Continuing to connect with people is a mission of Rabbi Joseph Eisenbach and his wife, Mina, as they celebrate the 13th anniversary of the Chabad Lubavitch of Northwest Connecticut, which has headquarters in Litchfield.
"As we reach 13 years, there is no limit to acts of goodness and kindness that we are able to do in a community, but I think we have some huge programs that we hope to implement," said Rabbi Eisenbach, speaking of the array of programs planned by his group for this summer.
The Chabad Lubavitch of Northwest Connecticut is part of the largest Jewish organization in the world with more than 5,000 branches world-wide. The Chabad is against proselytizing, said Rabbi Eisenbach.
The word Chabad is a Hebrew acronym for the words wisdom, understanding and knowledge, with a big emphasis on educating people. Lubavitch is the name of the town in Russia where the movement began in the mid-18th century and means the "city of brotherly love."
"The whole concept of Chabad is people helping people," said Rabbi Eisenbach.
Rabbi Eisenbach explained that the beauty and uniqueness of Chabad is that when a rabbi and his family move out to a community, they traditionally arrive without knowing anyone and ultimately build a community within that host community.
The couple left their families behind in Montreal, Canada, and West Hartford. Both of their parents are emissaries and Rabbi Eisenbach is the fifth generation in his family to become one.
As emissaries, the rabbi and Mrs. Eisenbach evaluated their community. They established programs to suit their surroundings, while following the teachings of the seven dynastic leaders of the Chabad-Lubavitch Dynasty, known as rebbes.
"The whole concept of the rebbe is that you've just got to continue to do the right thing, you've just got to continue to try to change the world one mitzvah at a time," said Rabbi Eisenbach.
"We were blessed to be sent here to Northwest Connecticut, and the unique and the beautiful part is the fact that over the last 13 years we have seen tremendous growth in all areas," said Rabbi Eisenbach.
For more than a decade, the Chabad in Litchfield has seen an influx of families and children. Many of the older Chabads that have been around have taken care of three or four generations, he said.
"Every single Jewish community [has] what we call reform, conservative, [and] orthodox," said Rabbi Eisenbach. "At Chabad, we say labels are for food packages not for our brothers and sisters. It's amazing, the turnout that you get."
According to Rabbi Eisenbach, the theology of Chabad is to embrace everyone, and that has been why Chabad is the world's largest Jewish outreach organization.
Since its 10th anniversary, Rabbi Eisenbach has seen a tremendous growth in the summer children's camp program, Camp Gan Isreal located in Washington Depot, which attracts between 50 to 80 campers weekly. Mrs. Eisenbach is the director.
Weekenders are involved in assisting with the camp program, which offers sports and arts and crafts, according to Rabbi Eisenbach. The camp focuses on education in a fun and interactive way and the Chabad buses children from inner cities, similar to the Fresh Air Fund.
"Our camp has seen super growth in the sense that it's been amazing for this size community that we have," said Rabbi Eisenbach.
The Chabad also runs a network of Hebrew schools that has grown steadily, according to Rabbi Eisenbach. In the last three years, the Chabad started the Jewish Learning Institute (JLI), created in the tradition of teachers reaching out to students pursuing intellectual and spiritual growth in their adult years. The courses are designed for students ranging from first-time learners to those with years of prior study.
"The JLI has really attracted people from every single part of the region, Jewish, Catholic, Episcopalian ... we have seen such a grand blessing since our 10th anniversary," said Rabbi Eisenbach.
According to Mrs. Eisenbach, knowledge of the Jewish religion and Jewish history and of the Torah is something of a rite for every Jewish person. But, unfortunately, not everyone is aware of his or her cultural past. The Eisenbachs have helped to institute new programs, including monthly themed Shabbat dinners called T.G.I.S. (Thank G-d It's Shabbat), to attract more participation.
"We make it fun and exciting; it's a family program where people come and celebrate the Shabbat with us, hear stories and learn," said Mrs. Eisenbach. "It's all about educating people, because unfortunately today we have assimilation reaching such new levels where Jewish people don't know the basics of their own religion."
"Judaism is alive, it's vibrant, it's not just something to study, it's a way of life," said Mrs. Eisenbach.
She added the Chabad holds a monthly Jewish Kids Club, where members gather for fun interactive activities that promote Jewish values and friendship. Each meeting has craft projects and games with a special emphasis on Jewish customs and culture.
Communication is important and Rabbi Eisenbach said one of the greatest developments over the last three years is the Chabad's online magazine. The Internet presence has allowed people to study their religion and interact with the rabbi.
The online magazine has allowed everyone from celebrities who are weekenders in Northwest Connecticut to the average person to log in. The online magazine can be found on the Chabad's Web site at www.chabadnw.org. There is also a bi-monthly publication known as the Jewish News.
"We do a feedback which is 24/6, except the Shabbat," said Rabbi Eisenbach. "It's like a whole community on its own."
Vital to any religious organization is the building it occupies. In 2007, Litchfield's Historic District Commission denied an application to relocate the Chabad's headquarters from Village Green Drive to Litchfield center in a building that would have been renovated and significantly expanded.
The commission based its denial on the scale of the proposed expansion and restoration of the 135-year-old building but said it would be willing to consider a revised plan, including a downsized version.
The envisioned expansion totals 21,000 square-feet, and would involve a four-story addition off the back of the structure. It would include a synagogue, a community center, classrooms, several kosher kitchens, offices, a swimming pool and ceremonial pool. The facility would also have residential quarters for Rabbi Eisenbach and his family, as well as housing for visitors and staff. The historic building was purchased by the organization in 2006.
"We're hoping to have our new home in the center of town, and we're hoping to be able to reach out to as many more people as possible," said Rabbi Eisenbach.
Without offering specifics, he said the Chabad is currently in the midst of making the synagogue happen within the town of Litchfield.
But Mrs. Eisenbach said that most of her husband's work is not with the synagogue. Rabbi Eisenbach can be found visiting hospitals and nursing homes every week.
Chabads, she said, are not run by a rabbi, but rather the partnership of the rabbi and his wife. And the Eisenbachs' partnership is blessed with eight children.
According to Rabbi Eisenbach, most of his time is involved with Chabad. However, he said, he enjoys taking his children for hikes at White Memorial and he shared that he is a big skier.
He said he has connected with people in many different ways during his travels both locally and beyond.
"It's not just that the people who come to synagogue only come here for their religious needs, we become friends in every manner, in every way," said Mrs. Eisenbach. "We become very close."
Rabbi Eisenbach said he and his wife look forward to bringing in more Chabad couples to help them with their programs and hope to open satellite offices throughout Northwest Connecticut to reach out and care for, and be a helping hand to, everyone.
For more information on Chabad Lubavitch of Northwest Connecticut, visit the Web site at www.chabadnw.org. For more information about Camp Gan Israel, call 800-979-CAMP, or visit www.cginw.org.
Showing posts with label Shliach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shliach. Show all posts
Friday, June 05, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Vilnius, Lithuania - Chabad Rabbi in Vilna Banned from Main Shul by the Jewish Kehilla
Vilnius, Lithuania - The Jewish community in Vilna refuses to allow the local Chabad rabbi to enter the main shul, even though the rabbi has to say Kaddish and has no other minyan where he can say it.
Tense, acrid relations have existed between the Jewish community and Rabbi Krinsky since 2004, when the community passed Rav Krinsky by for the rabbinate and chose instead Rabbi Chaim Burstein, a former St. Petersburg refusenik who had studied in Litvish yeshivos in Israel. Despite Rabbi Krinsky living in Vilna and being involved with the community since 1994, the kehilla said they had a tradition of being misnagdim and preferred a rabbi who was a Litvak.
Fisticuffs broke out in the shul between pro-Krinsky and pro-Burshtein factions during Shavuot services in 2004. The fracas was covered extensively by the local and foreign media.
Burshtein was later roughed up by Krinsky supporters during tefillos in the shul. When Krinsky's hooliganism continued, he and his followers were barred from the synagogue. They countered by holding vigils in the courtyard for months while pouting to foreign journalists about their "victimization".
The ensuing embarrassment and seeing no end to the conflict caused the kehilla to close the synagogue for more than a year, while services were held in the kehilla building. The community took Krinsky to court, and an arrangement was finally reached where the rabbi had to retreat to his Chabad center. The shul reopened in August 2005, and morning and evening services have since been held daily - without Krinsky, who presides over his own services in a first-floor room at the Chabad center.
The ban against Rav Krinsky entering the main shul means that he cannot enter the shul to recite Kaddish for his mother who passed away a few days ago. His own synagogue doesn't have a regular minyan of worshippers. Krinsky grumbled, "The doors are closed, and the guards know me and won't let me enter. How can one say 'no' to a Jew who wants to say Kaddish for his mother?"
Rabbi Yosef Aharanov, the head of Israeli shlichim, was shocked. "Banning a Jew, kal v'chomer one who is a rav of a kehilla, is extremely serious. Such a thing is not done except under the most extreme circumstances."
Mr. Alperowitz, the community president, says, "Krinsky should blame himself that he doesn't have a minyan. He distanced people from himself."
Both Krinsky and Alperowitz accuse each other of violence, and being motivated by the long-awaited restitution of Jewish communal property, which in Lithuania eventually will include at least 200 buildings and an estimated $60 million in compensation for property that cannot be returned.
Local observers claim that Krinsky's attempt to grab control of the Vilna kehilla follows a Chabad pattern to usurp power from local rabbis elsewhere in Eastern Europe which in recent years occurred in Kiev, Prague, Russia and Germany.
Lita has today about 4,500 Jews, most of them living in Vilna.
Tense, acrid relations have existed between the Jewish community and Rabbi Krinsky since 2004, when the community passed Rav Krinsky by for the rabbinate and chose instead Rabbi Chaim Burstein, a former St. Petersburg refusenik who had studied in Litvish yeshivos in Israel. Despite Rabbi Krinsky living in Vilna and being involved with the community since 1994, the kehilla said they had a tradition of being misnagdim and preferred a rabbi who was a Litvak.
Fisticuffs broke out in the shul between pro-Krinsky and pro-Burshtein factions during Shavuot services in 2004. The fracas was covered extensively by the local and foreign media.
Burshtein was later roughed up by Krinsky supporters during tefillos in the shul. When Krinsky's hooliganism continued, he and his followers were barred from the synagogue. They countered by holding vigils in the courtyard for months while pouting to foreign journalists about their "victimization".
The ensuing embarrassment and seeing no end to the conflict caused the kehilla to close the synagogue for more than a year, while services were held in the kehilla building. The community took Krinsky to court, and an arrangement was finally reached where the rabbi had to retreat to his Chabad center. The shul reopened in August 2005, and morning and evening services have since been held daily - without Krinsky, who presides over his own services in a first-floor room at the Chabad center.
