It was November 1938, a few days before Kristallnacht, when Cantor Heinrich Schwarzwald led the final services at Offenbach’s main Synagogue. He recalls beseeching the congregants to “leave your land, the land of your birth, the land of your fathers,” quoting from Genesis 12:1, in Hebrew, so that the members of the German Gestapo who were present, wouldn’t understand him. Tragically, his sense of foreboding was not unfounded, and by the war’s end only 45 of Offenbach’s 5,000 Jews remained.

When he returned years later, Schwarzwald found the synagogue transformed into a magnificent concert hall and discotheque, now called the Offenbach Capitol, with only a small circumcision room remaining as a relic of the building’s Jewish past. Pained by the profane desecration of the synagogue, Schwarzwald resolved never again to step foot inside.

But last week the 90 year-old cantor joined nearly 800 people and Chabad’s Rabbi Menachem and Rivky Gurewitz, at a festive evening of Jewish song and concert starring the renowned popular singer, Avraham Fried, in the synagogue-turned-concert hall. “It was the best thing that ever happened to Offenbach,” says Elaine Hawbaker, an English Jew living in Offenbach.

“Today is the happiest day of my life,” said Schwarzwald. “I am so thankful that I have lived to see my old synagogue once again filled with the sounds of Jewish song and prayer, in celebration of a Jewish presence that was almost entirely wiped out.” The cantor recounted parts of the rabbi’s last sermon in the synagogue, and conversations that took place within the same building more than half a century ago. He spoke of friends and family, most of whom perished at the Buchenwald concentration camp, and recited the Kaddish in their memory.

For the audience and Offenbach’s Jewish community of 2,000, many of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union, the evening marked an important milestone. With the recent wave of anti-Semitism pervading Europe, and Offenbach’s large Muslim population, being Jewish has become very unpopular here, explains Rabbi Gurewitz. The concert was yet another one of Chabad’s various programs designed to encourage Jewish pride and a sense of belonging in increasingly hostile surroundings.

The event was a long time in the making, and according to Mrs. Gurewitz, at some points it seemed that it would never happen. “With the Middle East conflicts a source of real contention here, there was a lot of opposition to this concert.

Even the mayor was reluctant to show his support for the Jewish community at a time when the prevalent sentiment is mostly anti-Israel. But the mayor did appear, and in a move that Mrs. Gurewitz describes as “a little big miracle,” he promised to return the Offenbach Capitol (the city’s prized jewel), to the local Jewish community.

In a dramatic finale, the concert concluded with Schwarzwald and Fried together in song, singing “Oseh Shalom Bimromav”—“He Who makes peace above, may He make peace unto us, and to all of Israel, Amen.”

This time last year, over 120 Yeshiva students from the US traveled to 63 far-flung cities in Russia to conduct Passover Seders for Jewish communities with no full-time rabbi.

This year, the numbers are somewhat smaller as ninety two students prepare to travel to Russia this Tuesday to conduct Seders for communities in forty-six cities. But the reason for that, says Rabbi Zev Wagner, coordinator of educational activities at the Federation of Jewish Communities in the CIS, is proof positive of a new era in the history of Russian Jewry: close to twenty Jewish communities in Russia—visited in previous years by American students—will be visited this year by thirty of their own: Russian born and educated Yeshiva students currently studying in Chabad Yeshivas in Moscow, S. Petersburg and Nizhniy Novgorod.

It’s a new phenomenon, Wagner says, and one that reflects the tremendous strides Russian Jewry has made in the thirteen or so years since the fall of communism. “We never had this before,” he marvels. “The concept of our own children coming back to lead the community marks something of a milestone in Russia.”

The students, who in fact come from all over the former Soviet Union, arrive at their respective Seders equipped with several years of Jewish learning and living in Russia’s Yeshivas. Intimately acquainted with the language and mindset of the communities they will be visiting, Wagner says they are the ideal men for the job. “For Jews in small communities, seeing the young, enthusiastic products of Russian Yeshivas is an incredibly encouraging indication for the future,” he says, adding that after such assignments in the past, the students were often asked by the community to stay on and assume a more permanent position, a prospect many of them consider when planning their future. “Most of the students in Russian Yeshivas have no plans to leave the country,” Rabbi Berel Lazar, Chief Rabbi of Russia and founder of the Yeshiva in Moscow. “They are the leaders of the next generation of Russian Jewry.”

Until then, Russia and its neighboring countries continue to import dynamic Jewish leaders from the United States and Israel. In addition to the 92 American students arriving in Russia this week, a group of 160 from Israel will be covering Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus and other countries in the former Soviet Union. The students, all between 18-24 years old, bring a passion for teaching Judaism and an energy rarely seen in the small cities they will be visiting, Wagner says.

Throughout their nearly two weeks in Russia, the students, aided in some cities by translators, or communicating with the locals in smatterings of Hebrew, English, Yiddish and bits of Russian picked up from previous years, (many of them are returning to Russia for their third Pesach running, notes Yoel Gancz, a member of the coordinating team in New York) bring the spirit of the holiday to communities that range in size from a tiny 200 Jewish families, to a more sizeable 7000 or even more. None of them, says Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, Executive Director of the Federation of Jewish Communities in the CIS, have a full-time rabbi leading the community.

Berkowitz, whose office coordinates Pesach provisions including approximately 2 million pounds of Matza and 250,000 bottles of wine flown in from Israel, sponsored by Mr. Lev Leviev and American local donors, reports that a total of over 500 communal Seders will be held this Pesach in the former Soviet Union, led by local Rabbis, and American, Israeli and Russian Yeshiva students. The American contingent, a project of the Rohr Family Foundation, jointly coordinated by Merkos L’Inyonei Chincuch and the FJC, is marking its fifth year, says Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky of Lubavitch World Headquarters. The impact on Russian communities is remarkable. “In many cases, the community subsequently requests a full time rabbi. It’s the starting point for many a new Chabad House.”

“Some 7,500 Jews will celebrate Passover in Argentina this year,” says Rabbi Tzvi Grunblatt, director of Chabad-Lubavitch in Argentina, which is organizing more communal Seders this year than ever before.

The economic crisis in Argentina has taken a steep toll on the Jewish community, and Rabbi Grunblatt, always a man with a mission, has been working on overdrive for two years straight. A native Argentinean, Grunblatt admits he doesn’t know where the funds for his Passover program will come from. But he won’t cut back. “When you are dealing with situations that are as critical as what we have here, lack of funds is no excuse.”

He tells of finding Mrs. L, a young Jewish woman, living with her infant son in a tiny hole in the wall of a long corridor, with only a rag for a door. Her two daughters, ages six and eight were in a Christian foster home, their mother unable to tend to their most basic needs. “The economic crisis here has affected people’s level of functioning to the point where many have lost their ability to operate on a day-to-day basis, and often even their will to live,” says Grunblatt, who has witnessed enough tragedies in one year to fill a dense volume.

Chabad stepped in immediately, transferring the two girls to Chabad’s foster home and their mother into a decent living space with the appropriate psychiatric care.

The L. family is one of thousands who have turned to Chabad of Argentina since the crisis began. “If we were to assume the burden of outreach programs only with guaranteed funding, we never would have never undertaken to help so many,” says Grunblatt.

