A selection of vintage film clips of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe 1929-1950.

In 1929, two years after escaping a death sentence by the communist regime the sixth Lubavitch Rebbe arrived in New York for a 10 month tour of the United States. At the time, the outlook for Judaism in America was bleak. The Rebbe boldly declared: "America is no different": the New World is no less suitable for a Torah-observant way of life then the "old home" and will yet serve as a fostering ground for Yiddishkeit.

Ten years later, in 1940, after a narrow escape from the Nazis, the Rebbe again arrived in New York, this time to settle there and build a new home for Yiddishkeit upon the destruction of European Jewry. The subsequent flowering of Judaism in America under the leadership of his son-in-law and successor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson finds its origins in these happenings.

These vintage film clips document the dawning of this era in Jewish history.