During Schneerson's lifetime, the messianic controversy and other issues elicited fierce criticism from many quarters in the Orthodox world, especially earning him the enmity of Rabbi Elazar Shach.

[16][17] In 1994, Schneerson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his "outstanding and lasting contributions toward improvements in world education, morality, and acts of charity".

[19][20][10][21] Menachem Mendel Schneerson was born on April 5, 1902 (OS) (11 Nisan, 5662), in the Black Sea port of Nikolaev in the Russian Empire (now Mykolaiv in Ukraine).

"[29] Schneerson went on to receive separate rabbinical ordinations from the Rogatchover Gaon, Joseph Rosen,[30] and Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, author of Sridei Aish.

[42] After his wedding to Chaya Mushka in 1928, Schneerson and his wife moved to Berlin in the Weimar Republic (now part of Germany), where he was assigned specific communal tasks by his father-in-law, who also requested that he write scholarly annotations to the responsa and various Hasidic discourses of the earlier Rebbes of Chabad-Lubavitch.

[45] During his stay in Berlin, his father-in-law encouraged him to become more of a public figure, but Schneerson described himself as an introvert,[37] and was known to have pleaded with acquaintances not to make a fuss over the fact that he was the son-in-law of Yosef Yitzchak.

[47][48][49][50] He wrote hundreds of pages of his own original Torah discourses,[51] and conducted a serious interchange of halachic correspondence with many of Eastern Europe's leading rabbinic figures, including the Rogachover Gaon.

[54] In 1933, after the Nazis took over Germany, the Schneersons left Berlin and moved to Paris, where Menachem Mendel (known as "RaMash" before accepting the leadership of Chabad)[55]continued his religious and communal activities on behalf of his father-in-law.

[63] Shortly after his arrival, his father-in-law appointed him director and chairman of the three Chabad central organizations, Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, Machneh Israel and Kehot Publication Society, placing him at the helm of the movement's Jewish educational, social services, and publishing networks.

[64] During the 1940s, Schneerson became a naturalized US citizen, and seeking to contribute to the war effort, he volunteered at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, using his electrical engineering background to draw wiring diagrams for the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63),[65][66][67] and other classified military work.

[68] In 1942, Schneerson launched the Merkos Shlichus program, where he would send pairs of yeshiva students to remote locations across the country during their summer vacations to teach Jews in isolated communities about their heritage and offer education to their children.

[70] In a letter to Israeli President Yitzchak Ben Tzvi, Schneerson wrote that when he was a child the vision of the future redemption began to take form in his imagination "a redemption of such magnitude and grandeur through which the purpose of the suffering, the harsh decrees and annihilation of exile will be understood ..."[71] In 1991, a car in convoy with Schneerson's motorcade accidentally struck two Guyanese American children while running a red light.

[72] After the death of Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn in 1950, Chabad followers began persuading Schneerson to succeed his father-in-law as Rebbe based on his scholarship, piety, and dynasty.

[75] On the first anniversary of his father-in-law's passing, 10 Shevat 1951, in a ceremony attended by several hundred rabbis and Jewish leaders from all parts of the United States and Canada, Schneerson delivered a Hasidic discourse (Ma'amar), the equivalent to a President-elect taking the oath of office, and formally became the Rebbe.

[77] Reiterating a longstanding core Chabad principle at his inaugural talk, he demanded that each individual exert themselves in advancing spiritually and not rely on the Rebbe to do it for them, saying:[78] "Now listen, Jews.

[74][81] Schneerson, who spoke several languages including English, Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic, French, Russian, German, and Italian, would converse with people on all issues and offer his advice on both spiritual and mundane matters.

Schneerson equally addressed his teachings to both genders in a marked departure from an entrenched tendency to limit high-level Torah education to men and boys.

Beginning in the 1960s, Schneerson instituted a system of "mitzvah campaigns" to encourage the observance of ten basic Jewish practices, such as tefillin for men, Shabbat candles for women, and loving your fellow for all people.

[97] In 1983, Schneerson launched a global campaign to promote awareness of the Supreme Being and observance of the Noahide Laws among all people,[98] arguing that this was the basis for human rights for all civilization.

[102] In 1986, Schneerson began a custom where, each Sunday, he would stand outside his office, greet people briefly, give them a dollar bill, and encourage them to donate to the charity of their choice.

[106] During a talk in 1991, Schneerson spoke passionately about Moshiach (the Messiah) and told his followers that he had done all that he could bring world peace and redemption but that it was now up to them to continue this task: "I have done my part, from now on you do all that you can."

"[107] On Sunday, March 1, 1992, Gabriel Erem, the editor of Lifestyles Magazine, told Schneerson that on his ninetieth birthday, they would be publishing a special issue and wanted to know his message to the world.

[114][115] On the morning of June 12, 1994 (3 Tammuz 5754), Schneerson died at the Beth Israel Medical Center and was buried at the Ohel next to his father-in-law, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, at Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, New York.

However, following the incident, Yitzchok Hutner, a prominent Orthodox rabbi who had corresponded with Schneersohn in the past,[159] wrote to Schneerson privately, distancing himself from the convention.

Hutner wrote that he had not been at the convention and asked forgiveness for any pain his earlier letters (discussing halachic issues regarding the tefillin campaign) may have caused.

"[161][162] He was later vilified by ultra-haredi rabbis for publicly praising the courage of the IDF and suggesting that God chose them as a medium through which he would send deliverance to the Jewish people.

[168][169] Schneerson did whatever was in his power to push for the release of Jews from the former Soviet Union and established schools, communities and other humanitarian resources to assist with their absorption into Israel.

On one known occasion he instructed Senator Chic Hecht to provide President Ronald Reagan with contact information of people who wished to leave so that he could lobby their release.

[188][189] Many officials attended Schneerson's funeral, including New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Benjamin Netanyahu and the entire staff of the Israeli embassy in Washington.

[190] President Bill Clinton penned a condolence letter "to the Chabad-Lubavitch community and to world Jewry" and spoke of Schneerson as "a monumental man who as much as any other individual, was responsible over the last half a century for advancing the instruction of ethics and morality to our young people".