The ban against Rav Krinsky entering the main shul means that he cannot enter the shul to recite Kaddish for his mother who passed away a few days ago. His own synagogue doesn't have a regular minyan of worshippers. Krinsky grumbled, "The doors are closed, and the guards know me and won't let me enter. How can one say 'no' to a Jew who wants to say Kaddish for his mother?"
Rabbi Yosef Aharanov, the head of Israeli shlichim, was shocked. "Banning a Jew, kal v'chomer one who is a rav of a kehilla, is extremely serious. Such a thing is not done except under the most extreme circumstances."
Mr. Alperowitz, the community president, says, "Krinsky should blame himself that he doesn't have a minyan. He distanced people from himself."
Both Krinsky and Alperowitz accuse each other of violence, and being motivated by the long-awaited restitution of Jewish communal property, which in Lithuania eventually will include at least 200 buildings and an estimated $60 million in compensation for property that cannot be returned.
Local observers claim that Krinsky's attempt to grab control of the Vilna kehilla follows a Chabad pattern to usurp power from local rabbis elsewhere in Eastern Europe which in recent years occurred in Kiev, Prague, Russia and Germany.
Lita has today about 4,500 Jews, most of them living in Vilna.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Peltz Center to honor Samuels couple on 30 years
By Leon Cohen
of The Chronicle staff
At the very beginning of the Six Day War in 1967, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, decreed that Lubavitch Chasidim could help Israel by encouraging Jewish men to perform the commandment of putting on tefillin.
A student named Yoseph Samuels decided to begin at once. Across the street from his Brooklyn yeshiva was a bank that had a high level official who was Jewish. So there Samuels went, visited the man in his office and helped him lay tefillin.
Decades later, Rabbi Yoseph Samuels, now director of Chabad of Downtown in Milwaukee, still remembers that “great experience.”
It showed how the Rebbe’s directives “help us discover how wonderful a Jewish soul is; how if you approach them with love, they will open up,” Samuels said in an interview at The Chronicle office.
This March, Samuels will begin his 30th year of work in Milwaukee with his wife and partner, Chashy, to reach and teach the “wonderful Jewish souls” they have found in the Milwaukee area.
The Joseph and Rebecca Peltz Center for Jewish Life in Mequon will mark the occasion by honoring the couple at a “Celebration Dinner” on Wednesday, March 4, beginning at 5 p.m., at the center, 2233 W. Mequon Rd.
Other honorees are Pamela and Ron Kohlenberg, who will receive the Community Service Award, and Jan and Aaron Katz, who will receive the Pillar of Chesed Award.
Until Moshiach comes
Rabbi Menachem Rapoport, executive director of the Peltz Center, said he wonders “why hasn’t [Samuels] been honored” previously in the community.
“He’s one of the greatest scholars Milwaukee has today,” Rapoport said, but “what’s most phenomenal about him is his love for people and his dedication to people as individuals.… His connection is not via any medium, but is person-to-person.”
One reason may be Samuels’ own reluctance. The center had approached Samuels “several times” for honors, but “we couldn’t get him to agree.” Even for this 30th year milestone, “it took a lot of arm twisting,” Rapoport said.
Indeed, Samuels himself said that the Peltz Center actually is “honoring all these wonderful people who put on tefillin and study Torah and permit me to do the things I do. That’s whom they’re honoring.”
As for his wife, the rabbi said she “is my complete partner.” Moreover, “there are a lot of people she teaches and who consult with her and confide in her.”
Karen Forman, co-chair of the dinner with her husband Marty, said she has known Chashy Samuels for more than 20 years, when the Formans moved to the Milwaukee area from Chicago.
“She was the first person to welcome me at her home with a Shabbat dinner,” said Forman. “Every conversation I’ve ever had with her has really reflected her gentleness and sincerity and great faith.… She is the most understated and humble person with so much wisdom and spirituality.”
Rabbi Samuels has always regarded himself as primarily a teacher, ever since the Rebbe told him, “You should be involved in Jewish education” shortly after his marriage to Chashy in 1969.
He served as a teacher in a Lubavitch day school in Miami, Fla., and worked at the Chabad in Seattle, Wash. He had known Rabbi Yisroel Shmotkin, director of Chabad of Wisconsin, earlier, and when Shmotkin asked Samuels to come to Milwaukee in 1980, the Rebbe gave his blessing.
At first, Samuels was education director and taught at a community high school that didn’t last. In 1990, he opened Chabad of Downtown, creating an operation that is funded independently from the general Milwaukee Chabad operation, but that still coordinates with it, Samuels said.
In that operation, Samuels teaches classes and individuals, and is open for downtown workers who want to study or pray during their lunch hours. He also officiates at life cycle events; and he travels to Richland Center, about a hour’s drive northwest of Madison, “a few times a year” to meet with the small Jewish community there.
Yoseph and Chashy have seven children, of whom the youngest is still in high school and the oldest son directs a Chabad operation in Simsbury, Conn.
As for the future, Samuels said he plans to “welcome the Moshiach [Messiah] whenever he should appear, which hopefully will be very, very soon.” Until then, “there are always more Jews to reach, learn with and interact with.”
The celebration dinner costs $50 per person. For more information, contact the Peltz Center for Jewish Life, 262-242-2235
of The Chronicle staff
At the very beginning of the Six Day War in 1967, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, decreed that Lubavitch Chasidim could help Israel by encouraging Jewish men to perform the commandment of putting on tefillin.
A student named Yoseph Samuels decided to begin at once. Across the street from his Brooklyn yeshiva was a bank that had a high level official who was Jewish. So there Samuels went, visited the man in his office and helped him lay tefillin.
Decades later, Rabbi Yoseph Samuels, now director of Chabad of Downtown in Milwaukee, still remembers that “great experience.”
It showed how the Rebbe’s directives “help us discover how wonderful a Jewish soul is; how if you approach them with love, they will open up,” Samuels said in an interview at The Chronicle office.
This March, Samuels will begin his 30th year of work in Milwaukee with his wife and partner, Chashy, to reach and teach the “wonderful Jewish souls” they have found in the Milwaukee area.
The Joseph and Rebecca Peltz Center for Jewish Life in Mequon will mark the occasion by honoring the couple at a “Celebration Dinner” on Wednesday, March 4, beginning at 5 p.m., at the center, 2233 W. Mequon Rd.
Other honorees are Pamela and Ron Kohlenberg, who will receive the Community Service Award, and Jan and Aaron Katz, who will receive the Pillar of Chesed Award.
Until Moshiach comes
Rabbi Menachem Rapoport, executive director of the Peltz Center, said he wonders “why hasn’t [Samuels] been honored” previously in the community.
“He’s one of the greatest scholars Milwaukee has today,” Rapoport said, but “what’s most phenomenal about him is his love for people and his dedication to people as individuals.… His connection is not via any medium, but is person-to-person.”
One reason may be Samuels’ own reluctance. The center had approached Samuels “several times” for honors, but “we couldn’t get him to agree.” Even for this 30th year milestone, “it took a lot of arm twisting,” Rapoport said.
Indeed, Samuels himself said that the Peltz Center actually is “honoring all these wonderful people who put on tefillin and study Torah and permit me to do the things I do. That’s whom they’re honoring.”
As for his wife, the rabbi said she “is my complete partner.” Moreover, “there are a lot of people she teaches and who consult with her and confide in her.”
Karen Forman, co-chair of the dinner with her husband Marty, said she has known Chashy Samuels for more than 20 years, when the Formans moved to the Milwaukee area from Chicago.
“She was the first person to welcome me at her home with a Shabbat dinner,” said Forman. “Every conversation I’ve ever had with her has really reflected her gentleness and sincerity and great faith.… She is the most understated and humble person with so much wisdom and spirituality.”
Rabbi Samuels has always regarded himself as primarily a teacher, ever since the Rebbe told him, “You should be involved in Jewish education” shortly after his marriage to Chashy in 1969.
He served as a teacher in a Lubavitch day school in Miami, Fla., and worked at the Chabad in Seattle, Wash. He had known Rabbi Yisroel Shmotkin, director of Chabad of Wisconsin, earlier, and when Shmotkin asked Samuels to come to Milwaukee in 1980, the Rebbe gave his blessing.
At first, Samuels was education director and taught at a community high school that didn’t last. In 1990, he opened Chabad of Downtown, creating an operation that is funded independently from the general Milwaukee Chabad operation, but that still coordinates with it, Samuels said.
In that operation, Samuels teaches classes and individuals, and is open for downtown workers who want to study or pray during their lunch hours. He also officiates at life cycle events; and he travels to Richland Center, about a hour’s drive northwest of Madison, “a few times a year” to meet with the small Jewish community there.
Yoseph and Chashy have seven children, of whom the youngest is still in high school and the oldest son directs a Chabad operation in Simsbury, Conn.
As for the future, Samuels said he plans to “welcome the Moshiach [Messiah] whenever he should appear, which hopefully will be very, very soon.” Until then, “there are always more Jews to reach, learn with and interact with.”
The celebration dinner costs $50 per person. For more information, contact the Peltz Center for Jewish Life, 262-242-2235
Monday, July 07, 2008
Australia's Chabad rabbi dies
Australia’s most senior Orthodox rabbi has died.
Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, the chief rabbi of Melbourne’s Chabad-Lubavitch community, died Monday following a long illness. He was 83.
The brother of Leib Groner, a personal secretary to the former Lubavitcher rebbe, he will be buried in Jerusalem -- alongside his parents -- later this week. A memorial service is currently being planned in Melbourne with Chabad officials scrambling to find a venue large enough for the thousands expected to mourn the spiritual giant described as the person who “put Chabad on the map in Australia.”
Michael Danby, a Jewish member of the Australian government and Groner’s local lawmaker, said: “No spiritual leader of the Australian Jewish community has had a bigger effect on the postwar generation, both in terms of the restoration of spiritual life and educational institutions.”
Over the last half-century, Groner built an Orthodox community of thousands of Lubavitchers and a network of institutions in Melbourne: two schools -- Yeshivah College and Beth Rivkah Ladies' College -- educating more than 1,500 pupils; a men’s kollel; a women’s seminary; several mikvehs; and a cluster of Chabad houses throughout the city, three of which are run by the rabbi’s sons or sons-in-law.
Born in Brownsville, N.Y., in 1925, Groner was first sent to Australia and New Zealand by the Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in 1947. He returned in 1953 before the rebbe requested he become his emissary to Australia in 1958.
Wheelchair-bound in the twilight of his life, the rabbi was renowned for his booming sermons. His flock would line up outside his door to ask religious question of their spiritual leader.
Groner is survived by his wife, Devorah, his brother Leib, his eight children and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, the chief rabbi of Melbourne’s Chabad-Lubavitch community, died Monday following a long illness. He was 83.