The largest Jewish humanitarian aid provider in Argentina, Chabad has spent $3.5 million in the last year alone, on humanitarian aid and social welfare programs that include soup kitchens, food packages, free medical care, foster care and a host of other aid programs.

But it isn’t just their physical welfare that Chabad is concerned with. “It’s their morale, and the joy of life that we want to restore to them,” says Grunblatt, who saw greater numbers than ever turning out for this year’s Chanukah and Purim celebrations nationwide. “There’s a joy to Jewish life that every Jew must experience,” a joy that will undoubtedly be pervasive at the 60 communal Seders hosted by Chabad, throughout Argentina.

It’s a huge commitment, says Gruenblatt, who is grateful for the support of the Jewish Distribution Committee, which will cover ten percent of the entire cost. That leaves the project still short of adequate funding, but Grunblatt, who has appealed to Jewish sources outside of Argentina for support, is optimistic. “This is especially important now when people who were never really involved with anything Jewish turn inwards and look to reconnect, spiritually.”

Grunblatt points to an unusual phenomenon to underscore his point. “Since December we’ve celebrated on average one circumcision a week among older boys and men who are trying to reestablish their Jewish identity during this time of crisis.”

Ushuaia is a city on Argentina’s southernmost tip, with a Jewish population of five families. This year they’ll be among some 2,500 Jews, many from similarly remote cities and towns, to receive Passover kits. And Chabad will distribute Passover Matzot, wine, and festive foods to thousands of needy Jews.

“You can never know what the impact of even the smallest kindness to one person, may be,” says Grunblatt.

He recalls that 30 years ago, Rabbi Berel Baumgarten, Chabad’s first emissary to Argentina, traveled to the western city of Mendoza, to meet with someone. While walking the streets of this city, home to a sparse Jewish population, a young boy approached him and asked that the Rabbi come home with him. On his arrival, the child’s parents lost no time telling him of their son’s commitment to Judaism, and of how he had conducted their Passover seder. “But how?” asked Baumgarten, incredulously. There were so few Jews in Mendoza, it seemed unlikely anyone would know how to conduct a Passover seder. The boy pointed to a copy of Talks and Tales, a Jewish newsletter published by Baumgarten and Chabad of Argentina. Somehow the magazine had made its way to Mendoza, and a child had used it to celebrate Passover with his family in this city so remote from Jewish life.

When Amy Weil began looking into preschools for her son Sasha, then two and a half years old, there were lots of options. Chabad, she says, simply wasn’t one of them. The stereotypes surrounding ultra-orthodoxy made her uneasy. But at the insistence of a friend Amy agreed to an interview with Pearl Stroh, Director of the Chabad Early Learning Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

“I figured it would be a practice interview,” says Amy, who was glad for the opportunity to experiment, before the real thing came along. Instead, this turned out to be the real thing, and three years down the line Sasha is a proud alumnus of the Chabad Early Learning Center.

Founded in the late 1980’s by Chabad of the Upper West Side by directors Rabbi Shlomo and Rivka Kugel, the Early Learning Center has become a magnet for Jewish preschoolers, attracting children from families across the Jewish spectrum, and encompassing a real cross-section of the Upper West Side Jewish community and its diversity of subcultures.

Famous for its eclectic mix of people, singles and seniors, couples with babies and with teenage kids, the Upper West Side is a hub of intellectual activity and creativity of every kind. Spanning the area from Columbus Circle at 59th street to 110th street, and bordered by Central Park West and Riverside Park, it is home to the city’s largest Jewish community and North America’s oldest synagogue, dating back to 1654.

Kosher pizza shops, cafes, and elegant restaurants practically line the streets here, as do the area’s dozens of synagogues and various Jewish schools. On the Upper West Side, where kippahs and headkerchiefs meet vintage jeans and well-worn Birkenstocks, Jewish observance exists in every form.

It all comes together in a wonderful mosaic at the Chabad Early Learning Center. “This isn’t just a school, but a community that draws everyone in, as diverse as we are, forming one big family,” says Anat Katz, whose daughter Liat is currently enrolled in the center. Here teacher and faculty involvement in the children’s day-to-day progress extends well beyond the hours spent in school. “Before I came here I had never heard of teachers coming to students’ homes, or inviting the children and their families to their own homes,” says Anat, “but that’s the norm here.”

Limor and Doron Gutkind, both raised in secular homes in Israel, hadn’t thought much about a Jewish education for their son, Danielli. The couple, now living on the Upper West Side, was unaffiliated with any of the area’s dozens of synagogues. But when Danielli approached his second birthday Limor found herself drawn to the Chabad Early Learning Center, and nearly three years later she feels it is “the best decision I could have made.”

In addition to its sunny, spacious facilities, Limor is thankful for the warmth and dedication of her son’s teachers, and the entire faculty here. “Everyone is welcoming and friendly, and the administration is always open to suggestions and willing to work with parents to perfect our children’s education,” she says. “Danielli is learning so much about his Jewish heritage,” says Limor. “Back in Israel even the most secular Jew knows what Shabbat is,” says Limor. “But in New York, just being Jewish isn’t enough, and the Early Learning Center has played a crucial role in building Danielli’s strong sense of Jewish identity.” An added plus for Limor, “the school community has become the perfect substitute for the family I left behind in Israel.”

What started out thirteen years ago, as a small project with seven children, has mushroomed into a fully licensed, professional preschool with two locations, over 140 children ages 18 months to five years old, and a staff of thirty for its ten classes.

Rabbi Kugel traces the school’s breakthrough back six years ago when the Chabad Early Learning Center was forced to relocate to new, roomier facilities, on 92nd St. “At the time, we had 40 children enrolled and suddenly the calls came pouring in,” says Rabbi Kugel. “We were feeling uncomfortable about having to turn so many children away.” By the end of their second year in the new facilities, the waiting list for the Chabad Early Learning Center exceeded 100, and it was obvious that something had to be done.

Chabad launched a capital campaign and two years ago a second building on 97th St. was leased, completely renovated, and opened in September of 2001. The final touches on the new facility, which houses the school’s kindergarten classes, were recently completed, and last week, parents and supporters participated in a dedication ceremony celebrating this milestone.

“It’s been a miraculous journey,” says Director Pearl Stroh, who is quick to point to the teachers as the cause of the school’s fantastic success. “Their round-the-clock commitment and dedication is the school’s most outstanding feature, and makes parents want to contribute as well to their children’s learning experience.”

Rabbi Kugel describes the Chabad Early Learning Center, as a “great lab of Jewish life that breaks barriers and forms friendships,” making it an incredible model of a Jewish learning environment. “Children develop a love of learning as their parents are invited to participate, and the entire family is embraced in the wonderful process of an early Jewish education.”

When children graduate from the Early Learning Center, Chabad helps parents choose the appropriate Jewish day school for their children. Sasha Chenko is currently enrolled at a traditional Jewish day school on the Upper West Side, and the Gutkinds are seriously considering sending Danielli to a Jewish day school, something they had never imagined doing.

