Archeological digs from ancient times through the middle ages, and recent discoveries of mikvehs hidden in cellars throughout the former communist bloc, offer abundant evidence that this is one of those mitzvahs that Jewish people kept to stubbornly, even in the worst of times.

But as was true of so many Jewish rituals, mikveh became a casualty of modern Jewish alienation. Many Jewish women have never even heard of mikveh; for many others, it is a tradition shrouded in misconception. But a determined effort in the past few decades to educate Jewish women has proven a remarkable willingness on their part to reclaim this mitzvah. And when a thoroughly modern, middle-class American community decides to support a mikveh, it’s fair to surmise that the tide has finally turned.

When Rabbi Mendy and Chanie Posner arrived in the upscale city of Plantation, Florida, nearly ten years ago, to what Chanie describes as a “spiritual desert,” a local mikveh did not even seem like a remote possibility. Home to 10,000 Jews—more than 20% of Plantation’s population—Jewish awareness in this city was at an all-time low. But that did not deter the Posners from generating Jewish interest and lively involvement through the small, storefront Chabad House.

It wouldn’t take long for services to attract a minyan twice daily at the center and draw 100 people on a typical Shabbat. A Hebrew School, holiday programs, and weekly classes established by the Posners meant that the local Jewish community could almost hold its own. But still missing in Plantation was a mikveh, essential to every Jewish community, and with Jewish involvement on the rise, Plantation’s growing number of observant women were forced to go elsewhere for this staple of Jewish family life. In the earlier years they would travel an hour away to Miami for a mikveh, and later the commute was shortened when a mikveh was opened in Fort Lauderdale. But some eight years into Posner’s arrival here, Plantation still remained without a mikveh of its own.

So when Fanit Panofsky told Rabbi Posner of her plans to relocate her spa from small, rented facilities to a huge plot of land and a custom-designed brand new building, he jumped at the idea and added to it. A mikveh, he insisted, would be the perfect complement to the spa facilities, combining physical pleasure with spiritual fulfillment, and making for an all-around oasis of complete bliss. Confident in the merit of this proposal, and reminded of her great-grandmother who operated a mikveh in Morocco, Fanit wasted no time coordinating architectural and interior design plans with the halakhic prescriptions for a kosher mikveh, and the project was completed 18 months later.

“For us it was a dream come true,” says Chanie Posner, who operates the mikveh. Described by one patron as “breathtaking,” a term not often associated with mikvehs—even modern-day ones—Mikveh Shulamit shares the Contour Day Spa’s tasteful décor, and Fanit attributes much of the spa’s incredible success to the Mikvah, which she makes a point of advertising in the spa’s brochure.

An opening event for the mikveh drew nearly seventy women as Chanie discussed the history, significance and tradition of the ritual in Jewish life, followed by a tour of the magnificent facility. “There’s a lot of misconception about mikveh,” says Chanie, but Mikveh Shulamit is changing that radically, as increasing numbers of women—locally and from nearby cities—who never entertained the idea, are beginning to commit to a new way of life, as they reclaim the mitzvah of mikveh.

On your average Shabbos, a minyan at Chabad of South Orlando is usually made up of several dozen men and women, about half of whom are only visiting, and conversation after prayers is exchanged in a lively variety of foreign languages. Stocked with prayerbooks translated into just about every conceivable language, the shul’s doors are open to Jewish visitors from across the spectrum and across the world.

This is Chabad on location, only several miles from Disney’s 49 square mile enormous entertainment complex, home to Disneyworld, Epcot Center, Universal Studios and various other attractions. Disneyworld and the surrounding theme parks draw several million visitors each year among them, and employ thousands in the Orlando area. Between the two, says Rabbi Konikov, who moved out here with his wife Chanie and their children two years ago, South Orlando is home to a sizeable Jewish population.

This time of year is peak tourist season in Orlando, and hundreds of Jewish tourists are among the throngs filling the city’s hotels and parks. “People come to Chabad with literally any sort of material or religious need, because it’s just reassuring to know you have that Jewish presence here,” says Rabbi Konikov, who has dealt with illnesses, mikvah visits, kaddish minyanim, and kosher food supply issues in his years here. “Many Jews call us up before they even get here.” To accommodate their needs, Chabad has kosher food supplies arranged, special rates at hotels near Chabad procured in advance, and the Konikovs are available at any time to deal with other requests.

