Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was born on 11 Nisan 5662 (18 April 1902) in Nikolaev in the Russian Empire, today Mykolaiv in Ukraine. The eldest son of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson and Chana, he was a direct paternal descendant of the Tzemach Tzedek, the third Chabad Rebbe, after whom he was named; his mother was the daughter of the town's rabbi, Rabbi Meir Shlomo Yanovsky.

In 1909 the family moved to Yekaterinoslav, where his father became rabbi. He studied mainly with his father and with a private tutor, Rabbi Zalman Vilenkin. He drew close to the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, whose daughter Chaya Mushka he married in Warsaw in 1928. He then studied mathematics and natural philosophy at the University of Berlin (1928-1932), receiving semikhah from Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, and later earned a degree in electrical engineering in Paris (1937) and attended courses at the Sorbonne.

Fleeing the Nazi occupation, he left Paris in 1940 for Vichy and then Nice, and reached the United States via Lisbon in 1941. On 10 Shevat 5711 (17 January 1951), the first yahrzeit of his father-in-law, he assumed the leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch, becoming its seventh and last Rebbe.

He built the network of shluchim, who opened Chabad Houses and thousands of institutions around the world, launched ten mitzvah campaigns (tefillin, mezuzah, Shabbat candles, tzedakah, kashrut, Torah study and more), founded the Tzivos Hashem youth movement in 1980 and instituted the daily study of Maimonides' Mishneh Torah. His talks and letters fill many volumes, notably Likkutei Sichot and Igrot Kodesh.

After suffering a stroke on 27 Adar I 5752 (2 March 1992) while praying at his father-in-law's resting place, he passed away on 3 Tammuz 5754 (12 June 1994) in New York. He is buried in the Ohel beside his father-in-law at Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, a place of prayer visited by very many Jews.