Candace Owens, a prominent far-right pundit who has used her platform to spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, is facing a widespread backlash after calling Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson a Jewish supremacist. 

Schneerson is known simply as “the Rebbe” to tens of thousands of Jews and is thought by some to be the Messiah. Still deeply beloved by his community 30 years after his death, he continues to be one of the most influential figures in recent Jewish history. 

Owens cited Schneerson during a recent debate with Shmuley Boteach on Piers Morgan Uncensored, a show hosted by the controversy-stirring British media personality. Boteach, a rabbi and influencer who once hosted a reality TV show himself, is a follower of Schneerson but has been rejected by official Chabad-Lubavitch institutions.

The segment was meant to be about the Israel-Hamas war and antisemitism, bringing a longstanding social media squabble between the two over antisemitism to an in-person debate. Owens, who is a critic of the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, brought up Schneerson as a way to insult Boteach, who cites Schneerson as a mentor. She intended to suggest that Boteach shared what she claimed was Schneerson’s prejudice against other groups and went on to give misleading examples to prove her point. After mispronouncing Schneerson’s name and seemingly complaining about Jews “rejecting Christ,” Owens made a side comment about the recently discovered Chabad tunnels and claimed the rabbi "preached Jewish supremacism and hatred of all non-Jews."

Owens pointed to an instance in which Schneerson cited the Talmud as describing differences between Jews and non-Jews. Later, on X, formerly Twitter, Owens doubled down on her comments and posted a video in which Schneerson, speaking in Yiddish, is heard describing Jews as “masters.” Experts who spoke to Shtetl said that although Schneerson did make such comments, Owens’s use of those comments is ignorant and not fully reflective of how the Rebbe, and Lubavitcher Hasidim as a whole, view non-Jews.

“The idea that Jews occupy a special place in the world or a special place in creation is not a Lubavitch idea,” but rather something many traditional Jews believe, said Ezra Glinter, a writer whose biography of Schneerson will be published in October by Yale University Press. “Is it really so unusual for adherents of any religion to consider that they have a special place due to their belief or practice? That’s the underlying tenet of most religions.”

Glinter said that when Schneerson referred to Jews as “masters” in the video Owens posted, he was likely not referring to political domination or slavery. What Schneerson might have been trying to impart is that, both spiritually and materially, “a person has more influence than they believe, if they are acting in accordance with God’s will,” Glinter said. 

Still, some within the Jewish community have found the rebbe’s views — and similar ones held elsewhere in the Jewish world — troubling. The Jewish scholars who wrote a controversial book cited by Owens, Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, described what they termed “Jewish fundamentalism” as a threat to peace in the Middle East. 

“The fact is that certain Jews, some of whom wield political influence, consider Jews to be superior to non-Jews and view the world as having been created only or primarily for Jews,” Shahak and Mezvinsky wrote. Hasidic Jews do not lead the Israeli government, and many have historically identified as non-Zionists.

Ysoscher Katz, a rabbi who studied in Satmar Hasidic yeshivas, told Shtetl that the rabbi’s comments about non-Jews are interpreted in various ways within the Lubavitch world. “Some people know where to place quotes like this in the proper context and live their lives accordingly and actually are making efforts to reach out across religions,” while others “do live by that and still assume that there is an essential superiority."

Glinter and Katz both suggested viewing Schneerson’s comments in the context of historical oppression against Jewish people — an attempt to uplift Jewish people, not knock others down.

After the Owens-Boteach debate, the official Twitter account for the Chabad-Lubavitch outreach movement posted a tweet describing Schneerson’s attempts to bridge divisions after the 1991 Crown Heights riots, in which Black residents of the Brooklyn neighborhood attacked their Hasidic neighbors after two Black children were struck by a car that was driving as part of the Rebbe’s motorcade.

Meeting with then-mayor David Dinkins, Schneerson said that Hasidim and Black New Yorkers constituted “one side, one people, united by the management of New York City.”

Rabbi Yaacov Behrman, a prominent Lubavitch activist, condemned Owens’s comments. “Rabbi Schneerson was a legendary force for good who devoted his life to nurturing unity, kindness, and random love among all people,” Behrman wrote on X.

In the past, Owens has made false statements about the Holocaust, among other antisemitic conspiracy theories. She referred  to historical accounts of the inhumane Nazi experiments as “bizarre propaganda.” She falsely claimed that non-Jewish Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was secretly Jewish.

She also falsely claimed that Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was lynched in 1915 after being accused of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl, was guilty of the crimes and not really a victim of antisemitism. Modern historians, journalists, and researchers all agree that Frank was wrongly convicted for the crimes and was lynched for being Jewish.