For the local community, Chabad holds regular services, classes and programs for the several hundred Jewish families who live here full-time. Most of them are employed with Disney or its affiliates, making for some rather unusual congregants at Chabad in the last few years. One of these was Mickey Mouse, known as Jennie off-hours and, for a time, an active member of Chabad of South Orlando. Having discovered another kind of magic in Orlando, her Mickey Mouse days are behind her, as Jennie, now called Rachel, studies at a Yeshiva in Israel.

The ratings are in and they’ve never been better, says Michael Kigel, producer of Passages and Messages, two religiously themed shows that air weekly on Rogers Cable Channel 9 in thousands of Ontario homes. In fact, since introducing a fifteen minute segment titled “My Soul is Thirsty for You; The Ideas and Ideals of the Lubavitcher Rebbe” to the program, the show’s Nielsen ratings have risen dramatically—this year’s tally has 40,000 viewers tuning in and out and 10,000 watching the entire show—an increase of exactly double over last year’s ratings. Co-produced by Kigel and Rabbi Moshe Spalter of Lubavitch of Ontario, the segment features a short video clip of the Lubavitcher Rebbe speaking publicly or to an individual, followed by a discussion on the topic with several local Chabad Rabbis.

“The idea is to present the Rebbe, ultimately, as a teacher, and his words as powerful lessons for our lives,” says Kigel. The discussion segment of the show, expertly constructed from various taped interviews with the rabbis gives viewers the opportunity to understand the Rebbe’s words in the context of today’s reality, he says, pointing to the example of one show which featured an audience with Ariel Sharon, and the ensuing discussion, which analyzed the Rebbe’s message to Sharon in the context of today’s political reality. Given the generally unpopular hour of the show (10:45 pm on Sundays) and the typically poor appeal of a religiously themed show, the show’s broad popularity is an indication of an interest on the part of the general public for something “genuine and spiritual,” Kigel says. Spalter, a member of the Chabad team in Toronto for over 20 years, couldn’t agree more. From several short appearances on the show, he says he has strangers—Jewish and non-Jewish—stopping him on the street, curious to know more.

The show’s opener, a desert scene with footage of the Rebbe singing the well-known Chabad song “Tzoma Lecha Nafshi,” (My Soul Thirsts For You), from which the show takes its name, has proven an accurate reflection of the public’s reaction to the show, he says. “When we first approached Michael about showing some clips of the Rebbe produced by Jewish Educational Media on his show in honor of the Rebbe’s 100th birthday last April, none of us were sure how it would take off,” he recalls. But the positive response encouraged Kigel and Spalter to establish the 15 minute segment as a regular part of the show, seeing as “people are literally thirsty for this kind of genuine spirituality,” Spalter says.

Following the dramatic rise in ratings, the show’s 15 minutes may be expanded, and, say the producers, they are looking forward to more of the enthusiastic feedback.

For the Chabad emissaries in nearby cities who made the trip on December 15, and for the locals who came to participate, this bar mitzvah represented a collective milestone. Four hundred people came to celebrate Mendel Moscovitz’s bar mitzvah—a first for the children of Shluchim—which in every way marked the coming of age of Jewish revival in the former Soviet Union.

A phenomenon of historic proportions, the celebrants at the bar mitzvah were among the primary catalysts responsible for the stunning transformation of life in the former Soviet Union. The uninhibited joyful dancing in the magnificent central synagogue of Kharkov in celebration of Mendel’s maturity as a Torah observant Jew, made it hard to believe that not too long ago, this was a place of utter hostility to Jewish life.

Mendel is the first of all the sons of the hundreds of Chabad-Lubavitch Shluchim in the former Soviet Union, to turn 13. An infant when his parents—Rabbi Moshe and Miriam Moscovitz—set out for the uncertain terrain of a country trying to rebuild itself after the collapse of Communism, Mendel shared in their initial discomfort, living in a cramped hotel room with insufficient running water and electricity, and only canned food for breakfast, lunch and supper. Growing up surrounded by poverty, Mendel was made deeply aware of the needs of others and his own responsibility towards his fellow Jews; he learned early on to share, extending material, emotional, and spiritual support to his less fortunate friends. And amidst plans and a hubbub of activity surrounding his own bar mitzvah, Mendel resolved to make this momentous occasion more than just a lavish party thrown in his own honor. Instead, at the bar-mitzvah boy’s request, ten of his friends would mark their own entry into Jewish adulthood, each receiving his own first pair of tefillin, a stepping-stone towards further Jewish involvement.

