As my colleague Ben Harris recently reported, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, attended this past weekend’s gathering of Chabad emissaries from around the world. As Ben’s post noted, this is likely the first time that the leader of America’s Reform movement has attended this annual event.

However, as the post reported, Rabbi Alexander Schindler, who led the URJ’s predecessor organization, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, from 1973 to 1996, also had some notable contact with Chabad.

It turns out, Schindler had once attended the Lubavitcher’s Rebbe’s farbrengen in Crown Heights. And here’s video of Schindler at the 1984 event:

Hat tip for the video to a commenter on this item from CrownHeights.info. Read the article’s comments section for some interesting debate and discussion about Jacobs’ presence at the event, as well as a commenter’s account of the circumstances of Schindler’s attendance at the farbrengen.

Daniel Treiman is a contributing writer to JTA.