“Sending Sasha to Chabad was like taking my child and putting him into another pair of loving arms every day,” says Amy.

Celebrating 10 Years of Chabad in Thailand” was held last Monday at the Brooklyn Marriot Hotel, drawing over three hundred friends and supporters of Chabad activities in Thailand.

Chabad activities in Thailand, explains Rabbi Yosef Chaim Kantor of Bangkok, is a three-track program: “In an average year,” he estimates, “Chabad will work with several hundred Jews living in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, about one thousand Jewish business people who travel in and out, and twenty to thirty thousand Israeli backpackers.”

The numbers are staggering, and, not surprisingly, Kantor admits that the fundraising for Chabad’s activities- which include open Shabbat meals, services and holiday programs for thousands- is a heavy task that somewhat outsizes the small local community in Bangkok. “Unlike other communities, the bulk of people who benefit from our programs are unable to support them,” he notes.

Fundraising within the local community is not enough to cover Chabad’s expenses, so for the last ten years, Chabad has relied heavily on traveling businesspeople from America and Israel for most of their budget.

In celebration of their 10th anniversary, Chabad of Thailand decided to “bring the celebration to the home turf of the people who make it possible,” says Kantor.

“A Decade of Jewish Unity- Celebrating 10 Years of Chabad in Thailand” was held this Monday at the Brooklyn Marriot Hotel, drawing over three hundred friends and supporters for a reunion and an overwhelming display of mutual appreciation for the work Chabad does, and the people who support it.

William Nussen, a businessman from New York who travels to Thailand once every two or three months to oversee operations at a factory he owns in Bangkok, received the “Builders Award”, for his steadfast support since Chabad’s earliest days in Thailand. Expressing his amazement at Chabad’s impact on the community, particularly on young Israelis passing through, Nussen said, “You see people who would otherwise never step into a synagogue, all of a sudden connecting to Judaism in Thailand. There are incredible things going on there.”

According to Rabbi Kantor, who, along with his family and the families of Thailand’s four other Chabad representatives, flew in to New York for the occasion, Chabad didn’t start out as outreach for travelers. “We were brought out to lead the local community,” he says. “But as the need came up to branch out into other fields, we expanded our activities.”

With such a transient community, Kantor explains, success would only be possible with the financial help of visiting American and Israeli businessmen and family and friends back in the States.

Today, says Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, Vice Chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch and chairman of the dinner, “Chabad of Thailand personifies the proverbial “Abraham’s open house” and has succeeded in bridging the gap between Jews of diversified backgrounds.”

For thousands of backpackers, businessmen and local Jews who benefit each year from Chabad of Thailand and their supporters abroad, Monday night’s dinner reflected “a fantastic partnership,” Kantor says, one that will continue to enrich and inspire thousands in the years ahead

OTTAWA, CANADA–Three years ago Marjorie Feldman was invited by Devora Caytak to speak at the Jewish Women’s Institute, a project of the Jewish Youth Library of Ottawa. “I had never been to the library before, and I had never met the Caytaks,” says Marjorie, but as soon as she did, she “fell in love with both.”

The library, says Feldman, has “generated a real love of Jewish learning, books, and music, attracting Jews from every affiliation and those without any affiliation at all.” On Sunday night Marjorie joined two hundred people in Canada’s capital city to celebrate twenty years of the Jewish Youth Library in Ottawa.

Founded by Devora and Yosef Caytak, in 1983, the library was born in the Caytak family basement with a collection of Jewish children’s books, and has evolved into a multi-faceted educational and outreach center, with more than 8,000 volumes and hundreds of videos and tapes, as well as a whole range of programs catering to Ottawa’s Jewish community.

When Sarah Swedler, an Ottawa resident, lost her daughter some six years ago, the sense of despair was overwhelming. With her two-year-old, orphaned grandson in tow, she turned to the Jewish Youth Library for support. It was here that Josh became deeply connected to his Jewish roots, while the Caytaks anchored Sarah emotionally. In addition to providing Josh with a strong Jewish background and identity, the Caytaks, says Sarah, “helped me regain a faith I had lost.”

Reflecting Chabad’s wide impact on the local community, Sunday’s affair drew supporters grateful for the Caytaks’ contributions to Jewish life in Ottawa. According to Marty Davis, director of UJA affairs in the city, “Chabad’s influence in Ottawa is tremendous, reaching Jews on the periphery, as well as members of the community.”

The expansion of activities at the Jewish Youth Library was augmented back in 1989, when the library was moved into a home its very own after the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s call to purchase, renovate, and beautify Jewish homes and institutions.

Programs soon included the Tiny Treasures Preschool, now the Jewish Preschool for the Arts, a summer Jewish Women’s Institute, and the girl’s division of Ottawa’s Camp Gan Israel. A Friday morning Noah’s Ark Shabbat drop-in, Sunday story time, and a series of adult classes and workshops, in addition to Shabbat meals and holiday events, were soon incorporated into the growing gamut of activities sponsored by the Jewish Youth Library. Canadians are very low-key,” says Mrs. Caytak, and the “library has proven to be the perfect vehicle to inspire an interest in Judaism.”

An anniversary celebration, the dinner also honored the memory of Gaby Sassoon, who died last year. Sassoon was a staunch supporter and longtime member of the library’s committee.

Organized by a planning committee of 17, the dinner began on Sunday afternoon with cocktails and a live Klezmer band. Greetings were delivered by Chaim Divon, the Israeli ambassador to Canada, and a close friend of Sassoon’s. Guest speaker at the event was Judy Feld Carr, renowned for her efforts in saving Syrian Jewry, and a friend of Sassoon’s, who recounted her rescue operation experiences, and spoke of Sassoon, himself a Syrian Jew. Cantor Daniel Benlolo sang Sassoon’s favorite Sephardic tunes, and guests enjoyed a short video presentation on the Library’s camp activities.

“The Jewish Youth Library is a great magnet for people from across the Jewish spectrum,” says Davis. As a library, the center appeals to a contingent of people who would probably shy away from a synagogue-based Chabad House. The setting is warm, and personable, and according to Davis the library provides a “spiritual environment that involves a real cross-section of the community, and has become a rallying point for local Jews to come together.”

Reported by S. Olidort

Three years ago, when Rabbi Moshe Garelik was appointed by a committee of senior European Rabbis to set up the Rabbinical Centre of Europe in an office in the heart of Brussels’ European Community, he contacted local Chabad emissaries to find out about any Jews working in the complex.

All together, he was told, there were eleven Jewish EU workers involved with the Jewish community in Brussels. “There are upwards of 25,000 people employed in the EU complex,” he recalls thinking. “There had to be more than eleven Jews!” So as Garelik and his staff set up the RCE, an organization devoted to assisting European Rabbis and uniting them to an active Jewish voice at the European Union as the continent slowly de-nationalizes and the EU moves to center stage, they kept an eye out for the Jews working around them in the European Community.

As it turned out, there were many more than eleven Jews working in the area, but, says Mrs. Daniela Bankier, a government worker with the budget department of the European Commission, “being openly Jewish in a place like the EU is not easy,” and most of them were keeping that quiet. “Jewish identity in Europe still wears the scars of the Holocaust,” she observes, “and with anti-Semitism on the rise here, Jews holding government positions in Europe are a far less solid and assertive group than their American counterparts.”