Kharkov’s central synagogue, the largest in the CIS and second in Europe only to one other synagogue, was originally built in the early years of the twentieth century and soon afterwards transformed into a sports complex. Rebuilt with the support of the Rohr Family Foundation, the synagogue is once again a bustling center of Jewish activity. The shul houses parts of Chabad’s school, which began as a class of seven, with Mendel Moscovitz among them, and now includes a preschool, separate primary and high schools for boys and girls, as well as a post-secondary institution of higher learning in Judaic studies with some 500+ students combined.

The Moscovitz’s were not spared the starts and setbacks so endemic to the Shliach’s experience: Three thousand people attended Kharkov’s first Rosh Hashanah services in the newly opened synagogue, immediately following the Moscovitz’s arrival, and the future seemed bright. But it was curiosity that had drawn people, and to the Moscovitz’s disappointment, the curiosity would fast be displaced by apathy and a general disinterest filling the road ahead with challenges that at times seemed insurmountable. Reminiscing about her early days here, Miriam recalls how one person approached her husband on Yom Kippur about his paleness, and suggested that he eat something. Another expressed his dismay that he had no truck on which to build a Sukkah; he assumed that like the Moscovitz’s Sukkah mobile, meant to publicize the holiday of booths, his too must be built on wheels. “Those were the days,” Miriam chuckles, glad that they are behind her. This Chanukah eight hundred people braved dangerously low temperatures to participate at a Chanukah event that included fireworks, latkes, and the lighting of a 20-foot tall menorah.

Although Jewish life is gaining new currency amongst the country’s 50,000 Jews, poverty remains the norm for the vast majority here, and providing humanitarian aid is an important feature of the Moscovitz’s activities. The “Meals on Wheels” program, by now a well known feature in the streets of Kharkov, provides daily meals to 1,000 people, with ten drivers delivering the food packages to eight hundred people who cannot leave their homes, and the two hundred are served meals daily in the shul. A medicine program for the sick and ailing, sponsored by the Global Jewish Relief Network, enables them to visit a doctor at the shul and procure required medicines, all at no charge. Without the necessary government aid, orphaned children are often left unattended and when one young boy without a father was suddenly orphaned of his mother too, Chabad took the initiative and opened an orphanage that ten boys now call home. A girls orphanage is expected to open next September.

But mostly they are happy occasions that bring the Jews of Kharkov together, culminating this year with Mendel’s bar mitzvah. According to Alexander Kaganovsky, formerly a secular Ukranian Jew, now heavily involved with Jewish activity here, the Moscovitzes have “changed the face of the city, and brought about an enormous Jewish renaissance.”

“The commemorative medal for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee was created to mark the 50th anniversary of the accession of Her Majesty to the Throne in February 1952,” reads the award presented to Rabbi Israel Landa, Chabad representative to the Israeli community of Thornhill, Ontario. “It is awarded,” it continues, “to those persons who, like you, have made a significant contribution to Canada, their community, or to their fellow Canadians.”

The medal’s effect, though aimed at recognizing Chabad’s activities, also granted validity to an entire sector of the Jewish community that had previously been unacknowledged. And it came as no surprise that this major step up for the immigrant community of roughly 30,000 people (one third of the area’s general Jewish population) came through Rabbi Landa, who, community members are quick to point out, provided the Hebrew-speaking people here with a true home away from home.

When he arrived here with his wife some thirteen years ago, the local community was having a rough time integrating the Israelis with their Canadian Jewish counterparts, says Rabbi Landa. Determined not to let a small but growing Israeli populace fall by the wayside, he got to work creating a close-knit Israeli community that included people from every stripe of Israeli life, secular, religious and everywhere in between.

“People here weren’t comfortable with the routines of Jewish life in North America,” says Rabbi Landa. “They weren’t used to what was being offered here.” So the Landas set about simulating an Israeli-style community in this Canadian city, while drawing attention to issues of concern that might go unnoticed in Israel. “Our aim is twofold,” says Rabbi Landa, “we have created a place for people to feel at home, like in Israel, and they do. But at the same time we use the opportunity to make them aware that being Israeli isn’t enough to build a Jewish home, not in Canada.”