The brother of Leib Groner, a personal secretary to the former Lubavitcher rebbe, he will be buried in Jerusalem -- alongside his parents -- later this week. A memorial service is currently being planned in Melbourne with Chabad officials scrambling to find a venue large enough for the thousands expected to mourn the spiritual giant described as the person who “put Chabad on the map in Australia.”
Michael Danby, a Jewish member of the Australian government and Groner’s local lawmaker, said: “No spiritual leader of the Australian Jewish community has had a bigger effect on the postwar generation, both in terms of the restoration of spiritual life and educational institutions.”
Over the last half-century, Groner built an Orthodox community of thousands of Lubavitchers and a network of institutions in Melbourne: two schools -- Yeshivah College and Beth Rivkah Ladies' College -- educating more than 1,500 pupils; a men’s kollel; a women’s seminary; several mikvehs; and a cluster of Chabad houses throughout the city, three of which are run by the rabbi’s sons or sons-in-law.
Born in Brownsville, N.Y., in 1925, Groner was first sent to Australia and New Zealand by the Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in 1947. He returned in 1953 before the rebbe requested he become his emissary to Australia in 1958.
Wheelchair-bound in the twilight of his life, the rabbi was renowned for his booming sermons. His flock would line up outside his door to ask religious question of their spiritual leader.
Groner is survived by his wife, Devorah, his brother Leib, his eight children and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Rabbi seeks Jews who have fallen away
Mission is to show them the road back
By BOB SMIETANA
Staff Writer
For a man who is constantly busy, Rabbi Yitzchok Tiechtel doesn't seem in much of a hurry.
Sitting at a table near the ark that houses the Torah scrolls in the Beit Tefilah synagogue on a recent Friday, Tiechtel holds a yad, or Torah pointer, in one hand as he talks. In the other hand, his BlackBerry chimes almost constantly.
In the background, Lee Becker, a volunteer, carries in brownies and helps set up for a dinner and Shabbat service. Once the setup is complete and his morning meetings are done, Tiechtel will leave the Bellevue office complex that's home to the synagogue and head downtown. An acquaintance has asked him to hang mezuzah, small bits of parchment with Torah verses inscribed on them, on the doorpost of the office.
It's all in a day's work for Tiechtel, a foot soldier in the Rebbe's Army.
He's one of more than 3,000 sluchim, or emissaries, sent out by Chabad (www.chabad.org), a worldwide Jewish group with headquarts in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. Followers of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn, the fellow sluchim are an unusual kind of missionaries. Unlike Christian missionaries, who seek new converts, Chabad sluchim hope to persuade secular Jews to return to the fold.
There's been a Chabad presence in Nashville since the 1950s, when Rabbi Zalman Posner and his wife, Risya, arrived from Crown Heights as emissaries. The Posners became pillars of the Jewish community. They started the Akiva Academy Hebrew Day School, and Posner, a scholar and author, led Congregation Sherith Israel until retiring in 2002.
Tiechtel arrived nine years ago to become headmaster of the Akiva School. Not long after arriving, he left Akiva to start the Chabad Center for Jewish Awareness (www.nashvillejewish.org). The center runs classes and a summer camp, puts out an annual calendar and lights menorahs in public spaces during Hanukkah.
The group is also raising funds to build a permanent home in Bellevue, which will include a kosher Internet cafe, a synagogue and a mikvah, or ritual bath.
Being an emissary runs in Tiechtel's family. The oldest of 10 children has six siblings who serve as sluchim in Berlin, Germany; Illinois; and Arizona.
All were inspired by their grandmother, an immigrant from Russia whose father was arrested and killed by the Soviet government for running a cheder, or Hebrew school, in Leningrad.
"I'm just carrying on the work my great-grandfather started," he said.
Tiechtel compares his mission to that of a lamplighter. "There's a light in every person that comes from God," he said, "but someone has to light the wick for that light to shine."
Missions are different
Rabbi Mark Shiftan of the Temple said that the local Chabad Center has a very different focus than synagogues. The Temple, like other congregations, serves those in the mainstream of Jewish life. Chabad, on the other hand, exists to reach those who have fallen off the radar screen.
"Most synagogues are engaging in outreach to try and find new and innovative ways to reach out to Jews who are on the outskirts of Jewish life," Shiftan said.
"They (Chabad) do have a long track record of very actively reaching out to Jews who no longer even know the road back into the community."
Becker, who relocated to Nashville about 10 years, ago, says she grew up in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in New York City.
When their children were young, Becker said, she and her husband took them to their synagogue.
Once the kids were grown, however, the Beckers dropped out of synagogue life.
They come to services at Beit Tefilah weekly, and say they enjoy Tiecthel's down-to-earth sermons.
"He really explains the Torah reading," she said. "It's like a family. We just enjoy coming. Our Jewish heritage has become more important to us now than it was in New York."
Joe Freedman, a Nashville businessman, also says he has reconnected with his faith after meeting Tiechtel. Freedman grew up as a Reform Jew in New Orleans, where he played baseball for a Catholic high school, and says he never considered himself religious.
"I am one of the most assimilated people you will ever find," he said.
For the past six years, Freedman said, he has met monthly with Tiechtel to study the Torah. The two also pray together.
By BOB SMIETANA
Staff Writer
For a man who is constantly busy, Rabbi Yitzchok Tiechtel doesn't seem in much of a hurry.
Sitting at a table near the ark that houses the Torah scrolls in the Beit Tefilah synagogue on a recent Friday, Tiechtel holds a yad, or Torah pointer, in one hand as he talks. In the other hand, his BlackBerry chimes almost constantly.
In the background, Lee Becker, a volunteer, carries in brownies and helps set up for a dinner and Shabbat service. Once the setup is complete and his morning meetings are done, Tiechtel will leave the Bellevue office complex that's home to the synagogue and head downtown. An acquaintance has asked him to hang mezuzah, small bits of parchment with Torah verses inscribed on them, on the doorpost of the office.
It's all in a day's work for Tiechtel, a foot soldier in the Rebbe's Army.
He's one of more than 3,000 sluchim, or emissaries, sent out by Chabad (www.chabad.org), a worldwide Jewish group with headquarts in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. Followers of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn, the fellow sluchim are an unusual kind of missionaries. Unlike Christian missionaries, who seek new converts, Chabad sluchim hope to persuade secular Jews to return to the fold.
There's been a Chabad presence in Nashville since the 1950s, when Rabbi Zalman Posner and his wife, Risya, arrived from Crown Heights as emissaries. The Posners became pillars of the Jewish community. They started the Akiva Academy Hebrew Day School, and Posner, a scholar and author, led Congregation Sherith Israel until retiring in 2002.
Tiechtel arrived nine years ago to become headmaster of the Akiva School. Not long after arriving, he left Akiva to start the Chabad Center for Jewish Awareness (www.nashvillejewish.org). The center runs classes and a summer camp, puts out an annual calendar and lights menorahs in public spaces during Hanukkah.
The group is also raising funds to build a permanent home in Bellevue, which will include a kosher Internet cafe, a synagogue and a mikvah, or ritual bath.
Being an emissary runs in Tiechtel's family. The oldest of 10 children has six siblings who serve as sluchim in Berlin, Germany; Illinois; and Arizona.
All were inspired by their grandmother, an immigrant from Russia whose father was arrested and killed by the Soviet government for running a cheder, or Hebrew school, in Leningrad.
"I'm just carrying on the work my great-grandfather started," he said.
Tiechtel compares his mission to that of a lamplighter. "There's a light in every person that comes from God," he said, "but someone has to light the wick for that light to shine."
Missions are different
Rabbi Mark Shiftan of the Temple said that the local Chabad Center has a very different focus than synagogues. The Temple, like other congregations, serves those in the mainstream of Jewish life. Chabad, on the other hand, exists to reach those who have fallen off the radar screen.
"Most synagogues are engaging in outreach to try and find new and innovative ways to reach out to Jews who are on the outskirts of Jewish life," Shiftan said.
"They (Chabad) do have a long track record of very actively reaching out to Jews who no longer even know the road back into the community."
Becker, who relocated to Nashville about 10 years, ago, says she grew up in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in New York City.
When their children were young, Becker said, she and her husband took them to their synagogue.
Once the kids were grown, however, the Beckers dropped out of synagogue life.
They come to services at Beit Tefilah weekly, and say they enjoy Tiecthel's down-to-earth sermons.
"He really explains the Torah reading," she said. "It's like a family. We just enjoy coming. Our Jewish heritage has become more important to us now than it was in New York."
Joe Freedman, a Nashville businessman, also says he has reconnected with his faith after meeting Tiechtel. Freedman grew up as a Reform Jew in New Orleans, where he played baseball for a Catholic high school, and says he never considered himself religious.
"I am one of the most assimilated people you will ever find," he said.
For the past six years, Freedman said, he has met monthly with Tiechtel to study the Torah. The two also pray together.
Monday, June 16, 2008
We're all right, Shmuley
Jun. 16, 2008
Dovid Eliezrie ,
THE JERUSALEM POST
Like many others, I wondered about the Chabad future after the Rebbe - Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn - passed away in 1994. I especially worried whether Chabad emissaries would attend their convention, scheduled for a few months later. Those fears dissipated when 700-strong showed up from around the globe.
Fourteen years later, the numbers are up again. Over 2,200 shlichim (emissaries) attended last year, reflecting a remarkable rate of growth.
One of the early challenges in the post-gimmel tammuz era (the Hebrew date of the Rebbe's passing) was Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's management of the Chabad L'Chaim society at Oxford University. He had involved large numbers of non-Jews in his programs, a radical departure from the Chabad norm, focused as it is on drawing Jews closer to their tradition. Some of his other activities also did not reflect Chabad standards.
During that confusing time, Chabad in the UK could have just turned a blind eye. Instead it made the decision that Shmuley's methodology did not meet Chabad policies.
No one doubted his creativity, his writing ability or his commitment to Judaism. Some said "it was nothing but politics - these older rabbis in London."
As Shmuley wrote in The Jerusalem Post last week (June 10), he feels to this day that he was in the right. In my mind, however, it was a turning point. Chabad in the UK took a courageous stand, insisting that our principles were sacrosanct. Coming shortly after the Rebbe's passing, it sent a strong message throughout the Chabad system that standards were not to be lowered.
THE LAST 14 years have been a period of both great success and serious challenge, internally and externally. The Rebbe had already laid the foundation for the transformation into a communal decision-making system by setting up an organizational structure guided by committees and boards. Rabbinical courts were appointed as the final arbitrators of policy and direction. More and more, Chabad become a consensus-driven culture.
Still the shift did not come without internal politics and dissension. When it comes to tough questions, the debate is, "What would the Rebbe have said?" or "What did he say?" in such a situation. There is debate and dialogue, and not everyone shares the same understanding of which precedent should apply.
