The Kopust branch of the Chabad dynasty of Hasidic Judaism was founded in 1866 by Yehuda Leib Schneersohn after the death of his father Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the third Chabad rebbe. It is named after the town of Kopys in the Vitebsk Region of present-day Belarus, where Yehuda Leib Schneersohn settled after his father's death.

History

Kopust is an offshoot of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement which produced multiple offshoot groups through its over 200-year history. The death of the third Chabad rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneersohn led to a dispute over his succession leading to the founding of Kopust.

Founding

Following Schneersohn's death in 1866 a dispute arose among several of his seven sons over the succession. While the youngest son, Shmuel Schneersohn assumed the title of rebbe in the town of Lubavitch, another son, Yehuda Leib Schneersohn, assumed the title in the town of Kopys, but died less than a year later and was succeeded by his son Shlomo Zalman Schneersohn.

Leadership

The Kopust dynasty had four rebbes:

Kopust today

After the death of the fourth rebbe of Kopust, the adherents of the Kopuster movement rejoined the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. The oldest extant Chabad synagogue in Israel, the Ohel Yitzchok (אהל יצחק) synagogue in the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem—also called the Baal HaTanya Shul (: "Baal HaTanya's synagogue")—active since 1900, was originally affiliated with Kopust.

Relationship with Chabad-Lubavitch

While the Kopust movement originally was at odds with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement over the successor to the third Chabad rebbe, the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn referred to the Rebbes of Kopust as "Admorim", or rebbes.

Works