“My childhood was quite picturesque until I was three. That was when the Nazis invaded Hungary. We had to leave our hometown and hide in Budapest. My mother had a two-week-old baby, my sister was two, I was three. A brave young man dressed as a Nazi and took us on the train to Budapest, which was quite dangerous as, on the train, I told people “I’m not Jewish but my mother has a yellow star.” A righteous gentile kept my mother and the baby in her home, and they sent us to hide in the countryside, with a Roma family.
When I was 10, we moved to the U.S. There were hard times. My mother spent hours bent over sewing ties, and she developed crippling back pain. On 10 Shevat, 1960 — the tenth anniversary of the Previous Rebbe’s passing — during the farbrengen attended by thousands, the Rebbe called my father to the dais and handed him a piece of cake “for your wife.”
The next morning, the pain was gone.
When I was 19, I met Rabbi Moshe Lazar, and we were married when I was 20. Before I even got engaged, my husband told me, “There’s one thing above everything else: the Rebbe. The Rebbe wants people to go on shlichus. Are you willing to go on shlichus?” I said, “Sure! Why not! Sounds very adventurous.”
At the beginning, it was very exciting, but then things got tough.
I didn’t mind that we had to kosher our own chickens, pasteurize our own milk, and make our own herring. But I felt my husband was not getting the respect and satisfaction he deserved. I wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe replied, “All beginnings are difficult.”
Thank G-d, in the 65 years we have lived in Milan we accomplished a lot. But the biggest accomplishment is that our children showed that they wanted to follow in our footsteps. Not many children say, “This is what I want: what my parents are doing.” But all eight of ours did.
We involved our kids in our shlichus. Whenever there was a garden party or a kiddush, they helped set up. When we went to southern Italy to supervise the etrogim harvest, they packed etrogim. We didn’t tell them, “You stay there and I will go off and do my mitzvah.” We involved them. That’s why they were motivated to keep this way.”
-Rebbetzin Judy Lazar, Milan, Italy
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