CHABAD TODAY is the largest Jewish organization in the world, operating in 75 countries and 48 states. With over 5,000 rabbis and their wives on staff, there is no question that there will be issues. In such a large system there will be institutions that have financial or management problems. The Rebbe taught us to live up to high ideals, which, being human, we fail at times to reach. Chabad emissaries have the same frailties as anyone. At times those weaknesses trickle down to the institutions we are involved in.
There will be internal organizational politics. How many Chabad centers can we open, and who should run them? Who should be assigned to a suburb with great demographic potential? How do we resolve issues when there is internal conflict?
Chabad's expanding role in itself poses a new set of challenges. As Dennis Prager said recently to a group of Chabad rabbis, "For years Chabad was the outsider. Now you are becoming the establishment, and that demands a different type of responsibility."
Moving from the periphery to the mainstream must cause us to see our role differently.
INTERNALLY, CHABAD must address additional issues: How do we inspire our children to have the same passion and ideals that we learned firsthand from the Rebbe? How do we create viable communities of hassidim that meet the spiritual and educational needs of a more diverse and growing population in a wide variety of geographic settings? How do we live our lives to the high standards that the Rebbe aspired to?
How do we ensure economic stability for hassidim who do not enter into Jewish education or outreach? For instance, a leading Chabad rabbinical figure in Israel talked to me about the need to help his community develop more varied job skills.
None of these questions has an easy answer, and they cannot be debated in the pages of The Jerusalem Post.
Chabad is a culture of intense self-analysis. Be it in the local synagogue, in conventions both regional and international, or on the various Web sites, the dialogue and debate is real. Just this week members of Chabad rabbinical courts convened in New York to talk about many of these questions. What is striking about Chabad is the personal sense of empowerment that most of its hassidim feel, which enables them to express their opinions openly and strongly.
WITH ALL its challenges, Chabad is booming. The network of Chabad Centers is growing in many ways. In Russia, Judaism has been rebuilt from the bottom up. In Israel, Chabad serves as a bridge between secular and religious in a polarized society. In the US and other Western countries, Chabad centers are growing in suburbia, creating a new synagogue movement involving hundreds of thousands of Jews.
In campus and adult education there is phenomenal growth and innovation. Internally the hassidic community is learning to find solutions to different challenges with innovative yeshivas and seminaries. A new generation of Chabad rabbinical scholars is providing much-needed spiritual direction to hassidim.
There are problems. And there will be new ones in the future. Still, the system the Rebbe put in place is proving itself responsive and resilient, both in sparking a Jewish renaissance around the world and in creating a viable community for Hassidim.
The writer is a Chabad emissary in Yorba Linda, California.
rabbi@ocjewish.com
Dovid Eliezrie ,
THE JERUSALEM POST
Like many others, I wondered about the Chabad future after the Rebbe - Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn - passed away in 1994. I especially worried whether Chabad emissaries would attend their convention, scheduled for a few months later. Those fears dissipated when 700-strong showed up from around the globe.
Fourteen years later, the numbers are up again. Over 2,200 shlichim (emissaries) attended last year, reflecting a remarkable rate of growth.
One of the early challenges in the post-gimmel tammuz era (the Hebrew date of the Rebbe's passing) was Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's management of the Chabad L'Chaim society at Oxford University. He had involved large numbers of non-Jews in his programs, a radical departure from the Chabad norm, focused as it is on drawing Jews closer to their tradition. Some of his other activities also did not reflect Chabad standards.
During that confusing time, Chabad in the UK could have just turned a blind eye. Instead it made the decision that Shmuley's methodology did not meet Chabad policies.
No one doubted his creativity, his writing ability or his commitment to Judaism. Some said "it was nothing but politics - these older rabbis in London."
As Shmuley wrote in The Jerusalem Post last week (June 10), he feels to this day that he was in the right. In my mind, however, it was a turning point. Chabad in the UK took a courageous stand, insisting that our principles were sacrosanct. Coming shortly after the Rebbe's passing, it sent a strong message throughout the Chabad system that standards were not to be lowered.
THE LAST 14 years have been a period of both great success and serious challenge, internally and externally. The Rebbe had already laid the foundation for the transformation into a communal decision-making system by setting up an organizational structure guided by committees and boards. Rabbinical courts were appointed as the final arbitrators of policy and direction. More and more, Chabad become a consensus-driven culture.
Still the shift did not come without internal politics and dissension. When it comes to tough questions, the debate is, "What would the Rebbe have said?" or "What did he say?" in such a situation. There is debate and dialogue, and not everyone shares the same understanding of which precedent should apply.
CHABAD TODAY is the largest Jewish organization in the world, operating in 75 countries and 48 states. With over 5,000 rabbis and their wives on staff, there is no question that there will be issues. In such a large system there will be institutions that have financial or management problems. The Rebbe taught us to live up to high ideals, which, being human, we fail at times to reach. Chabad emissaries have the same frailties as anyone. At times those weaknesses trickle down to the institutions we are involved in.
There will be internal organizational politics. How many Chabad centers can we open, and who should run them? Who should be assigned to a suburb with great demographic potential? How do we resolve issues when there is internal conflict?
Chabad's expanding role in itself poses a new set of challenges. As Dennis Prager said recently to a group of Chabad rabbis, "For years Chabad was the outsider. Now you are becoming the establishment, and that demands a different type of responsibility."
Moving from the periphery to the mainstream must cause us to see our role differently.
INTERNALLY, CHABAD must address additional issues: How do we inspire our children to have the same passion and ideals that we learned firsthand from the Rebbe? How do we create viable communities of hassidim that meet the spiritual and educational needs of a more diverse and growing population in a wide variety of geographic settings? How do we live our lives to the high standards that the Rebbe aspired to?
How do we ensure economic stability for hassidim who do not enter into Jewish education or outreach? For instance, a leading Chabad rabbinical figure in Israel talked to me about the need to help his community develop more varied job skills.
None of these questions has an easy answer, and they cannot be debated in the pages of The Jerusalem Post.
Chabad is a culture of intense self-analysis. Be it in the local synagogue, in conventions both regional and international, or on the various Web sites, the dialogue and debate is real. Just this week members of Chabad rabbinical courts convened in New York to talk about many of these questions. What is striking about Chabad is the personal sense of empowerment that most of its hassidim feel, which enables them to express their opinions openly and strongly.
WITH ALL its challenges, Chabad is booming. The network of Chabad Centers is growing in many ways. In Russia, Judaism has been rebuilt from the bottom up. In Israel, Chabad serves as a bridge between secular and religious in a polarized society. In the US and other Western countries, Chabad centers are growing in suburbia, creating a new synagogue movement involving hundreds of thousands of Jews.
In campus and adult education there is phenomenal growth and innovation. Internally the hassidic community is learning to find solutions to different challenges with innovative yeshivas and seminaries. A new generation of Chabad rabbinical scholars is providing much-needed spiritual direction to hassidim.
There are problems. And there will be new ones in the future. Still, the system the Rebbe put in place is proving itself responsive and resilient, both in sparking a Jewish renaissance around the world and in creating a viable community for Hassidim.
The writer is a Chabad emissary in Yorba Linda, California.
rabbi@ocjewish.com
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Chabad emissaries gather for celebration and reunion
Ben Harris
Part professional development, part reunion and part celebration, the annual gathering of Chabad emissaries enables the shluchim to revel in a few days spent far from the isolation many endure.
Published: 11/13/2007
NEW YORK (JTA) --
While leaders of the Jewish federation world prepared to descend on Nashville for their annual General Assembly this week, Rabbi Yitzchok Tiechtel, a Chabad emissary in the Tennessee capital, packed his bags and headed north for another major Jewish gathering.The International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Shluchim, more commonly known as the Kinus, brought together Tiechtel and some 3,000 colleagues -- Chabad emissaries, or shluchim, serving Jewish communities in the farthest reaches of the globe.
Part professional development, part reunion and part celebration, the six-day conference here allowed the shluchim to revel in a few days spent far from the isolation many endure in posts spread across 72 countries and six continents. Though Chabad has labored to increase its partnership with the federation system in recent years, it was hard to escape the impression of two alternative centers of Jewry reflected in the concurrent conferences in Nashville and New York.
Tiechtel, who returned to Nashville on Monday to attend part of the G.A., brushed off the suggestion."What we do only adds to what they do," he said. "I don't see it as a competition."Indeed, most Chabad shluchim operate in areas where fellow Jews, let alone Jewish competition, are scarce.
Inspired by the teachings of the late Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Chabad shluchim have made lifetime commitments to bring Jewish life to areas where often they are the only established Jewish presence for hundreds of miles.
They regard themselves as the rebbe's soldiers, a motif invoked again and again to describe the sacrifice and commitment of shluchim and their families, who spend their lives far from the centers of world Jewry."We are not climbing a career ladder," Rabbi Nechemia Vogel, the London-born founder of the Chabad House in Rochester, N.Y., said in his keynote address. "We are the rebbe's shluchim. We stay at our posts." For Tiechtel, it was also a chance to reconnect with his siblings, six of whom serve as shluchim in cities as far flung as Berlin, Coconut Grove, Fla., and Tempe, Ariz.
At the Kinus banquet on Sunday evening, the Tiechtels practically filled their own table. The evening before, they had a chance for a more private reunion at a Japanese restaurant in Brooklyn. "We didn't have a chance to do that in many years," said Dovid Tiechtel, who runs the Chabad center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.The Kinus, which began in 1983 with about 60 rabbis meeting in a room at Chabad world headquarters in Brooklyn, has evolved into a major multimedia extravaganza broadcast live around the world.
This year it was held in a cavernous hall along the Hudson River in Manhattan, just yards from where the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, arrived in America 68 years ago. At a time when much communal angst is focused on how to attract an unaffiliated and disinterested younger generation -- topics that are high on the agenda for the leaders in Nashville -- Chabad’s growth continues unabated.
Twenty new centers have been established this year in California and Florida alone, with five in France and four in Argentina, according to Chabad.org. Chabad's campus initiative added 17 new centers in the United States and elsewhere. A total of 278 new shluchim have joined the ranks.
Nearly 5,000 people attended the Sunday banquet, including 1,900 lay leaders and family of the shluchim, requiring 20 more tables than last year.
One of the evening’s highlights, the annual roll call, listed each of the 72 countries where Chabad has a permanent presence, and the number of shluchim families that live there: 187 in France, 117 in Russia, eight in China, two in Congo, and one each from Georgia, Bolivia, Norway and Puerto Rico.On the sidelines of the Kinus, a children’s summit was held for the sons of the visiting shluchim, with 467 kids attending. The daughters and female emissaries have their own separate gatherings.
The Kinus also provided a chance to offer good wishes to departing shluchim like Osher Litzman, a 25-year-old Israeli who with his wife and infant daughter are departing for Seoul in the coming days.
They will remain in South Korea, Litzman says, "until the Messiah comes," adding quickly, "We hope he is coming today."Like generations of Chabad shluchim before him, Litzman is headed for a country where he knows no one and doesn’t speak the language, though the couple are studying Korean online. They expect to have their Chabad center up and running in time to host a Passover seder.
