Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

Thousands of emissaries from the Chabad-Lubavitch movement gathered for their annual banquet in Brooklyn.

The nearly all-male crowd of about 4,500 at the closing dinner Nov. 27 included nearly 4,000 Chabad emissaries from around the world, according to Chabad.org.

Guest speaker Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s chief rabbi, talked about the personal influence of the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Sacks credited meeting Schneerson with inspiring his own rabbinic career.

He called Schneerson “one of the greatest Jewish leaders not just of our time but of all time.”

The banquet is a highlight of the annual conference that brings the far-flung representatives back to the Chassidic movement’s home base in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.

Chabad’s female emissaries — wives of the male emissaries — hold a separate conference early each year. — jta