Government workers in the EU arrive in Brussels from all over the continent, Bankier says- she herself is from Vienna—and the Jews among them are no exception. “Joining an established Jewish community like the one in Brussels is difficult,” she says. “Particularly for diplomats and workers who travel constantly or live here for short stints, there was really no place for them to celebrate Jewishly.”

But in recent months, Bankier, her husband and their two young children have joined a developing community of close to 200 Jewish functionaries and officials of the EU and their families brought together by a recently established offshoot of the RCE, the European Jewish Community Centre. Housed, for the time being, in the offices of the RCE, the EJCC is a place “for Jewish employees of the EU to feel at home,” says Rabbi Levi Matusof, director of activities at the center. Offering classes on Judaism and holiday programs, with plans for expanded activities including a Jewish library, Shabbat meals and services and children’s programming in the coming months, the EJCC is “tailored specifically to the needs of EU workers, combining traditional Judaism with a strong European flavor,” says Matusof.

Formally opened during Chanukah of 2002 with an inaugural “EuroChanukah” event that combined a traditional Chanukah party with an exhibit of antique European menorahs, hosted by the President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, the EJCC has since become “a platform for us to meet and reconnect Jewishly in a setting often far removed from Judaism,” Daniela Bankier says.

“Ninety percent of the Jews working in the EU were not actively involved in any formal Jewish community events before the EJCC,” says Rabbi Garelik, who serves as the center’s executive director. From those first eleven names, the EJCC now has an email list of close to 300, with approximately 180 people joining classes and programs on a regular basis, and “it’s impossible to know how many more there are,” he says. “Part of the center’s work is bringing them out to join a celebration of Judaism here.”

Last Tuesday, the EJCC, in conjunction with the RCE, hosted “EuroPurim” for some 150 functionaries and diplomats of the EU, including several ambassadors, cabinet representatives, and a delegation from the president of the EU, Romano Prodi. The event honored Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych of Ukraine in appreciation of his support of Jewish activities in the country. A former governor of the Donbass region, Yanukovych has been a long-time source of assistance to various Jewish communities and Rabbis in the Ukraine, particularly Rabbi Pinchus Vishedsky, Chief Rabbi of the Donbass region and Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky, Chief Rabbi of Dnepropetrovsk, says Matusof.

True to its function as ‘a meeting place’, EuroPurim at the EJCC offered participants the opportunity to mingle over cocktails following Megilla reading. “The social aspect of the EJCC is very important,” Bankier says, “It gives us an opportunity to form ties with each other and create community.”

Though EuroPurim was mostly an adults event, Matusof says the EJCC works on reaching all ages. Daniela Bankier’s two children are eagerly anticipating the EJCC’s upcoming Matza Bakery (“an anomaly for Europe,” she says), and Garelik and his wife, Chana, bridge the age gap by bringing families together each week for Shabbat dinners in their home. “Giving Jewish families who are foreign to the city a chance to meet each other and become acquainted with Jewish tradition means a lot,” says Chana, herself a French native. “We want to give this Jewish community a place they can really call their own.”

Reported by R. Wineberg

Against the backdrop of pro-troop and anti-war demonstrations, two hundred people took to the streets of Midtown Manhattan on Sunday, in song, dance and celebration.

Parading up 42nd Street, the entourage drew inquisitive stares, as it escorted a Torah scroll under a canopy, to Bryant Park and back home to Congregation Bnai Abraham Mordechai at Chabad Lubavitch of Midtown Manhattan.

It was an auspicious event for a congregation that, seven years into its opening, remained without a scroll of its own. Donated by congregant Mel Cooper in honor of his late mother and brother, the new Torah scroll, “marks the culmination of Chabad’s exponential growth here over the years,” says community member Phyllis Blackman.

At eleven o’clock on a crisp, sunny morning, family and friends, from Queens, Long Island, and just about everywhere in between, joined in festivities that began with a lavish breakfast spread at the Chabad center, where Mr. Cooper, his nephew, and Chabad-Lubavitch representative to midtown, Rabbi Yehoshua Metzger, addressed the crowd.

Acknowledging the apparent paradox of rejoicing during war, Metzger discussed the traditional Jewish belief in spiritual strength over physical might, and the need to act on such faith. American troops were remembered in prayer, and blessings for their safety and the safety of the people of Israel were recited.

Participants shared in the completion of the scroll, filling in the last several lines of the Torah, an act that, according to Mona Schussheim, made the event a more “personal and meaningful experience, bringing all to a new plane of enjoyment in the unification of the Jewish world.” And amidst the humdrum of midtown’s Sunday shopping sprees and entertainment mania, congregants began marching to enthusiastic chants of “Mazal Tov!” down 5th avenue and up 42nd street, accompanied by the Neshama band, live in concert.

The seven traditional dances with the Torah followed, and back at the Chabad center a festive meal kept the celebration going well into the late hours of the afternoon. In a spirit of unity sorely needed in these times of turmoil, dozens of college students and middle-aged couples, young families and elderly folks, celebrated one of Judaism’s most sacred traditions. “It’s a happy place, with a homey feeling that makes everyone feel part of a little family, only it’s not so little,” says Blackman.

Reported by S. Olidort

Nestled in the geographic heartland of Switzerland, surrounded by the panorama of the Swiss Alps, Lucerne, dubbed “a pearl in the world’s most beautiful oyster” is just an hour’s drive from Zurich. Once home to a thriving Jewish community, Lucerne saw its Jewish population shrink with the passage of time, as observant people moved away from a city that seemed hardly conducive to their lifestyle, leaving the unaffiliated with even less of a connection to tradition and observances.

But in a gesture of renewed interest in Jewish activity and affiliation, more than 150 people, a sizable sum for this tiny community, joined Rabbi Chaim and Rivky Drukman, new Chabad representatives to Lucerne and central Switzerland, for a Purim celebration Monday night. The event took place in a hall in the city’s train station, and featured “A taste of Purim with the flavor of Israel,” the latest Chabad trend in Purim parties. Children arrived in costumes, and the rabbi read the Megillah to a simultaneous slideshow. The couple also addressed the audience, speaking in English and German (Lucerne is located in the German part of Switzerland).

The Drukmans were hired by the chief Chabad emissary to Switzerland, Rabbi Mendel Rosenfeld, at the initiative of members of the local community who requested a Chabad center in Lucerne. “People are very warm and welcoming,” says Rivky. “They are all helping us look for accommodations, all eager to get us comfortably settled here in Lucerne.”

In addition to holiday functions the couple expects to focus on weekly adult education classes and children’s programs. And as the summer season draws near, which means thousands of tourists passing through, the Drukmans are looking forward to reaching a large Jewish contingent of tourists, in this magical city.

What to do when you land a job an hour away from home, in Midtown Manhattan, on Purim day?