Israeli traffic, notes Rabbi Landa, is enough to remind even the most secular Jew about Yom Kippur. And non-observance doesn’t keep Israeli children from knowing what Shabbat is, in a country where the legal off-day is Saturday. In Canada, as elsewhere in the Diaspora, the threat to one’s Jewish identity is greater than in Israel, and Landa makes a point of talking to the Israelis about the importance of nurturing this identity through increased involvement in religious and communal activities.

Services for the Israeli community are held daily, Israeli-style, and draw some one hundred people on a typical Shabbat. As many as 25 people attend weekly classes for discussions on the Parshah, Kabbalah, or Chasidut, all in Hebrew, and holiday events are also a main feature of the Landas’ activities here; some three hundred people participated at this year’s Chanukah event. Rabbi Landa’s weekly slot on an Israeli radio station in the area and his column in the local Israeli paper help spread word about Chabad’s activities here, drawing newcomers, as well as those who have lived here for years without any affiliation.

For Mr. Henry Silberman, a native of Israel, being Jewish meant preserving Israeli culture and the Hebrew language, and he sent his children to a local Hebrew School in the hopes of securing both. Instead his children came home asking to hear the sounding of the shofar, and Silberman took them to Chabad, on the advice of a friend. Here he realized that involvement in an active Jewish community was more crucial to Jewish continuity even than Hebrew fluency. In the ten years since, Henry and his wife Iris have become regulars at services and activities here, and staunch supporters of Rabbi Landa. “Israelis are tough clientele,” notes Henry, “but the Landas are matching that toughness with an openness that draws everyone in.” Having recently purchased land, plans are in the making for the building of a center that will serve as the home base for all Chabad’s activities for the local Israeli community, providing them with a home all their own.

The Queen’s medal was awarded as well to Rabbi Zalman Aharon Grossbaum, director of Chabad-Lubavitch activities in Ontario, in recognition of his many years of dedicated service to Ontario’s community.

When Chabad at Flamingo, named for the obscure little road it sits on in Northern Thornhill, opened the doors of the Ernest Manson Lubavitch Center, a 22,000 square foot facility, in time for Rosh Hashana of 1999, it was an act of fantastically high expectations and no small measure of faith. Chabad’s presence in the neighborhood had been established just one year earlier, with the arrival of Rabbi Mendel and Faygie Kaplan, and “here we were,” recalls Sherry Kushner, a founding board member of Chabad at Flamingo, “with this enormous facility, and perhaps a total of 50 Chabad members expected to fill it!”

It was a gamble that paid off, with over 200 Jews from the area joining Chabad for an inspiring holiday that first Rosh Hashana, and has continued to pay off in the years since. This year, Sherry notes proudly, synagogue attendance on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur swelled upwards of 800, “filling the main sanctuary, the social hall, and all available standing room to well beyond capacity.”

Situated some thirty minutes distance from Chabad of Thornhill, Chabad at Flamingo has seen a very rapid, almost exponential growth in five years of reaching out to the Jewish community of Thornhill, a suburb of Toronto. Now home to “more Jews per square mile than any other neighborhood in Canada and most others anywhere in the world,” according to Rabbi Kaplan’s estimate, Thornhill experienced a massive population boom in the mid 90’s when thousands of yuppies and their families-many of them Jewish-established themselves in Toronto and set up house in the nearby suburbs. In Northern Thornhill, huge sub-divisions sprung up, seemingly out of nowhere and almost overnight, the area had become a thriving residential neighborhood.

Chabad’s roots in Northern Thornhill actually go back over thirteen years, when the area was nothing but miles of abandoned farmland some thirty minutes from central Thornhill, the base of Chabad operations in Ontario. In 1990, Ernest Manson, a local businessman and Chabad supporter, pledged a 2 Å“ acre lot north of Thornhill to Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum, director of Chabad of Ontario. The property, literally in the middle of nowhere at the time, sat empty for years and most people doubted anything would ever come of it. But when Northern Thornhill exploded several years later with unexpected growth, Ernest Manson’s property was suddenly a prime location in the center of a brand new neighborhood, and the perfect site for a Chabad center in the area. Mr. Manson himself had unfortunately passed on by then, but his children honored their father’s pledge and gifted the property to Chabad.

