian Gulf war would end on or near Purim.
A young member of the Hasidic movement, a chaplain serving in the U.S. armed forces, went to the rebbe one Sunday in November to get a dollar for tzedakah and a blessing from the spiritual leader.
It was then that Rabbi. Menachem Mendel Schneerson told him the war would be more than likely over by Purim, according to Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, the Lubavitch movement’s spokesman.
Krinsky, who would not characterize the rebbe’s estimation of when the war would end as a prophecy, described it as “clarity, ‘ruach hakodesh’ (holy spirit) that you and I don’t have. This is the rebbe.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