Michal Silverman, a freelance writer from Monsey, found herself in just such a predicament on Tuesday, wondering how she’d manage to observe Purim, in the heart of Manhattan. Fortunately for her, Silverman wasn’t the first to have encountered this dilemma, and in its seventh year, Chabad of Midtown has created the perfect antidote to a celebration-free Purim. The key? Round-the-clock Megillah readings, every hour, on the hour, at its home, and what Chabad Rabbi Shea Metzger calls “every Jew’s home in Midtown Manhattan,” on 5th avenue and 42nd street.

In the course of an 11-hour day, from 8 a.m. through 6 p.m., hundreds of people walk through the door of 509 Fifth Avenue, to partake of the Purim celebration. They come from every walk of life and every level of affiliation and observance. They are business people and employees, tourists and local residents, in costume and in work attire, their only common denominator–being Jewish. Many are regulars here and there are not a few familiar faces, says Metzger, but there are also many first timers.

Helen Eliassian who works in the area, has frequented the center several times before and was happy to be able to participate at the Megillah reading. Eliassian lives on the Upper West Side, where she attends lectures and functions at Chabad of the West Side. “Having another Jewish home base so close to work is very comforting,” she says. The round-the-clock readings were very convenient, and in keeping with Chabad’s mission of accommodating everyone, Eliassian points out.

It’s one of Chabad of Midtown’s biggest annual events, says Metzger, who runs a center that owes it uniqueness to the location, and its very diverse community. A major tourist center, and home to a large business district, Midtown has a substantial residential community, notes Metzger, but it’s a transient community. Many singles rent apartments here, and move out suddenly. Young couples generally take to the suburbs as family life makes it increasingly hard to live in the tight space of Manhattan. And international businesspeople keep apartments here, but their comings and goings are completely unpredictable. So in addition to Shabbat and evening functions, Chabad places special focus on catering to people working in the area. And most of Chabad’s publicity here comes from advertisements, and word of mouth so “you never know who’s going to walk through those doors next,” says Metzger.

As Chabad centers across the globe ready themselves for the joyous holiday of Purim, which begins tonight at sundown, a new concept in celebrating the holiday is preparing to “take Purim to a whole new place”, says Leah Shemtov, director of programming at Chabad of Stamford, Connecticut. She means it literally. Chabad of Stamford, like a growing number of Chabad centers, celebrated Purim in recent years with a grand party themed around a unique destination. Previous Purims have been celebrated in Stamford with a Chinese Purim Party, Purim in the Shtetl, a Persian Purim and various other creative ways of spending the holiday. This year, for Stamford and dozens of Chabad centers in the US, Canada, Europe and South America, the obvious holiday destination was Israel.

“It’s on our minds,” says Diane Sloyer, co-chair, with her husband Eliot, of Chabad of Stamford’s “Purim Jerusalem” event, scheduled for tonight at the Stamford JCC. “A Purim party focused on the Holy Land is the perfect way to combine a holiday celebration with a tangible way to express support for Israel during this difficult time.”

“Purim Jerusalem” will feature Israeli singer Yoel Sharabi, a re-created Israeli “Shuk” with a spread of Israeli food, and opportunities to support families of terror victims in Israel by sending them letters, pledging to “do a Mitzvah for Israel” and financially supporting Jewish communities in Hebron and elsewhere desperately in need of funds, says Leah Shemtov.

“Aside for a great time, we want to give participants something very practical they can do to help the situation in Israel,” she says. Records of good deeds undertaken in merit of the Holy Land will be written on paper bricks that will then be posted on a mural designed to resemble the Western Wall at Chabad of Stamford’s headquarters. “We’re hoping this will snowball into something much bigger,” says Rabbi Yisroel Deren, executive director of Chabad of Stamford.

In Montevideo, Uruguay, Chabad shluchim Rabbi Eliezer and Rochel Shemtov took enthusiastically to the same idea. Montevideo’s “Purim Israel” will feature various activity stations themed on aspects of Israeli culture, a live web-cam hookup with an Israeli family struck by terror, where participants at the party can offer holiday wishes in real-time, Israeli food and music, pony rides for the kids (“The original plan was camel rides,” Mrs. Rochie Shemtov admits, “but there aren’t any in the country”), and the standard Purim spirit found in thousands of Chabad Purim celebrations across the world.

In White Rock, British Columbia, a suburban community minutes from the U.S. border, close to 100 people are expected at a Purim celebration with the same theme, says Mrs. Simi Schtroks, co-director, with her husband Rabbi Falik Schtroks, of the Center for Judaism. “Simulating an Israeli Purim experience highlights the situation in Israel and expresses our solidarity with our brothers and sisters there,” she says. A full Israeli experience at White Rock’s “Purim Jerusalem” will include Israeli videos, an opportunity to write notes which will be hand delivered to the Western Wall, orange juice making at the “Jaffa” station, sand art at the “Negev” station, and a variety of activities for the entire family.

Jewish troops posted in Kuwait will have something to smile about this Purim. An ocean away, in the Golden State of California, hundreds of Jewish schoolchildren have prepared food packages and letters for them, in honor of this joyous festival.

Representing Chabad’s thirty schools across the West Coast, in their salute to the U.S. armed forces, children from Mission Viejo, Huntington Beach, LA and Cypress, wrapped the packages and wrote letters to the soldiers stationed in the Middle East, wishing them a Happy Purim and a safe return home.

According to Lt. Colonel, Rabbi Mitch Ackerson, “many of the Jewish men and women serving in the military are convinced that the Jewish community in the United States is unaware of the Jewish population in the military.” A veteran of the Gulf War, Ackerson will be reading the Megillah for Jewish soldiers this Purim. “The support and recognition by Chabad of the West Coast, is extremely heartening and meaningful for our soldiers,” he says.

Rabbi Zalman Marcus, director of Chabad of Mission Viejo, where seventy-five Hebrew-school students participated in the project, says the project went a long way in making children aware of the dedication of U.S. soldiers in protecting their security and liberty. “Parents appreciated the message of sharing and Ahavat Yisrael behind this project,” he observes. Students at Hebrew Academy of Huntington Beach sent emails to their fellow Jews in Kuwait, and fourth grade girls at Bais Chaya Mushka school of Los Angeles prepared the gift packages, all of which were sent to the Baltimore U.S. military base, from where they were airlifted to Kuwait.

“The children learn from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to share light, love and strength with our brothers and sisters serving in the military. These men and women stand shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow countrymen of all faiths in defense of the beautiful freedom our United State of America affords us all,” says Rabbi Baruch Shlomo Cunin, director of Chabad of the West Coast.

Chabad Lubavitch of Texas celebrated 30 years in the state at a gala anniversary founders’ dinner on March 9. Held at Houston’s Doubletree Post Oak Hotel, the dinner offered community members the opportunity to reflect “on the success of the past and develop commitments for the future,” says Rabbi Chaim Lazaroff.

Today, Chabad of Texas comprises a network of 11 institutions in eight cities statewide, but in 1972, when Rabbi Shimon and Chiena Lazaroff – Rabbi Chaim Lazaroff’s parents – came to Houston, there were very few traditional Jews in Texas.

“In our first year here, my husband and two young yeshivah boys from New York took a trip to various small towns and cities in Texas to get acquainted with the territory,” Mrs. Lazaroff recalls. “They went through cities like Cadwell, where there was a large Jewish cemetery that spoke volumes about a rich past – but not a single living Jew for miles.”

