Uri Geller on the Lubavitcher Rebbe: “I Still Have His Pen”

“Am I a believer? Of course I am.”

That is how Israeli illusionist Uri Geller responded when asked about faith during an interview on Sharon Gal’s podcast. During the conversation, Geller recalled an unusual personal encounter with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and the keepsakes he says he still treasures from that meeting.

Uri Geller’s Meeting With the Lubavitcher Rebbe

Geller explained that the encounter took place during the years he lived in New York, where he had already become well known.

“I was fairly well known in New York. I lived there for many years,” he recalled. “One day, a religious man came to me and told me that the Lubavitcher Rebbe wanted to meet me. So I went.”

According to Geller, he met privately with the Rebbe and demonstrated some of the abilities for which he had become famous.

“We were alone in the room, and he was stunned when I bent a spoon,” Geller said. “I did telepathy for him, asked him to draw something...”

Geller also knew about the Rebbe’s famous practice of distributing dollar bills, which recipients would often keep while giving another dollar to charity.

During the interview, Sharon Gal mentioned that he had one of the Rebbe’s dollars in his own office.

“I have one like that in my office. I’ll show you later,” Gal told him.

Geller then revealed that he had made a somewhat unusual request during his own encounter.

“I said to the rabbi, ‘I’m a special person. I want a two-dollar bill.’ He sent someone to the back, and they brought me a two-dollar bill.”

“Take the Pen Too”

But Geller did not stop there.

Wanting an additional memento and blessing from the encounter, he asked the Rebbe to sign the bill for him.

“I continued with my chutzpah and asked him to sign it for me,” Geller recalled.

According to Geller, the Rebbe took out a Parker pen and signed the bill. Then came another surprise.

“The rabbi took out a Parker pen, signed it, and handed me the pen. He told me, ‘Take the pen too.’”

Decades later, Geller says he has preserved both objects and displays them in his museum.

“It’s displayed in my museum,” he said. “I have a two-dollar bill and a pen from the Rebbe. Signed.”

For Geller, the unusual encounter remains a memorable connection to one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the modern era, and a story he continues to carry with him years later.