The Savior and the Survivor: Virtual Afterlives in New Media

• In Event: Hassidic Literature, Media, and Secular Modernity

Abstract

At the turn of the millennium, new media practices have been deployed to defy human mortality in undertakings with profound implications for Jewish culture. Since the 1994 death of the Lubavitcher Rebbe left his followers without another leader, they have employed his extensive “video legacy” to maintain connections with his teachings and his presence through various new viewing practices. Currently, the USC Shoah Foundation and other Holocaust memory organizations are creating interactive holograms of Holocaust survivors, using voice recognition software to enable audiences to engage these virtual presences in a simulated conversation. In both instances, audiences confront a fixed body of recorded information through new media practices that strive to replicate “live” encounters with a disappearing or vanished figure. Both efforts address a destabilizing communal loss of continuity by constructing new ways of connecting with the mediated presence of someone valued as an unrivaled resource for Jewish spirituality (the Rebbe), historical solidarity (survivors), or ethical inspiration (in both cases).

Both the Rebbe and survivors are considered extraordinary beings—some of his followers believe the former to be the Messiah; the latter are frequently said to possess exceptional insight into the human condition, having endured the Holocaust. Both are associated, albeit differently, with magic—the Rebbe as having supernatural powers, survivors’ escaping genocide as miraculous. The natural passing of these extraordinary lives has become untenable for many, who now mobilize the “magic” of technology to defy death for the sake of cultural tenacity. Mediated encounters with the Rebbe are tied to Chabad’s vision of messianism, while those with survivors are similarly aspirational, striving to end intolerance, ushering in a secular messianic age.

Author

• Jeffrey Shandler, Rutgers University