Asked how he intends to pay for everything, Litzman tilts his eyes skyward and smiles. In fact, support for Chabad's sprawling global operation is of a more earthly kind, coming from a cadre of benefactors that includes men such as Lev Leviev, the Uzbekistan-born mogul who immigrated to Israel as a teenager and is believed to be Israel's richest man. Forbes magazine, which lists Leviev as the 210th richest person in the world, estimates his net worth at $4.1 billion. Addressing the banquet in Russian-accented Hebrew, Leviev -- known as Reb Levi in Chabad circles -- said the shluchim were like soldiers operating "behind enemy lines." Leviev also related a well-known story about a meeting with Schneerson in Brooklyn in which the rebbe encouraged him to do business in Russia, a decision that was instrumental to his business success. More than a decade after his death in 1994 following a stroke, the rebbe's legacy still looms large in Chabad. A banner with his portrait towered over the hall and videos of him exhorting his followers in Yiddish played throughout the evening.
Shluchim regard themselves as the rebbe's personal emissaries and hold their conference each year on the first day of the Hebrew month of Kislev, the anniversary of the rebbe's recovery from a heart attack in 1977. "There's not a community in the world that's not touched by the rebbe's shluchim," said conference vice chairman Rabbi Moshe Kotlarksy. "So we can say Am Yisrael Chai. Am Yisrael Chai."
Part professional development, part reunion and part celebration, the six-day conference here allowed the shluchim to revel in a few days spent far from the isolation many endure in posts spread across 72 countries and six continents. Though Chabad has labored to increase its partnership with the federation system in recent years, it was hard to escape the impression of two alternative centers of Jewry reflected in the concurrent conferences in Nashville and New York.
Tiechtel, who returned to Nashville on Monday to attend part of the G.A., brushed off the suggestion."What we do only adds to what they do," he said. "I don't see it as a competition."Indeed, most Chabad shluchim operate in areas where fellow Jews, let alone Jewish competition, are scarce.
Inspired by the teachings of the late Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Chabad shluchim have made lifetime commitments to bring Jewish life to areas where often they are the only established Jewish presence for hundreds of miles.
They regard themselves as the rebbe's soldiers, a motif invoked again and again to describe the sacrifice and commitment of shluchim and their families, who spend their lives far from the centers of world Jewry."We are not climbing a career ladder," Rabbi Nechemia Vogel, the London-born founder of the Chabad House in Rochester, N.Y., said in his keynote address. "We are the rebbe's shluchim. We stay at our posts." For Tiechtel, it was also a chance to reconnect with his siblings, six of whom serve as shluchim in cities as far flung as Berlin, Coconut Grove, Fla., and Tempe, Ariz.
At the Kinus banquet on Sunday evening, the Tiechtels practically filled their own table. The evening before, they had a chance for a more private reunion at a Japanese restaurant in Brooklyn. "We didn't have a chance to do that in many years," said Dovid Tiechtel, who runs the Chabad center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.The Kinus, which began in 1983 with about 60 rabbis meeting in a room at Chabad world headquarters in Brooklyn, has evolved into a major multimedia extravaganza broadcast live around the world.
This year it was held in a cavernous hall along the Hudson River in Manhattan, just yards from where the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, arrived in America 68 years ago. At a time when much communal angst is focused on how to attract an unaffiliated and disinterested younger generation -- topics that are high on the agenda for the leaders in Nashville -- Chabad’s growth continues unabated.
Twenty new centers have been established this year in California and Florida alone, with five in France and four in Argentina, according to Chabad.org. Chabad's campus initiative added 17 new centers in the United States and elsewhere. A total of 278 new shluchim have joined the ranks.
Nearly 5,000 people attended the Sunday banquet, including 1,900 lay leaders and family of the shluchim, requiring 20 more tables than last year.
One of the evening’s highlights, the annual roll call, listed each of the 72 countries where Chabad has a permanent presence, and the number of shluchim families that live there: 187 in France, 117 in Russia, eight in China, two in Congo, and one each from Georgia, Bolivia, Norway and Puerto Rico.On the sidelines of the Kinus, a children’s summit was held for the sons of the visiting shluchim, with 467 kids attending. The daughters and female emissaries have their own separate gatherings.
The Kinus also provided a chance to offer good wishes to departing shluchim like Osher Litzman, a 25-year-old Israeli who with his wife and infant daughter are departing for Seoul in the coming days.
They will remain in South Korea, Litzman says, "until the Messiah comes," adding quickly, "We hope he is coming today."Like generations of Chabad shluchim before him, Litzman is headed for a country where he knows no one and doesn’t speak the language, though the couple are studying Korean online. They expect to have their Chabad center up and running in time to host a Passover seder.
Asked how he intends to pay for everything, Litzman tilts his eyes skyward and smiles. In fact, support for Chabad's sprawling global operation is of a more earthly kind, coming from a cadre of benefactors that includes men such as Lev Leviev, the Uzbekistan-born mogul who immigrated to Israel as a teenager and is believed to be Israel's richest man. Forbes magazine, which lists Leviev as the 210th richest person in the world, estimates his net worth at $4.1 billion. Addressing the banquet in Russian-accented Hebrew, Leviev -- known as Reb Levi in Chabad circles -- said the shluchim were like soldiers operating "behind enemy lines." Leviev also related a well-known story about a meeting with Schneerson in Brooklyn in which the rebbe encouraged him to do business in Russia, a decision that was instrumental to his business success. More than a decade after his death in 1994 following a stroke, the rebbe's legacy still looms large in Chabad. A banner with his portrait towered over the hall and videos of him exhorting his followers in Yiddish played throughout the evening.
Shluchim regard themselves as the rebbe's personal emissaries and hold their conference each year on the first day of the Hebrew month of Kislev, the anniversary of the rebbe's recovery from a heart attack in 1977. "There's not a community in the world that's not touched by the rebbe's shluchim," said conference vice chairman Rabbi Moshe Kotlarksy. "So we can say Am Yisrael Chai. Am Yisrael Chai."
Shlomo Matusof, rabbi in Morocco
NEW YORK -
Rabbi Shlomo Matusof, a leader of Chabad-Lubavitch educational activities in Morocco for decades, died Saturday during a visit to New York, according to the Jewish movement's website.
Rabbi Matusof, who was 91, died of liver failure, a Chabad spokesman said. He was buried Sunday in Queens.
Rabbi Matusof and his sons were among thousands attending the five-day International Conference of Chabad Lubavitch Emissaries in Brooklyn. The annual conference features workshops and discussions.
The Russian native spent time in Germany and France before he was assigned in late 1950 to go to Morocco by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the website said.
Rabbi Matusof leaves his wife, seven rabbi sons, and two daughters.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
more stories like this
Rabbi Shlomo Matusof, a leader of Chabad-Lubavitch educational activities in Morocco for decades, died Saturday during a visit to New York, according to the Jewish movement's website.
Rabbi Matusof, who was 91, died of liver failure, a Chabad spokesman said. He was buried Sunday in Queens.
Rabbi Matusof and his sons were among thousands attending the five-day International Conference of Chabad Lubavitch Emissaries in Brooklyn. The annual conference features workshops and discussions.
The Russian native spent time in Germany and France before he was assigned in late 1950 to go to Morocco by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the website said.
Rabbi Matusof leaves his wife, seven rabbi sons, and two daughters.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
more stories like this
Diamond Billionaire Takes New York
Lev Leviev, the Israeli diamond billionaire, had a busy schedule during his visit to New York this week.
On Sunday, he flew to New York to appear in front of 4,300 black-hatted Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis. The Uzbekistan-born Leviev, who made his fortune cracking the De Beers diamond cartel, is the most powerful lay leader of the Chabad movement’s rapidly growing branch in the former Soviet Union, and he was given a standing ovation by the gender-segregated crowd.
Two days later, Leviev was still wearing his yarmulke, but this time around he appeared in front of women in low-cut dresses who had come for the opening of LEVIEV, the magnate’s flagship American diamond retailer on Madison Avenue.
Asked by the Forward about moving between such different worlds, Leviev said: “It is nice to put these worlds together, to make money and then convert the money into the spiritual. That is why I make money.”
Leviev was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and immigrated with his family to Israel in 1971. He learned the diamond trade and, after coming up with an innovative method for processing diamonds, started his own diamond-polishing plant.
At the Chabad event, he spoke at length, in Hebrew, about the profound influence Chabad has had on both his personal and business philosophy. The late Chabad leader Menachem Schneerson blessed him, he said, when Leviev was a young man with no money to his name.
“I did better in every business venture since,” Leviev said.
His rise has not been without controversy. Leviev has been accused of profiting from diamond mines in apartheid-era South Africa, Angola and Burma. His closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin has also raised some eyebrows.
This came to the fore at the store opening, when a group of protesters showed up behind the velvet rope that barred the entrance to the store. The protesters were most vocal in criticizing Leviev’s involvement in developing the Palestinian territories. But they also denounced his trade with the Angolan government, widely regarded as repressive, and his real estate holdings in New York City, which have come under fire from tenants’ rights groups.
Leviev “is destroying marginal communities in New York City the same way he’s destroying Palestinian communities in the Middle East,” said protester Ethan Heitner, who identified himself as a Jewish member of the group Adalah-NY.
A source close to Leviev said that the protesters were scapegoating the diamond merchant simply because he is an Israeli citizen. The controversies went unmentioned at the Chabad event — and they were also omitted from a lengthy recent story about Leviev in The New York Times Magazine.
“When you read The New York Times article, say a shehechianu, because this is the first time The New York Times has written an article without saying a negative thing in it,” said Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky in his introductory remarks to Leviev’s speech at the Chabad banquet.
The banquet was the final event of a four-day long international Chabad conference that brought together lay leaders and shluchim (emissaries) who work in places as far-flung as Laos, Congo and Armenia.
Earlier in the weekend, attendees discussed new Chabad initiatives, which include not only the movement’s foray into online education but also a program that will give students the tools to decipher the Talmud. Leviev is president and chief donor of the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS, the most powerful Jewish organization in Russia.
“It was most gratifying to finally have the opportunity to publicly recognize Mr. Leviev for catalyzing Jewish renaissance in the former Soviet Union, as well as for his trailblazing work in other parts of the world,” Kotlarsky said in an e-mail to the Forward. “The philanthropic philosophy that he lives by, which he presented at the banquet, was deeply inspirational to both rabbi and layman alike.”
While a few Hasidic men attended the store opening several days later, the crowd was dominated by celebrities like Isabella Rossellini and Susan Sarandon. In a nod to both sets of guests, the organizers served nonkosher hors d’oeuvres but warned the Jewish attendees.