Today, the Ernest Manson Lubavitch Center is a hectic hub of activity and the center of Jewish life for what is likely one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in North America. Home to the Rose Schwartz nursery school, with over 100 children enrolled, the Robinson Family Institute for Jewish Learning, an adult education center, the Joey and Toby Tannenbaum Family Shul, and the Chabad Flamingo Youth Center under the direction of Rabbi Shmuel Nachlas, Chabad Flamingo is a veritable whirlwind of activity that starts with the first early morning minyan and Torah class and goes on till the last late night lecture or teen party ends. It is an enormous operation, almost single-handedly responsible for the creation of a warm, vibrant Jewish community, drawing hundreds of local families to learn, pray and celebrate together.

Sherry Kushner, who prides herself on being, in fact, the very first member of Chabad at Flamingo, was drawn to Chabad in 1998 when a friend who had recently met the Kaplan’s introduced her to the young Rabbi and his wife. “For the first time,” she recalls, “I had the feeling that I had found something to fill the spiritual void that had always been present in my life.” It’s been a whole new world since then, she says. “You can stop fifty people at the entrance to the Lubavitch Center and ask them what Chabad has done for them, and you’ll get fifty different answers,” she says. “But in all of their lives, without exception, Chabad will have brought more joy and meaning, as it has brought to mine.” Last year, Sherry, an artist by profession, and a friend, Gary Smith, completed a twenty by twelve foot mural of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and presented it as a gift to the Chabad center. It is, by all accounts, the largest painting of the Rebbe and perhaps the largest piece of Judaica in the world, now on display in the foyer of the building. “The greatest privilege of my life,” she says of her work on the mural. “For everything that Chabad here has accomplished in my life and the lives of so many others-it is a wonderful feeling to give something back.”

Millions of television viewers nationally watched last Friday’s public Menorah lighting ceremony in Lenin Square. Kherson’s Jewish mayor, Vladmir Vasilevitch Saldah, officiated at the ceremony that drew some 2,000 people for an event that left a former member of the Russian KGB overwhelmed: “How did you manage to obtain a permit for the Menorah?” he asked Kherson’s Chief Rabbi Yitzchok Wolff, incredulously.

Saldah’s opening address expressed amazement at the resurgence of Jewish life in the Ukraine. “The lighting of the Menorah here in Kherson is yet another phase in the progress of our town towards modernity,” he said, noting that for the first time, “Kherson, like all other cities of the Western world, is recognizing the importance of freedom through observing a holiday that epitomizes the ideals of independence.” The lighting of the gigantic menorah at Lenin Square says Rabbi Wolff, “illuminated the souls of thousands of Ukrainian Jews, and gave them a strong sense of Jewish pride.”

In fact, its impact was felt well beyond the Jewish community, and one viewer—the mayor of the neighboring city, Nikolaev, felt his own city got short shrift. So the following night mayor Nikolai Petrovitch contacted the local Rabbi Sholom Gottleib and requested to meet with him immediately. To Rabbi Gottleib, who had worked unsuccessfully to get municipal permission for a public menorah lighting ceremony, this seemed to provide an opportune time to raise the subject. Much to his delight, it was Petrovich who raised the subject saying, “Why don’t we have a Chanukah celebration here like they have in Kherson?” He had watched it on television and thought it a spectacular event. With Petrovich on the case, Chanukah 2003 will give Nikolaev its due, along with Kherson and hundreds of cities worldwide hosting grand public Menorah lighting ceremonies.

The irony of 100 Jews braving icy streets of a remote Russian backwater in 20 degrees below zero, to participate at a public menorah lighting ceremony is nothing short of exquisite. Established as a Jewish Autonomous Region more than sixty years ago, Birobidjan would be Stalin’s solution to the “Jewish problem.” This province in the Russian Far East bordering the People’s Republic of China—some five thousand miles east of Moscow, was his idea of a “Soviet Zion” where Russia’s purged Jewish population would be resettled.

It was the first public menorah lighting ever in Birobidjan. And while only three thousand of the region’s 200,000 residents are Jewish, the event is remarkable coming as does in a place marked by seventy years of communist persecution and bloodletting campaigns including harsh labor sentences and mass executions. At its peak, Stalin’s failed plan drew only 35,000 Jews, but the province retains vestiges of a Jewish past that is now largely expressed in a reemergence of the Yiddish language, Jewish-oriented concerts and festivals, and kosher-style foods. Jewish culture, in fact, appears to be the latest fad in this region marked by a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit and a stable economy. Also unusual here is an absence of anti-semitism, so that even gentiles enjoy the benefits of local Jewish cultural activity.

