The Annual Gathering
Kinus Hashluchim
Once a year, thousands of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries return to Brooklyn from every corner of the globe for the International Conference of Shluchim — an event that has grown, in step with the Rebbe's worldwide network, from a handful of participants into one of the largest rabbinical gatherings in the world.
What is the Kinus?
The Kinus Hashluchim — literally, "the Gathering of the Emissaries" — is the annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries. Held each year in Brooklyn, New York, around the Hebrew date of Chof (20) Marcheshvan, it brings together the male Shluchim; a parallel conference for women, the Kinus Hashluchos, is held later in the winter around Chof Alef (21) Shevat.
The Kinus is organized by Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, and centers on Chabad World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway. Over five days, Shluchim study together, hold workshops on every facet of community work — education, outreach, mental health, fundraising, security — and share the challenges and successes of running Chabad Houses in places as different as Anchorage, Kinshasa, and Kathmandu.
Origins
The first Kinus Hashluchim was convened in 1983 at the direction of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Only a few dozen Shluchim attended that first year. As the Rebbe continued to send emissaries to new cities and countries throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, attendance grew year over year. The conference has been held every year since, without interruption.
The gathering was designed to strengthen the Shluchim as a single global body: to give the emissary in a remote outpost the same access to resources, guidance, and camaraderie as those serving in major Jewish population centers. That premise still shapes the program today.
The Banquet and the "Class Photo"
The Kinus culminates on Sunday evening in a Grand Banquet typically held at a major venue in the New York metropolitan area. Thousands of Shluchim, along with lay leaders and supporters from around the world, attend. The banquet features reports from the field, a roll call of countries and states, and addresses from senior Chabad leadership.
One of the enduring images of the Kinus is the group photograph taken on the steps of 770 Eastern Parkway. Every year, the expanding rows of Shluchim in front of Chabad World Headquarters offer a visual index of the movement's growth — the same picture frame, filled year by year by more emissaries from more places.
Why it matters for this atlas
The Kinus is, in a real sense, the map that this project tries to draw made visible in one room. Each dot on the atlas — every Chabad House, Mosad, and community — corresponds to a Shliach or Shlucha who has come, at some point, to a Kinus. The conference is where the network sees itself as a network.
As the atlas grows, entries and documents connected to individual Shluchim, cities, and Kinus milestones will be linked here. If you are a Shliach, or a family member of one, and would like to contribute a story, photo, or correction, please use the submission form on the map.