In one effort to synthesize his two worlds, Leviev employed a running metaphor during his speech at the Chabad banquet. “Every Jew is a diamond,” he said.
On Sunday, he flew to New York to appear in front of 4,300 black-hatted Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis. The Uzbekistan-born Leviev, who made his fortune cracking the De Beers diamond cartel, is the most powerful lay leader of the Chabad movement’s rapidly growing branch in the former Soviet Union, and he was given a standing ovation by the gender-segregated crowd.
Two days later, Leviev was still wearing his yarmulke, but this time around he appeared in front of women in low-cut dresses who had come for the opening of LEVIEV, the magnate’s flagship American diamond retailer on Madison Avenue.
Asked by the Forward about moving between such different worlds, Leviev said: “It is nice to put these worlds together, to make money and then convert the money into the spiritual. That is why I make money.”
Leviev was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and immigrated with his family to Israel in 1971. He learned the diamond trade and, after coming up with an innovative method for processing diamonds, started his own diamond-polishing plant.
At the Chabad event, he spoke at length, in Hebrew, about the profound influence Chabad has had on both his personal and business philosophy. The late Chabad leader Menachem Schneerson blessed him, he said, when Leviev was a young man with no money to his name.
“I did better in every business venture since,” Leviev said.
His rise has not been without controversy. Leviev has been accused of profiting from diamond mines in apartheid-era South Africa, Angola and Burma. His closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin has also raised some eyebrows.
This came to the fore at the store opening, when a group of protesters showed up behind the velvet rope that barred the entrance to the store. The protesters were most vocal in criticizing Leviev’s involvement in developing the Palestinian territories. But they also denounced his trade with the Angolan government, widely regarded as repressive, and his real estate holdings in New York City, which have come under fire from tenants’ rights groups.
Leviev “is destroying marginal communities in New York City the same way he’s destroying Palestinian communities in the Middle East,” said protester Ethan Heitner, who identified himself as a Jewish member of the group Adalah-NY.
A source close to Leviev said that the protesters were scapegoating the diamond merchant simply because he is an Israeli citizen. The controversies went unmentioned at the Chabad event — and they were also omitted from a lengthy recent story about Leviev in The New York Times Magazine.
“When you read The New York Times article, say a shehechianu, because this is the first time The New York Times has written an article without saying a negative thing in it,” said Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky in his introductory remarks to Leviev’s speech at the Chabad banquet.
The banquet was the final event of a four-day long international Chabad conference that brought together lay leaders and shluchim (emissaries) who work in places as far-flung as Laos, Congo and Armenia.
Earlier in the weekend, attendees discussed new Chabad initiatives, which include not only the movement’s foray into online education but also a program that will give students the tools to decipher the Talmud. Leviev is president and chief donor of the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS, the most powerful Jewish organization in Russia.
“It was most gratifying to finally have the opportunity to publicly recognize Mr. Leviev for catalyzing Jewish renaissance in the former Soviet Union, as well as for his trailblazing work in other parts of the world,” Kotlarsky said in an e-mail to the Forward. “The philanthropic philosophy that he lives by, which he presented at the banquet, was deeply inspirational to both rabbi and layman alike.”
While a few Hasidic men attended the store opening several days later, the crowd was dominated by celebrities like Isabella Rossellini and Susan Sarandon. In a nod to both sets of guests, the organizers served nonkosher hors d’oeuvres but warned the Jewish attendees.
In one effort to synthesize his two worlds, Leviev employed a running metaphor during his speech at the Chabad banquet. “Every Jew is a diamond,” he said.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Chabad Gathering: No Jew Left Behind
Rebbe’s emissaries come back from 72 countries and 47 states.
by Jonathan Mark
Associate Editor
There is an old joke that Orthodox Jews tell: “What is the closest religion to Judaism?” Chabad-Lubavitch is the punchline. Everyone “gets it.” Everyone thinks they know about Chabad’s messianism, that a few Chabadniks believe that the rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994, is still alive.In fairness, the rebbe’s messianism or divinity is not advocated in any of Chabad’s official literature; it’s even reprimanded. But fairness has nothing to do with it.This past weekend, just about all the shluchim, nearly 3,000 of the rebbe’s emissaries to 72 countries and 47 states, along with 1,900 of their philanthropic backers, returned to New York for their annual convention. The rebbe was spoken of in past tense, the messiah in future tense.David Berger, chair of Jewish studies at Yeshiva University, recently wrote in the YU newspaper that because of its messianic pretensions, Chabad is “an existential threat to the Jewish religion.” He says Chabadniks ought to be treated with the same halachic mistrust that “Modern Orthodox Jews [have for] traditional Conservative Jews.”But Conservative Jews also are dismissive of Chabad. Andy Silow-Carroll, editor of the New Jersey Jewish News, reported that earlier this year, at the Jewish Theological Seminary, “someone mentioned ‘Chabad,’ and the roomful of rabbis and professors broke out into knowing titters. Dr. Alan Cooper, the JTS provost, rode the titters into a wave of laughter when he repeated the old line: ‘Chabad is the religion closest to Judaism.’”This year’s conference was held in Crown Heights, with the plenary banquet in Pier 94, a vast, several blocks-long former docking hanger on the Hudson River. One shaliach, Rabbi Shlomo Matusof, 91, flew in from Morocco. In 1950, Matusof, a war refugee and former prisoner in Stalin’s gulag, was about to board a ship to join his rebbe in Crown Heights but the rebbe asked him to go to Morocco instead. In the wake of Israel’s independence two years before, Jews in the Arab world were about to experience an upheaval. Matusof built 70 Moroccan Jewish institutions in the last 57 years. He stayed, even when most Moroccan Jews left, tending to the few who didn’t.As God would have it, Rabbi Matusof passed away Saturday night, in the Crown Heights he once thought would be home.Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the rebbe’s emissary to the Bronx, said that Sunday morning they announced Rabbi Matusof’s funeral would be at 11 a.m. After all these years, New York would be his resting place, at the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, a few yards from his rebbe. Instead of a small funeral in Morocco, the old shaliach “had more than 2,500 shluchim at his funeral,” said Rabbi Shemtov.At Pier 94, Rabbi Shemtov remembered, “In 1985-86, 12 of us American boys were sent by the rebbe to be with Rabbi Matusof in Morocco. The dedication that we saw for Yiddishkeit, the love for Jews — now almost everyone of us is out somewhere in the world for Chabad. I like to think that we picked up some of his dedication.”Odd juxtapositions are the charm of these affairs. From the Bronx it was a few tables to Beijing, where Rabbi Shimon Freundlich, who was sent in 2001, is posted.Everyone knows Jews love Chinese food, often unkosher, and Rabbi Freundlich is the closest thing to those Jews, but with a twist. After opening a shul and a Jewish school, he opened a 75-seat Chinese restaurant in China — kosher, of course. They deliver anywhere in Beijing.No group ever displayed more antagonism to Chabad than Satmar. Yet Rabbi Freundlich was joined at the banquet by 20 Satmar chasidim grateful to have a chasidic port of call in China. To YU’s Berger, Chabad is “an existential threat to Judaism,” but when the uber-halachic Satmar businessmen come to Beijing, they happily daven and eat with Rabbi Freundlich. Satmars even contributed more than $150,000 to Freundlich’s new Beijing mikveh. The banquet is a place to renew old friendships. “We met last year,” says Congo’s Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila to a familiar face, “and here we are!”On holidays, the Congo Chabad sends circuit rabbis to Jews in Kenya, Nigeria, Lagos, Namibia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Angola, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. “There is no Jew in Africa who is out of reach,” said the shaliach. “We intend to offer something to every Jewish child, expatriate, or businessman, every Jew we can find.”In Kinshasa, “We have a shul, 40-50 people on a Shabbos. We have a kosher bakery, and 25 kids in our afternoon school.” From the podium, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky called the “roll call” of every country and state, beginning with Chabad of Cyberspace, the chabad.org Web site with links to numerous topics and 900 individualized sites for every Chabad in the world.Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, who 50 years ago first joined the rebbe’s secretariat and remains as the pivotal administrator of Chabad International, recalled that in 1984, when these gatherings started, there were only 60 shluchim, and only from the United States. It was always like a family reunion for the rebbe, said Rabbi Krinsky. After the roll call the room erupted into dancing, though there must be a better word to describe the prancing, leaping, pounding and stomping that had thousands of glasses on every table bouncing, rippling the wines, rippling the waters. Lev Leviev, the mega-philanthropist, was dancing with chasidim, hands on shoulders.Leviev had earlier addressed the gathering in Hebrew, recalling how the rebbe advised him in business, and praising shluchim who operate “behind enemy lines.” Nothing he said was as powerful as the joy in his dancing feet and smiling face.Hey, over there, were Tuvia Teldon and Anschel Pearl, shluchim on Long Island. And over there, hey, it’s Menachem Hartman, the 26-year-old shliach to Vietnam.On Shabbat in Ho Chi Minh City (old Saigon), Rabbi Hartman may be “the closest thing to Judaism,” or maybe there is no truer Judaism than his, in which no Jew is left behind. Surely, those who mock Chabad could get in on the action and find a young rabbi to devote the rest of his life to, say, the Beth Conservative Temple of Hanoi, or the Young Israel of Phnom Penh. While everyone’s joking, Chabad has also opened a Chabad House in Laos.Is there a future for Jews in Ho Chi Minh City?“For sure,” said Rabbi Hartman, beaming. “B’ezrat Hashem, we’ll be opening a kindergarten. Vietnam is the next tiger in Asia!”I was going to ask him what he thought about the jokes people tell about Chabad but I didn’t have the heart. Maybe on a sweltering Vietnamese night he might get to feeling lonely, and when that night comes I didn’t want him to know that Jews in New York were cracking jokes at his expense.This young shaliach would soon be on a plane, heading off to where most of us would never dare. He was the rebbe’s representative. He was pure, the closest thing to Heaven.
