Sholom Shuchat

Shuchat is a dayan on the New York Bet Din (Chok Natan) in New York City.^[4] He is recognized by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel for performing gittin (Jewish divorce),^[5] kiddushin (Jewish marriage)^[6] and giyur (conversions).^[7] Since 2020, Shuchat serves as the rosh kollel of the Kollel L'horaah Maasit of Crown Heights, which teaches halakha (Jewish law) and its practical applications to aspiring rabbis.^[8] He, along with members of the kollel, viewed the pouring of the Bucks County mikveh (ritual bath)^[9] and another one in Loch Sheldrake, New York.^[10] Shuchat was the first Chabad rabbi to rule the Crown Heights eruv kosher.^[11] He is a member of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, the Rabbinical Alliance of America,^[12] and the Coalition for Jewish Values.^[13] He is a member of the faculty of the Online Smicha rabbinical ordination program,^[14] the Havineni rabbinical ordination program^[15] and Online Machon rabbinical ordination program.^[16]

In October 2013, Shuchat was implicated in the Edison divorce torture plot, a sting operation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the goal of which was to bring about the arrests of a number of rabbis who plotted to abduct and torture a non-existent Jewish man in order to coerce him into issuing a get to his "wife".^[17][18] In June 2014, Shuchat pleaded guilty in New Jersey Federal Court to traveling in interstate commerce to commit an act of violence.^[19][20][21] In December 2015, he was sentenced to time served, along with two years of supervised release, with the first six months being house arrest.^[22]

Shuchat was a featured speaker at the 2019 Kinus Torah in the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters^[23] and has spoken at other rabbinic conferences and events.^[24][25][26] In 2015, he gave lectures opposing the halakhic prenup and the KosherSwitch.^[27][28]

After a second measles outbreak in the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn in 2014, Shuchat wrote an article berating the anti-vaxxers, stating "When someone does an action which can cause death, or even refuses to do an action which can prevent death, he is compared to a murderer".^[29] In April 2014, he wrote an explainer about Pesach stringencies.^[30] Shuchat reviewed Chaim Miller's book Turning Judaism Outwards: A Biography of the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson in mid-June 2014, alleging inaccuracies in the book.^[31] In 2015, he edited a collection of Menachem Mendel Schneerson's directives to Chabad emissaries, Shlichos K'hilchasa.^[32] In 2017, he wrote a letter opposing TahorApp, a mobile app whose intended purpose was to enable women to discreetly and privately send niddah questions to a rabbi.^[33][34] In the same year, he joined a group of Chabad rabbis who signed a proclamation addressing child sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Haredi community.^[35] Shuchat wrote a reponsum, later published in various rabbinical journals, defending Manhattan Beer Distributors against accusations it had improperly kept chametz over Passover.^[36] In the fall of 2018, he campaigned against the International Beit Din, charging it had allowed a married woman to remarry without first obtaining a get, rendering any future children mamzerim (bastards/impure).^[37]

• News Articles and Classes from Rabbi Shuchat
• "חשש יין נסך במיץ צימוקים אמריקאים" on YouTube (lecture)
• "Internet Businesses and Shabbos" on YouTube (lecture)
• "Lending with Interest and the Heter Iska" on YouTube (lecture)