History, Essays & Commentary
Dovid Margolin is a senior editor at Chabad.org, writing on social policy, Jewish life and Jewish history, with a particular interest in Russian Jewry and the Soviet era. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, Mosaic and Tablet.
An illegal yeshiva student, an exiled member of parliament and a Chassidic niggun
Chabad.org | March 11, 2025
A stalwart of the Soviet Chassidic underground's memories of the Rebbe's parents in exile
Chabad.org | Aug. 20, 2024
From Stalin's shooting grounds to the present
Commentary | Sept. 2023
When the Sixth Rebbe was arrested, Latvian MP Mordechai Dubin took action
Chabad.org | July 2, 2023
What does a top-secret post-war memo to Stalin's MGB boss tell us about the Soviet campaign against Chabad?
Chabad.org | Aug. 22, 2022
The 1980 Russian-language address that took the world by surprise and placed the Soviet regime on notice
Chabad.org | May 13, 2020
A search for the story behind the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe's lone Soviet portrait yields not one, but two photos
Chabad.org | July 19, 2019
A window into the life, work, and exile of Mordechai Dubin (1889-1957), a towering leader of Latvian Jewry in the inter-war years
Chabad.org | June 20, 2019
Marking 90 years since Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn's international campaign to bring matzah to the Jews of the Soviet Union
Chabad.org | April 10, 2019
Russians are reluctant to remember the martyrs of the Soviet Union
The Weekly Standard | Jan. 2, 2017
Lugging suitcases or large woven bags—anything big enough to hold a carton of matzah without raising suspicion—tens of thousands made their way to underground bakeries.
Mosaic | April 28, 2016
Lighting a public menorah while wearing a fedora amid the California flora
Chabad.org | Aug. 1, 2025
Spiritual leader of The Shul of Bal Harbour and founder of the Aleph Institute, 78
Chabad.org | May 19, 2025
The public servant's six decades of service offer lessons for today
Chabad.org | Jan. 7, 2025
A creative quest to transform the material world and reveal the G-dliness in everything
Chabad.org | July 3, 2024
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi stood up to the secular French revolutionary, lighting a flame of resistance that still burns today
Tablet | Aug. 26, 2021
How Crown Heights survived to remain a thriving Jewish neighborhood
Chabad.org | Aug. 19, 2021
On 19 Kislev 1968, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson reflected on the role of peace on the path to redemption
Chabad.org | Dec. 2, 2020
As the Rebbe counseled during antisemitic violence in Brooklyn in the 1960s, it's better to plant roots than to flee.
Wall Street Journal | July 3, 2025
The Torah grants Israel to the Jews and obligates them to protect her people
Chabad.org | Oct. 26, 2023
The story of the Jews plays an outsize role in the country's history and present.
Wall Street Journal | March 31, 2022
My grandfather fled the Soviet Union for the liberty New York wants to deny me.
Wall Street Journal | Sept. 2, 2021
Seven decades of persevering, clandestine, hazardous activity devoted to the material and spiritual succor of Jews.
Mosaic | March 23, 2017
How Chabad's form of Jewish Geography saves lives
Chabad.org | Feb. 22, 2023
Now that Americans can easily visit the "Latin paradise," I jumped at the opportunity to see first-hand the reality of life for its few remaining Jews. It isn't pretty.
Mosaic | May 11, 2017
A Jewish community hangs on, despite the uncertainty
The Weekly Standard | Sept. 14, 2015
Alberto Nisman spoke his mind despite the danger
The Weekly Standard | Feb. 9, 2015