A large influx of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the early 1900’s, arriving through Galveston, Texas, the South’s equivalent of Ellis Island, had all but disappeared by the time the Lazaroffs arrived. “Traditional Jewish life enjoyed a brief period here and then most people assimilated or moved East,” Lazaroff says. When the couple arrived in Houston with their four children, most people they met didn’t think they would last there either. “It was almost out of the question for a Chasidic Jew to live in Houston in the 70’s,” says Rabbi Shimon Lazaroff, “People who saw us assumed we were visiting.”

That was then. Today, of an estimated 50,000 Jews living in the greater Houston area, over 300 families are affiliated with an Orthodox synagogue, and traditional Jewish life in Houston, while still not as prevalent as in larger cities, is a far cry from what it was back then.

“I think the most amazing thing to see is literally the number of people walking to synagogue on a Shabbat afternoon,” says Baila Cotlar, a resident of Houston who got involved with Chabad of Texas shortly after its establishment in 1972. “We never had that here; this is a new and very exciting development for the city.”

The key to the change, Rabbi Shimon Lazaroff explains, has been education.

Faithful to their instructions, the Lazaroffs repaired the city’s one mikvah immediately on their arrival in Houston, and in September of 1977, Torah Day School was founded with seven students, in a trailer on the Chabad lot at 10900 Fondren Road in Houston.

The school, which moved into the newly completed Chabad center in November of that year, “grew painstakingly”, Mrs. Lazaroff notes. “It was a long process,” she says. A program for two-year-olds—the only one in the city—proved to be a big draw that attracted young families who stayed on with the school afterwards. And the school grew from there.

But the real draw is in the quality of education offered at TDS, says Miriam Fishman, whose six children have all attended “tiny tots through eighth grade” in the school, later moving on to high schools across the country, where they credit their elementary education as a crucial factor in their success.

“There’s a real effort made to mold character,” she says. “So aside for a rigorous education in Judaic and secular studies, you have that aspect of learning to be a better person and a better Jew that really sets this school apart.”

In the early eighties, as the school grew from seven students to seventy to 150, a community was forming around it. “People were moving to be closer to the school, and the shul at the Chabad center, and a very warm, close knit community was being formed,” Rabbi Shimon Lazaroff recalls.

At the same time, Jewish life was expanding in other parts of the state. An initial meeting with Rabbi Lazaroff and a group of Jewish students at University of Texas in Austin in 1972 set off a virtual explosion of Jewish activity on campus. Rabbi Moshe Traxler, today the director of Chabad Outreach in Houston, was one of the first students involved with Chabad. He recalls being struck by the idea of a Rabbi reaching out to the Jewish community, an approach unique to Chabad, especially in those days. “I had been acquainted with pulpit Rabbis my whole life,” he says. “This idea of a grassroots—“people Rabbi” really impressed me. I could sense a lot was going to happen.”

Traxler says he has seen the community’s growth from the initial stages, and the change is remarkable. “There are literally thousands of people like myself whose lives have been profoundly enriched by their encounters with Chabad across the state over the past thirty years,” he observes. He credits Chabad centers in Houston, Austin, Dallas, Plano, Fort-Worth, San Antonio, and El Paso, centers established from Chabad’s Houston headquarters over the years, with effecting tremendous changes in the Jewish landscape in Texas.

Perhaps the strongest indicators of Jewish growth and progress in Houston are the young couples who have moved to the city in recent years to join the growing Jewish community. Many of them, like Daniel Cotlar and his wife Eta, and Daniel Fishman and his wife Rivka, are alumni of Torah Day School, where they now send their children.

“Welcoming these young families back to our community reminds us how far we have come in thirty years,” says Mrs. Lazaroff, “and encourages us to continue building for their future.”

Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Chief Rabbi of Israel and a Holocaust survivor and noted speaker, were guests of honor at the dinner. Fred Zeidman, president of the National Holocaust Museum and Texas chairman of Israel Bonds, chaired the event together with Jerry Kane, son of honorees Sam and Aranka Kane, of Corpus Christi. As well, Stuart and Carol Nelkin, Benjamin Danziger, Melech and Chana Weiss, and Ronald and Ethel Gruen were honored for their support and dedication of Chabad-Lubavitch of Texas.

Reported by R. Wineberg

On Friday, March 7, Florida’s House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution declaring the state’s solidarity with Israel and support of its fight against terrorism.

Rabbi Schneur Zalman Oirechman, director of Chabad of Tallahassee and the capitol district, was invited by House Speaker Johnnie Byrd to recite the invocation at the event, where he met with Byrd to discuss the resolution.

Sponsored by Republican Representative Adam Hasner, of Delray Beach, the resolution calls on Florida and Israel to maintain healthy relations with each other and offers support through economic trade, cultural exchange programs, and promotion of tourism in both states. “The resolution sends an important message of our support for Israel as the only democratic nation in the Middle East, and America’s staunchest ally in the region,” says Hasner.
While it is true that Israel has garnered major support in the sunshine state because of its large Jewish population, numbering upwards of 600,00, Hasner emphasizes the fact that Florida’s population is still very diverse, making the unanimous passing of this resolution so remarkable. Interestingly this is the first resolution to pass Florida’s House of Representatives in 2003.

Florida, notes Rabbi Oirechman, has been hard hit in the aftermath of September 11th, as tourism plummeted in a state whose economy is largely dependent on it, so Floridians are sympathetic to Israel’s own plight, ever since the rise of the second intifadah in September 2000.

As Chabad Rabbi to the capitol district, this is not Oirechman’s first trip to the House of Representatives, but it was an especially significant trip as it marked an important milestone in American-Israeli relations, setting an example for other states.

By Susan Tawil
From the Detroit Jewish News

WEST BLOOMFIELD, MI–As a demonstration of its steadfast support, the Sara Tugman Bais Chabad Torah Center will donate 20 percent of the proceeds of its annual dinner to victims of terror in Israel and to members of the Israel Defense Forces.

“We feel it is important, especially now, to express our solidarity with Israel,” said Elimelech Silberberg, rabbi of the West Bloomfield synagogue.

Slated for Sunday, March 9, at the Ramada Inn in Southfield, the dinner will feature a program heavy with support for Israel. Guest speakers will be Daniel Pipes, the national columnist and director of the Middle East Forum, and Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America.

The Torah Center also will honor congregants Dr. Lawrence and Natalie Lipnik of West Bloomfield and Dr. Jerome and Mindy Kaufman of Bloomfield Hills.

The Lipniks, who will receive the Eitz Chaim (Tree of Life) Award, actually met at a Bais Chabad-sponsored Shabbaton. They are both active members of the synagogue.

Natalie Lipnik, an interior designer, headed the synagogue’s design committee. She created the sanctuary’s ner tamid (eternal light) and designed the stained glass windows and parochet (Holy Ark curtain). She also runs Bais Chabad’s biennial Judaica Art Fair, which raises tens of thousands of dollars to help not only the synagogue, but also the Israeli artists whose works are sold.