by Jonathan Mark
Associate Editor
There is an old joke that Orthodox Jews tell: “What is the closest religion to Judaism?” Chabad-Lubavitch is the punchline. Everyone “gets it.” Everyone thinks they know about Chabad’s messianism, that a few Chabadniks believe that the rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994, is still alive.In fairness, the rebbe’s messianism or divinity is not advocated in any of Chabad’s official literature; it’s even reprimanded. But fairness has nothing to do with it.This past weekend, just about all the shluchim, nearly 3,000 of the rebbe’s emissaries to 72 countries and 47 states, along with 1,900 of their philanthropic backers, returned to New York for their annual convention. The rebbe was spoken of in past tense, the messiah in future tense.David Berger, chair of Jewish studies at Yeshiva University, recently wrote in the YU newspaper that because of its messianic pretensions, Chabad is “an existential threat to the Jewish religion.” He says Chabadniks ought to be treated with the same halachic mistrust that “Modern Orthodox Jews [have for] traditional Conservative Jews.”But Conservative Jews also are dismissive of Chabad. Andy Silow-Carroll, editor of the New Jersey Jewish News, reported that earlier this year, at the Jewish Theological Seminary, “someone mentioned ‘Chabad,’ and the roomful of rabbis and professors broke out into knowing titters. Dr. Alan Cooper, the JTS provost, rode the titters into a wave of laughter when he repeated the old line: ‘Chabad is the religion closest to Judaism.’”This year’s conference was held in Crown Heights, with the plenary banquet in Pier 94, a vast, several blocks-long former docking hanger on the Hudson River. One shaliach, Rabbi Shlomo Matusof, 91, flew in from Morocco. In 1950, Matusof, a war refugee and former prisoner in Stalin’s gulag, was about to board a ship to join his rebbe in Crown Heights but the rebbe asked him to go to Morocco instead. In the wake of Israel’s independence two years before, Jews in the Arab world were about to experience an upheaval. Matusof built 70 Moroccan Jewish institutions in the last 57 years. He stayed, even when most Moroccan Jews left, tending to the few who didn’t.As God would have it, Rabbi Matusof passed away Saturday night, in the Crown Heights he once thought would be home.Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the rebbe’s emissary to the Bronx, said that Sunday morning they announced Rabbi Matusof’s funeral would be at 11 a.m. After all these years, New York would be his resting place, at the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, a few yards from his rebbe. Instead of a small funeral in Morocco, the old shaliach “had more than 2,500 shluchim at his funeral,” said Rabbi Shemtov.At Pier 94, Rabbi Shemtov remembered, “In 1985-86, 12 of us American boys were sent by the rebbe to be with Rabbi Matusof in Morocco. The dedication that we saw for Yiddishkeit, the love for Jews — now almost everyone of us is out somewhere in the world for Chabad. I like to think that we picked up some of his dedication.”Odd juxtapositions are the charm of these affairs. From the Bronx it was a few tables to Beijing, where Rabbi Shimon Freundlich, who was sent in 2001, is posted.Everyone knows Jews love Chinese food, often unkosher, and Rabbi Freundlich is the closest thing to those Jews, but with a twist. After opening a shul and a Jewish school, he opened a 75-seat Chinese restaurant in China — kosher, of course. They deliver anywhere in Beijing.No group ever displayed more antagonism to Chabad than Satmar. Yet Rabbi Freundlich was joined at the banquet by 20 Satmar chasidim grateful to have a chasidic port of call in China. To YU’s Berger, Chabad is “an existential threat to Judaism,” but when the uber-halachic Satmar businessmen come to Beijing, they happily daven and eat with Rabbi Freundlich. Satmars even contributed more than $150,000 to Freundlich’s new Beijing mikveh. The banquet is a place to renew old friendships. “We met last year,” says Congo’s Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila to a familiar face, “and here we are!”On holidays, the Congo Chabad sends circuit rabbis to Jews in Kenya, Nigeria, Lagos, Namibia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Angola, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. “There is no Jew in Africa who is out of reach,” said the shaliach. “We intend to offer something to every Jewish child, expatriate, or businessman, every Jew we can find.”In Kinshasa, “We have a shul, 40-50 people on a Shabbos. We have a kosher bakery, and 25 kids in our afternoon school.” From the podium, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky called the “roll call” of every country and state, beginning with Chabad of Cyberspace, the chabad.org Web site with links to numerous topics and 900 individualized sites for every Chabad in the world.Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, who 50 years ago first joined the rebbe’s secretariat and remains as the pivotal administrator of Chabad International, recalled that in 1984, when these gatherings started, there were only 60 shluchim, and only from the United States. It was always like a family reunion for the rebbe, said Rabbi Krinsky. After the roll call the room erupted into dancing, though there must be a better word to describe the prancing, leaping, pounding and stomping that had thousands of glasses on every table bouncing, rippling the wines, rippling the waters. Lev Leviev, the mega-philanthropist, was dancing with chasidim, hands on shoulders.Leviev had earlier addressed the gathering in Hebrew, recalling how the rebbe advised him in business, and praising shluchim who operate “behind enemy lines.” Nothing he said was as powerful as the joy in his dancing feet and smiling face.Hey, over there, were Tuvia Teldon and Anschel Pearl, shluchim on Long Island. And over there, hey, it’s Menachem Hartman, the 26-year-old shliach to Vietnam.On Shabbat in Ho Chi Minh City (old Saigon), Rabbi Hartman may be “the closest thing to Judaism,” or maybe there is no truer Judaism than his, in which no Jew is left behind. Surely, those who mock Chabad could get in on the action and find a young rabbi to devote the rest of his life to, say, the Beth Conservative Temple of Hanoi, or the Young Israel of Phnom Penh. While everyone’s joking, Chabad has also opened a Chabad House in Laos.Is there a future for Jews in Ho Chi Minh City?“For sure,” said Rabbi Hartman, beaming. “B’ezrat Hashem, we’ll be opening a kindergarten. Vietnam is the next tiger in Asia!”I was going to ask him what he thought about the jokes people tell about Chabad but I didn’t have the heart. Maybe on a sweltering Vietnamese night he might get to feeling lonely, and when that night comes I didn’t want him to know that Jews in New York were cracking jokes at his expense.This young shaliach would soon be on a plane, heading off to where most of us would never dare. He was the rebbe’s representative. He was pure, the closest thing to Heaven.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Chabad kinus concludes
Billionaire philanthropist Lev Leviev addressed the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Shluchim.
Speaking in Hebrew before some 4,500 Chabad rabbis and their supporters in New York Sunday evening, Leviev, a Chabad benefactor, celebrated the shluchim, or emissaries, who he said work "behind enemy lines" building Jewish communities in the farthest reaches of the globe. The six-day conference concluded Monday. The annual gathering brought together nearly 3,000 Chabad emissaries from 72 countries for a series of workshops and seminars, where they shared their collective knowledge and experience and offered mutual encouragement to emissaries who often work in isolated communities with little or no Jewish infrastructure.
The international roll call, a high-point of the Sunday evening banquet, highlighted the extent of the organization's reach. Rabbis stood as the names of the countries where they operate were announced, a globe-spanning catalog from New Zealand to the Congo to Alaska. Good wishes were offered to rabbis opening new Chabad outposts this year in South Korea, northern Cyprus, Serbia and the Dominican Republic. Inspired by the teachings of the late rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Chabad emissaries have made lifetime commitments to open Chabad centers in areas where often they are the only established Jewish presence for hundreds of miles. In recent years they have made increasing inroads onto American college campuses and are the leading force for the revitalization of Jewish life in the former Soviet Union.
Speaking in Hebrew before some 4,500 Chabad rabbis and their supporters in New York Sunday evening, Leviev, a Chabad benefactor, celebrated the shluchim, or emissaries, who he said work "behind enemy lines" building Jewish communities in the farthest reaches of the globe. The six-day conference concluded Monday. The annual gathering brought together nearly 3,000 Chabad emissaries from 72 countries for a series of workshops and seminars, where they shared their collective knowledge and experience and offered mutual encouragement to emissaries who often work in isolated communities with little or no Jewish infrastructure.
The international roll call, a high-point of the Sunday evening banquet, highlighted the extent of the organization's reach. Rabbis stood as the names of the countries where they operate were announced, a globe-spanning catalog from New Zealand to the Congo to Alaska. Good wishes were offered to rabbis opening new Chabad outposts this year in South Korea, northern Cyprus, Serbia and the Dominican Republic. Inspired by the teachings of the late rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Chabad emissaries have made lifetime commitments to open Chabad centers in areas where often they are the only established Jewish presence for hundreds of miles. In recent years they have made increasing inroads onto American college campuses and are the leading force for the revitalization of Jewish life in the former Soviet Union.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
THE FAITH LEADER: Rabbi Shmuli Novack
Education: West Coast Talmudical Seminary, Los Angeles; Rabbinical College of America, Morristown, N.J.
Tell us about your family.
I am one of nine and my wife is one of 11, thank G-d. [Editor's note: Orthodox and many other Jews refrain from writing out or speaking the name of God because doing so outside of prayer and worship is considered sacrilegious.]
My wife was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Israel (a great combo). She is gorgeous. I have two adorable boys, thank G-d, Zammy and Menny, 3 and 2. People think they are twins, but they are 13 months apart. With the help of G-d we will have many more healthy, beautiful children. My wife is an amazing cook, which is nice because I love to eat (only kosher food of course).
What is Chabad?
A Jewish organization with more than 150 centers in Florida alone and four in the greater Jacksonville area. Chabad rabbis or emissaries are dedicated to enhancing Jewish education and increasing Jewish pride to ensure a brighter, more vibrant, Jewish tomorrow. An era of true redemption.
What is unique about your congregation?
I don't have a congregation, I have friends who join us for Shabbat, for holidays, to sing, to eat, to pray or just to talk. I am always making new friends.
What is most rewarding about your ministry?
Sitting down for a hearty Shabbat dinner with dozens of friends and community members.
What is most frustrating about your ministry?
Never being able to take off for the holidays or weekends.
What book are you reading or recommending lately?
I am reading Jewish Meditation by Aryeh Kaplan and The Vanishing American Jew by Alan Dershowitz. I always highly recommend Rabbi Shneur Zalman's Lessons In Tanya. Every time I read it, I am both challenged and elevated.
Have you ever doubted your faith?
I have evolved in my devotion. Being born into an observant family, I woke up in my late teens asking myself if this is me or is it peer pressure or just trying to make my parents happy.
How were those doubts resolved?
Inside out. Thank G-d my soul is in a good place.
What is your favorite saying, motto or verse of Scripture?
"Nothing is more complete than a broken heart." Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Chavez denied visit to Caracas synagogue
Chabad rabbi argues that visit intended to garner political gains
Chaim Levinson
A recent request by socialist Venezuelean President Hugo Chávez to pay an official visit to a Chabad synagogue in Caracas was rejected.
The Chabad official news site posted an article saying that Rabbi Moshe Ferman, the chief Chabad envoy to Venezuela, had rejected the president's request arguing that it was aimed at garnering political gains in light of the West's revulsion of him.
Chavez who has been in office since 1999, allied with Saddam Hussein at the time, befriended Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Assad , and has even paid them personal visits.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center has accused him of anti-Semitism after in one of his speeches he accused the Jews of crucifying Jesus and of holding the entire world's capital.
Since 2002, when he accused the Israeli Mossad of an attempted coup in his country, the Jewish community is fearful of his conduct.
The Jewish community in Venezuela, one of the oldest in Latin America, comprises a population of 25,300 (some 60 percent are from Ashkenazi descent, and the remainder is Sephardic.) The large Jewish communities reside in the cities of Caracas, Maracaibo, Valencia and Maracay.
Chaim Levinson
A recent request by socialist Venezuelean President Hugo Chávez to pay an official visit to a Chabad synagogue in Caracas was rejected.
