The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson Book

The book doesn't represent Chabad in the most positive light, so I can understand why Chabadniks had a problem with book.

I most enjoyed the parts about Menachem Mendel Shneerson's life in Europe. If circumstances had been different, he and his wife might have led a quiet life in France, Poland or Russia, with Menachem Mendel working as an engineer. But she was the daughter of Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Shneerson, the 6th Lubavitche rebbe, and Europe was a mess, a tragic place for Jews. One learns about Moussia, Menachem Mendel's wife, and how she liked lipstick and fashion. She is described by other hasidim as "a private person."

The book emphasizes the messianic qualities of the movement that Rabbi Menachem Mendel S. did not squelch. I would have perhaps liked a little more on the positive qualities of Chabad, such as those that might have been uplifted from a drug-addicted life, but this wasn't the author's main focus.

If you have the opportunity to hear Samuel Heilman speak, I recommend his lectures. He spoke at Rutgers about this book, and I heard him speak a few years back in Edison about his previous book, Sliding to the Right.