Dr. Lipnik, an internist, learns regularly with Rabbi Silberberg and coached the Bais Chabad baseball team. He also coaches Yeshivat Akiva’s basketball team, where Elie, the youngest of the Lipnik’s four children, attends school.

The Kaufmans will receive the Community Service Award at the dinner. Dr. Kaufman says his family was “adopted” by Bais Chabad. “It’s like a big family there. We share simchahs [joyous occasions] and are there for each other in bad times, too.”

A retired ophthalmologist, Dr. Kaufman is national secretary of the Zionist Organization of America and is active in many pro-Israel organizations including the One Israel Fund, the Yesha Heartland Campaign and the Committee on Accuracy in Middle East Reporting. His letters and opinion pieces appear frequently in the Jewish News and other newspapers.

Mindy Kaufman is what her husband calls “a social agency dream girl.” She is on the board of the Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit, Jewish Family Service, Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, Children of Chernobyl and others. She is an Emmy Award-winning television producer, and created two nationally syndicated children’s series.

The Kaufmans have four children and eight grandchildren and live in Bloomfield Hills. They have been involved in Bais Chabad for the past two years.

“I love the Orthodoxy,” he says. “I feel like I’m going back to my roots.”

The Sara Tugman Bais Chabad Torah Center is a full-service synagogue, offering not only prayer services and social programming, but also a full array of classes, Shabbatonim and the largest Torah tape library in Michigan, which is part of their community Judaica library.

The Torah Center also sponsors weekly classes at the Bais Chabad at the University of Michigan, and runs the Torah Super Phone, (248) 557-8545, which offers talks on the weekly Torah portion and Jewish law.

Rabbi Silberberg also runs mitmazel.com an online matchmaking service. A Bais Chabad trip to Israel in December brought presents for children and $18,000 in donations for various social programs there.

“We hope the dinner will be successful in raising money for Israel,” the rabbi says. “We hope other organizations will follow suit.”

http://www.detroitjewishnews.com

While the Columbia Accident Investigation Board prepares for its first public hearing, Ilan Ramon continues to be rememberd as a “rare Jewish light.”

The astronaut’s unique contribution to Jewish pride and Jewish unity, particularly at a time when Israel is experiencing profound suffering and alienation, was underscored at a memorial tribute Tuesday evening, marking thirty days since the Shuttle Columbia’s tragic end. “Ilan Ramon was not the first Jewish astronaut,” said Rabbi Shlomo Gestetner, Director of Chabad’s Mayanot Institute for Jewish Studies which organized the event. “But he was the first astronaut who made it his goal to promote Jewish identity and was seen by the entire world as a role model for Jews.”

Six hundred people were drawn to the Inbal Jerusalem Hotel where a distinguished line-up included Natan Sharansky, Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs, Professor Joachim Joseph, owner of the Torah scroll that went to space with Ramon, and Thomas Rose, publisher of the Jerusalem Post.

The event began with an affecting cantorial rendition of Kel Maleh Rachamim—a prayer for the departed, by Sherwin Pomerantz, cantor of Israel’s Hanassi Synagogue, and was followed with a recital of Psalms for the security of Israel, its people and soldiers, by Rabbi Kasriel Shemtov of the Mayanot Institute. James Oppenheim, CEO of IQ Workshop which helped organize the evening, introduced the multi-media event featuring video clips of Ramon’s last days aboard the shuttle, when he looked upon Israel’s tiny outline from outer space.

Joachim Joseph, the Tel Aviv University professor who developed the Middle-East dust experiments performed aboard the Columbia shuttle, talked publicly for the first time of his personal connection to the Torah scroll which so captivated Ramon. A child inmate in Bergen-Belsen, Joseph described how his teacher, Rabbi Dasberg, who did not survive the Holocaust, arranged for his “Bar-Mitzvah” in the barracks. “We covered up the windows with blankets . . . I said the brachot and read the haftorah . . . They smuggled my mother in from the women’s camp and she stayed out in the cold, looking through the window,” trying to hear her son reading from the Torah.

It was this image, and the miniature Torah’s survival through the worst of times for the Jewish people, that compelled Ramon to ask Joseph if he would allow him to take the scroll to space with him. “Ramon wanted the Torah scroll to show the world how the Jewish people could rise from the deepest valley of death to the highest limits of achievement,” said Joseph.

Scharansky and Rose each made similar observations of Ramon’s Jewish pride, and its impact on Jewish unity. “Here was a Jew who reached the heights of success as a fighter pilot and as a scientist—he ‘made it,’” said Sharansky, “And yet he chose to publicly display his Judaism.” Rabbi Gestetner reiterated Ramon’s request to keep kosher aboard the Shuttle, and make Kiddush to honor the Shabbat while in outer space. “He did not pass an opportunity to express his love for Israel and the Jewish people,” said Gestetner. “This is Ilan’s subtle call to celebrities, movie producers, philanthropists, CEOs and each and every one of us in this room. It is a call for tangible acts of Jewishness to raise Jewish consciousness and awareness.”

The event, sponsored by Myra H. Kraft of Boston, ended with the song, “Shalom Lach Eretz Nehederet,” Shalom To You, Beautiful Land,” which Ramon had played as a wake-up call for his fellow astronauts on the last day aboard the shuttle.

“I still swell with pride at the very thought of him and what he accomplished for the Jewish people and Israel’s image during his space mission,” said one person who attended the tribute. “Ilan’s life and death has affected me more deeply and more constantly than any other incident.”

Clearly, Col. Ilan Ramon will live on in Jewish memory as an astronaut on a spiritual mission for the Jewish people.

All that remains of the once thriving Jewish community in the Bronx section of New York City, is the relatively small, but vibrant neighborhood of Riverdale, home to some 40,000 Jews. And with its variety of shuls and Jewish day schools, the need for a Chabad presence here seems almost superfluous.

But on Saturday night 300 guests gathered at the Westchester Renaissance Hotel, to celebrate ten years of Chabad in Riverdale. “Riverdale is a rich and diversified Jewish community with the finest shuls and rabbis anywhere,” said the event’s chairman, Mr. Peter Kolevzon. “Yet Rabbi Levi Shemtov and his wife Sarah have impacted all of us since they came on the scene ten years ago. Thanks to their ceaseless efforts and outreach, they have enriched not only the Jews of Riverdale, but the existing congregations as well. Their love and embrace of every Jew is contagious, and we are all better for it.”

When Rabbi Levi and Sara Shemtov set up house here back in 1993, their arrival evoked interest amongst community members. The Shemtovs weren’t here solely to bring traditional Judaism to Riverdale; there already was a contingent of Orthodox people here, and several traditional houses of worship. Their goal, says Rabbi Shemtov, was to reach out to Riverdale’s non-affiliated community, while imbuing traditional Jewish activities with an added dimension of joyousness and spirituality, for those already involved.

During their first Purim here Chabad organized a live music band–Piamenta–a welcome addition to the traditional Purim activities. Ever since, this and other such enhancements have been adopted across the neighborhood.

Chabad devoted most of its first few years here to weekly, even daily classes on a whole gamut of Jewish topics, and humanitarian aid activities like hospital and nursing home visitations. Then, six years ago the Shemtovs purchased a building and classes were moved into the new Chabad House, along with a comprehensive Jewish library and offices. And in 1999, an expanded Chabad House grew to include a shul, which now hosts close to one hundred people on a typical Shabbos.

