Shaul Shimon Deutsch


Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch is a rabbi and author from Brooklyn, New York. Deutsch is a former Chabad Hasid. Following the death of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Rebbe of Chabad, in 1994, Deutsch attempted to form a breakaway movement naming himself the Liozna Rebbe. The attempt did not gain popular support. It is unclear if Deutsch presently claims the title of "Rebbe".
Deutsch wrote and self-published a two-volume biography of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn entitled Larger than Life. The work proved quite controversial in Lubavitch circles.
Today, Rabbi Deutsch runs the Living Torah Museum in Boro Park, Brooklyn. Deutsch also runs a food charity called Oneg Shabbos.

Biography

Shaul Shimon Deutsch was ordained as a rabbi by Chabad and subsequently earned a business degree.
Deutsch is the Rebbe of Anshei-Liozna, a Chasidic court that is centered in Boro Park, Brooklyn. He has been the Liozna Rebbe since 1995. The group appointed him their Rebbe at their synagogue on 45th Street in Brooklyn.
He took the name of the town of Liozna in Belarus.
Deutsch is married to Pe'er Deutsch and they have five children.

Activities

Living Torah Museum

Deutsch's museum, the Living Torah Museum containing 979 archaeological objects that he says are worth nearly $15 million at his home in a building adjacent to his home and synagogue in Boro Park. The Museum was featured in the journal Biblical Archaeology Review and archaeologist Hershel Shanks, has declared that this was "the first museum that he knew of in the United States devoted to biblical archeology" adding that Deutch "has done what no one else in the United States has done.... All the big shots, all the people with access to the most sophisticated knowledge and current excavations, have not accomplished what Rabbi Deutsch has."

Oneg Shabbos

Deutsch also runs a food charity, Oneg Shabbos, that feeds more than 1,000 poor people each week, with dozens of volunteers. The charity distributes $5.5 million of food annually.