The Chabad official news site posted an article saying that Rabbi Moshe Ferman, the chief Chabad envoy to Venezuela, had rejected the president's request arguing that it was aimed at garnering political gains in light of the West's revulsion of him.
Chavez who has been in office since 1999, allied with Saddam Hussein at the time, befriended Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Assad , and has even paid them personal visits.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center has accused him of anti-Semitism after in one of his speeches he accused the Jews of crucifying Jesus and of holding the entire world's capital.
Since 2002, when he accused the Israeli Mossad of an attempted coup in his country, the Jewish community is fearful of his conduct.
The Jewish community in Venezuela, one of the oldest in Latin America, comprises a population of 25,300 (some 60 percent are from Ashkenazi descent, and the remainder is Sephardic.) The large Jewish communities reside in the cities of Caracas, Maracaibo, Valencia and Maracay.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Mimi the mythbuster's Myth #7: Chabad Goes to the Middle of Nowhere
Visit mimi's blog at www.livefromthehilltop.com
Here is her latest essay:
Please visit her blog and leave a comment.
I was visiting some friends from a non-Chabad seminary and found myself in a class on the subject of Jewish outreach. The teacher was dispensing a lot of struggling advice and inspiration on the topic. In all her explaining and descriptions, she aimed to encourage the young women in the class to be involved in outreach in some form.
Then, she said something that I had hear many times before, but, in this particular context, caught my attention.
"However you want to reach out, you can do it" she said, "you don't have to be like Chabad and go out to the middle of nowhere."
Everyone looked at me - the Chabadnik in the classroom.
I cracked a smile, partially for the sake of some response, but mostly because I love nothing more than the feeling of being a notable Chabadnik.
Of course, the Chabad mention got my attention - but, inside, the teacher's words had me thinking.
Chabad goes to the middle of nowhere, eh?
Why are people who believe in a place called "nowhere" giving classes on spreading Judaism to the world?
------
What the teacher meant to say is that she believes in a place called nowhere, and - never having visited a Chabad emissary herself - finds it very hard to suggest to her class to do such a thing.
But, the teacher is right.
Going to the middle of nowhere is indeed one of the most absurd things I've heard.
The truth is, I wouldn't suggest it to anyone myself.
I mean, if you are nowhere, you're going to have a pretty hard time reaching out.
So how, then, does Chabad do it?
The truth is, Chabad goes to places that everyone else thinks is nowhere, and shows the world how it truly is a somewhere .
Chabad does this because we can't tolerate that there is an actual place - not a "nowhere!" - without Jewish influence. It is our strong adversity to this nowhere concept that sends us into farm towns, ice worlds, and the seemingly empty spaces of the world.
It's like we have some insider information. While everyone walks around ignoring the reality of all kinds of hometowns by referring to them as "nowhere", Chabad just knows that there must be a house to buy, a building to turn int a shul, and Jews to invite for Shabbos - all in this place that everyone insists doesn't exist.
You refer to a place as "nowhere," and the Chabadnik doesn't get it. Nowhere just isn't in the Chabad language.
Nowhere is when you're lost in a car, and your friend asks you on the phone, "where are you?" You're completely lost and have to admit, "I'm nowhere."
Nowhere is the place you were when you walk in past curfew and your mother asks, "where have you been?"
But, really, nowhere is what you call other places when you think that where you are is the only place that is worthy of being on the map.
------
When the Rebbe sent emissaries to various places, he was saying, "There exists a place. A somewhere. Go there."
Because Chabad doesn't go to the middle of nowhere, the most barren cities have Mikvahs.
Because Chabad doesn't go to the middle of nowhere, Jews in Fairfield, Iowa have pictures of the Rebbe next to their Menorah.
Because Chabad doesn't go to the middle of nowhere, there is Kosher meat for a growing Jewish "hick town."
Because Chabad doesn't go to the middle of nowhere, you can be stranded anywhere in the world and still have a place for Shabbos.
Because Chabad doesn't go to the middle of nowhere, a Shliach has to tell his visiting ambassadors to take a left at "Conshohocken Rd."
Around the world, Chabad emissaries are uprooting the notion of nowhere, even among the cities own inhabitants.
Dave has been living in his small southern town for quite some time now. Although he likes the quiet life, he often things about moving to a somewhere, a city bubbling with more life - and certainly more Jewish life. One day, he walks into the local dry cleaners and finds a Rabbi picking up his suit. They get to taking, and - you know the rest of the story. Later, he reports how awesome it was to run into a bearded Jew in the middle of nowhere. He recalls that, at that very moment, he realized that his little hometown is a somewhere. He doesn't have to move to New York now. There is a Chabad house right around the corner - he aint goin', well, nowhere.
In Eugene, Oregon, a Rabbi teaches the Parsha to college students. In Bellingham, Washington, Jews are being treated to the most celebratory holiday parties. In Guatemala City, traditional parents are able to send their children to a fun Jewish camp. In Aiya Napa, Cyprus, Israeli's are hearing Kiddush for the first time. In Amersfoort, Netherlands, family purity is becoming a reality for many Jewish women. In Omaha, Nebraska, Jews are getting answers to their biggest questions.
Meanwhile, an uninformd teacher in Israel is referring to such places as "nowhere."
Someone needs to clue her in to the fact that there are thousands of these so-called-nowheres that have Chabad houses open for visitation 24 hours, 365 days of the year.
------
When our Rebbe sent the first Shliach to a place without a synagogue, without a Jewish school, and maybe even without a normal grocery store, the newly designated Shliach would pause in a moment of deep contemplation, unable to imagine the vacant scene in which he would soon arrive.
"Wow," he would think to himself as his eyes widened, "the Rebbe is really sending me somewhere."
From our own living rooms to the expanive fields in the south to the crowded streets in Bejing, the Rebbe's vision made every square inch of this world into a place where magic happens. He forced us to change the way we think of a happening place, a place worth being inhabited. He challenged us to spread holiness and give, no matter where we make our steps. The Rebbe saw a world where there was a home for every Jew - so that, when a Jew finds himself feeling like he is in the middle of life's nowhere, he will still find a Chabad house - somewhere.
Then, she said something that I had hear many times before, but, in this particular context, caught my attention.
"However you want to reach out, you can do it" she said, "you don't have to be like Chabad and go out to the middle of nowhere."
Everyone looked at me - the Chabadnik in the classroom.
I cracked a smile, partially for the sake of some response, but mostly because I love nothing more than the feeling of being a notable Chabadnik.
Of course, the Chabad mention got my attention - but, inside, the teacher's words had me thinking.
Chabad goes to the middle of nowhere, eh?
Why are people who believe in a place called "nowhere" giving classes on spreading Judaism to the world?
------
What the teacher meant to say is that she believes in a place called nowhere, and - never having visited a Chabad emissary herself - finds it very hard to suggest to her class to do such a thing.
But, the teacher is right.
Going to the middle of nowhere is indeed one of the most absurd things I've heard.
The truth is, I wouldn't suggest it to anyone myself.
I mean, if you are nowhere, you're going to have a pretty hard time reaching out.
So how, then, does Chabad do it?
The truth is, Chabad goes to places that everyone else thinks is nowhere, and shows the world how it truly is a somewhere .
Chabad does this because we can't tolerate that there is an actual place - not a "nowhere!" - without Jewish influence. It is our strong adversity to this nowhere concept that sends us into farm towns, ice worlds, and the seemingly empty spaces of the world.
It's like we have some insider information. While everyone walks around ignoring the reality of all kinds of hometowns by referring to them as "nowhere", Chabad just knows that there must be a house to buy, a building to turn int a shul, and Jews to invite for Shabbos - all in this place that everyone insists doesn't exist.
You refer to a place as "nowhere," and the Chabadnik doesn't get it. Nowhere just isn't in the Chabad language.
Nowhere is when you're lost in a car, and your friend asks you on the phone, "where are you?" You're completely lost and have to admit, "I'm nowhere."
Nowhere is the place you were when you walk in past curfew and your mother asks, "where have you been?"
But, really, nowhere is what you call other places when you think that where you are is the only place that is worthy of being on the map.
------
When the Rebbe sent emissaries to various places, he was saying, "There exists a place. A somewhere. Go there."
Because Chabad doesn't go to the middle of nowhere, the most barren cities have Mikvahs.
Because Chabad doesn't go to the middle of nowhere, Jews in Fairfield, Iowa have pictures of the Rebbe next to their Menorah.
Because Chabad doesn't go to the middle of nowhere, there is Kosher meat for a growing Jewish "hick town."
Because Chabad doesn't go to the middle of nowhere, you can be stranded anywhere in the world and still have a place for Shabbos.
Because Chabad doesn't go to the middle of nowhere, a Shliach has to tell his visiting ambassadors to take a left at "Conshohocken Rd."
Around the world, Chabad emissaries are uprooting the notion of nowhere, even among the cities own inhabitants.
Dave has been living in his small southern town for quite some time now. Although he likes the quiet life, he often things about moving to a somewhere, a city bubbling with more life - and certainly more Jewish life. One day, he walks into the local dry cleaners and finds a Rabbi picking up his suit. They get to taking, and - you know the rest of the story. Later, he reports how awesome it was to run into a bearded Jew in the middle of nowhere. He recalls that, at that very moment, he realized that his little hometown is a somewhere. He doesn't have to move to New York now. There is a Chabad house right around the corner - he aint goin', well, nowhere.
In Eugene, Oregon, a Rabbi teaches the Parsha to college students. In Bellingham, Washington, Jews are being treated to the most celebratory holiday parties. In Guatemala City, traditional parents are able to send their children to a fun Jewish camp. In Aiya Napa, Cyprus, Israeli's are hearing Kiddush for the first time. In Amersfoort, Netherlands, family purity is becoming a reality for many Jewish women. In Omaha, Nebraska, Jews are getting answers to their biggest questions.
Meanwhile, an uninformd teacher in Israel is referring to such places as "nowhere."
Someone needs to clue her in to the fact that there are thousands of these so-called-nowheres that have Chabad houses open for visitation 24 hours, 365 days of the year.
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When our Rebbe sent the first Shliach to a place without a synagogue, without a Jewish school, and maybe even without a normal grocery store, the newly designated Shliach would pause in a moment of deep contemplation, unable to imagine the vacant scene in which he would soon arrive.
"Wow," he would think to himself as his eyes widened, "the Rebbe is really sending me somewhere."
From our own living rooms to the expanive fields in the south to the crowded streets in Bejing, the Rebbe's vision made every square inch of this world into a place where magic happens. He forced us to change the way we think of a happening place, a place worth being inhabited. He challenged us to spread holiness and give, no matter where we make our steps. The Rebbe saw a world where there was a home for every Jew - so that, when a Jew finds himself feeling like he is in the middle of life's nowhere, he will still find a Chabad house - somewhere.
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