Another big breakthrough for Chabad and the entire local community, came with the opening three years ago, of the Gan Israel Day Camp, with thirty-five children. Last summer registration reached 90 campers, and the Shemtovs are confident that the numbers will increase come next summer. But what makes the day camp so outstanding here, says Sara Shemtov, isn’t just the number of children who attend. It’s the mix of children—strictly observant children camping with secular children in an exciting Jewish atmosphere, gives camp its unique flavor and makes it appealing to so many.

The camp, notes Rabbi Shemtov, served as the perfect springboard for increasing youth programs, and Chabad’s preschool, which began last year with six children has some twenty children currently enrolled. Other programs include Mommy & Me Music, for children, and frequent Shabbatons that feature renowned Jewish lecturers and scholars, and draw as many as three hundred people over the weekend.

Chabad’s tenth anniversary dinner was planned by a committee of fifteen community members who organized a “supper in concert,” featuring the Andy Statman Trio live in concert. The program began with two simultaneous classes delivered by noted lecturers Rabbi Yossi Jacobson and Mrs. Esther Piekarski, followed by a video presentation summing up Chabad’s activities in Riverdale in the course of the last ten years.

Rabbi Shemtov introduced the dinner’s guest of honor, Marilyn Sofer, who, together with her late husband was among Chabad’s first supporters here. Mrs. Sofer expressed her gratefulness for having had the foresight to become involved with the Shemtovs, and her sense of pride at the results of the past decade.

Ezra House, a partially retired businessman, was on the planning committee for the dinner, and attributes the evening’s fantastic success to Chabad’s wide appeal, pointing to the Shemtovs’ determination, and Levi’s abundant energy. “Whatever they do, whether it’s a Lag B’omer event in the park, or a Menorah lighting in the center of town, Chabad reaches out and involves the entire community, always determined to do whatever it’ll take to make Jewish observance an enlightening and meaningful experience for all.”

Photo Credits: Jar Bar-David

Jeppe Lilholt, a native of a small village north of Copenhagen in Denmark was always looking for something to believe in. “I think I always believed in G-d,” he says. “I just didn’t know what to do about it.” His mother, he recently learned, is Jewish. A providential encounter with newly arrived Chabad emissaries, Rabbi Yitzchok and Rochel Lowenthal shortly after his move to Copenhagen at the age of 20, brought Lilholt to synagogue for Yom Kippur services for the first time in his life. “I had never heard of Yom Kippur before that experience,” he says. But since then, Lilholt’s discovered a way to do “more than just believe in G-d. The embrace of mitzvot and Jewish tradition have given me a fulfillment that simply “believing” can never do.”

Lilholt joined a small but rapidly growing crowd of Danish Jews drawn to the warmth and activity generated by the Loewenthals in Copenhagen. Three years after that first Yom Kippur, Rochel Loewenthal called to invite him for holiday dinner on the first night of Sukkot. “You better come over tonight,” she told him. Lilholt was working the night shift at a hotel that week and only wanted to sleep. But Loewenthal insisted, so he came. Joining him at the table was another guest, Marina Bokk, a Copenhagen native who was on a spiritual journey of her own, sparked by a recent encounter with the Loewenthals. That was three years ago, and Jeppe and Marina have been inseparable since, with wedding plans now in the works.

Lilholt and Bokk, who plan on creating a “really Jewish home,” are only two of hundreds of Danish Jews turning the tide of assimilation and rediscovering a warm, vibrant Judaism very relevant to their lives, says Rabbi Yitzchok Loewenthal.

When Loewenthal and his wife moved here in 1997, few of Denmark’s 8-9000 Jews considered themselves part of the Jewish community and the rate of intermarriage was over 90%. “Since the first Jews arrived here about 300 years ago, Danish society has been unusually welcoming and accepting of them,” he says. In fact, during the holocaust, Danish citizens coordinated a daring rescue effort, smuggling hundreds of their Jewish friends to Sweden to elude capture by the Nazis. Perhaps as a result of that total acceptance, Jewish families have always integrated wholly into Danish society, and although were times when religious Jewish life thrived in Copenhagen, many signs of it were gone by the time the Loewenthals arrived.

Chaim and Chana Gray, a Chabad couple who moved to Copenhagen for three years in the mid 90’s to assume a business post there, were the force behind Chabad’s establishment in Denmark. “We came to Copenhagen and saw a community where most of the committed younger people had moved away, to Israel mainly, and the ones who were left had, at best, a tenuous connection to Yiddishkeit,” Chana recalls. “After about a year here, we decided that before we leave, Chabad had to come to Denmark.”

Only several months later, Yitzchok and Rochel Loewenthal, newly married and expecting their first child, arrived in Copenhagen to establish Chabad of Denmark. .

“Public displays of Yiddishkeit are not a part of the Danish-Jewish mentality,” Chana Gray observes. “When the Loewenthals first came and started doing things publicly, they were met with a lot of suspicion. People were not used to this.”

Rochel Loewenthal says the suspicion actually generated good publicity. “Our first Chanukah event, in a rented hall in the center of created something of an uproar in the community,” she says. “But 200 people showed up because of that, and most of them keep coming back.”

It’s a different style, but one that has proved, over six years, to work very well with the Danish Jewish community, Gray says.

“People were really looking for this kind of vibrant Yiddishkeit,” she says. “It’s phenomenal what has happened to Jewish life in Copenhagen in so short a time.”

Working together with the local rabbi and the two local synagogues, ChabaDenmark offers the community a wide array of Torah classes, family programs, Shabbat dinners, public holiday events, children’s programs, summer camps, afternoon Hebrew school and more, Loewenthal says, many all well attended by ever-growing numbers of Danish Jews.

“We’re working on building up a sense of community, particularly with the younger people,” he says. “It’s very important for young Jews to have a community to identify with where they feel they belong.”

Every community needs a home, and ChabaDenmark recently moved into theirs: a 5000 square foot building in the heart of Copenhagen, generously donated for Chabad’s use by an elderly Danish Jew, Mr. Abraham Gutterman. Forty years ago, Rabbi Lowenthal relates, Gutterman visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe and asked him why there was no Chabad presence in Denmark. Smiling, the Rebbe told him, “You give half, and Lubavitch will give half.” Nearly four decades later, Loewenthal, who had met Gutterman not long after his arrival in Copenhagen, brought up the Rebbe’s proposal with him. “You give us use of the building,” he suggested-Gutterman owned a building which had been used previously as a school for Russian Jewish children but was now empty, and in need of a total overhaul-“and we’ll take care of refurbishing it to suit our purposes.” Gutterman agreed, and with the help of Mr. George Rohr and local donors, Chabad remodeled the building to house a Judaica store, library, classrooms, study hall, kitchens, offices and restaurant.

“Most of the community’s growth was happening in our home until now,” Rochel Loewenthal says, “so space was limited.” Now settled in their new place, she sees a “stronger, vibrant, and more committed Jewish community coming together in the years ahead.”