In the few weeks since Chabad-trained Rabbi Mordechai Scheiner, his wife Esther, and their four children arrived, he’s met up with many elderly people who vividly recall childhood memories of religious observances and the familiar smells of Shabbat and Jewish holidays. “I’ve met people who can recite by heart the prayer liturgy,” says Rabbi Scheiner. Fond and cherished though they are, memories are all that remain of Jewish religious observance in the province, and the Scheiners want to revive these memories through real, day-to-day Jewish living.

A newly constructed synagogue, with the support of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, is to be completed within the next few weeks; plans for the building of a mikvah, and the opening of an Or Avner Chabad Day School are the first steps to rebuilding a Jewish infrastructure. In the meantime, Rabbi Scheiner conducts minyans in his own home–the meeting ground for dozens of Jews, young and old. There, over Shabbat dinners Rabbi Scheiner and his wife introduce the locals to Torah, to mitzvot and to Judaism as it is lived in the here and now. There is some scant knowledge of the laws of kosher, says Rabbi Scheiner, and he hopes to boost that via a central kosher kitchen that will cater to communal functions and individual needs. It is a complex project and a huge undertaking in a place where the acquisition of modern amenities like e-mail access and telephone lines are a long process. But with Jewish pride and cultural awareness at an all-time high here, Rabbi Scheiner is determined to “lay a foundation within the framework of Torah, that will ensure the endurance of a vibrant Jewish presence in the Russian Far East.”

When you live in a remote country in central Africa, foreign residents will tell you, it’s not hard to feel isolated from the rest of the civilized world. If you’re a Jew living in Central Africa, the isolation is only intensified. Living in tiny communities where the closest sign of Jewish life can be hundreds of miles away, the Jews of central Africa give new definition to being Jewishly isolated.

But Chabad’s presence in the region in recent years has created a link with these communities, bringing Judaism right to their doorstep, via post, email, or like this week, a personal visitor. Chabad of Central Africa, based in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire, together with the United Jewish Communities of Central Africa, sponsored a unique Chanukah mission this week, bringing the light and spirit of Chanukah to Jews in ten African countries.

Most of the Jews in this part of the world are here for business, says Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila, who moved out here with his wife Miriam and their children 12 years ago. “In some countries, like the DRC, Kenya and others, you’ll find some third-generation local Jews whose grandparents arrived after the Second World War, but everyone else is transplanted.” Entire Jewish communities in some countries are “imported”—made up entirely of businessmen and their families from Israel, Europe and beyond. Because the concentration of Jews in each place is so small, expressions of Jewish life and community are almost non-existent. For 12 years, Chabad of Central Africa has worked to bring Judaism to the Jews in these remote areas, sending holiday packages, weekly emails, visiting occasionally, and coordinating visits from Chabad’s Traveling Yeshiva students each summer. But this Chanukah, Rabbi Bentolila wanted to take it further. So four pairs of Yeshiva students and a young couple, Rabbi Mendel and Esther Miriam Lifshitz, arrived in central Africa last week, each visiting two or three cities in that time, meeting the community and hosting a Chanukah party at a local venue. In Nigeria, Ghana, Gabon, the Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Zambia and Namibia, local Jews greeted the Chabad emissaries with pride and gratitude. “It means so much to these people to feel connected to the rest of the Jewish world,” says Rabbi Bentolila, “And most of them would not have celebrated Chanukah at all if not for the Chabad event in their town.”

The double terrorist attacks on the Paradise Hotel in Mombassa and the Israeli passenger plane happened just an hour before the Rabbi Mendel and Esther Miriam Lifshitz’s plane landed in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city. The Lifshitzs had planned on spending several days in Nairobi and then moving on to Mombassa where a Chanukah party had been arranged for Israeli residents and vacationers. All the Jews having left Mombassa following the attacks, they spent the week in Nairobi, reaching out to the 200 member Jewish community. Jews from across the spectrum attended a Chanukah event in the main synagogue in Nairobi, an event was held in the Israeli embassy, and the couple visited with community members and formed strong ties with them that week. “It meant so much to the Jews here to see that there are people in the rest of the Jewish world who care about them,” says Esther Miriam Lifshitz, “They were so grateful for our visit.”

In Nigeria, a predominantly Muslim country, recently witness to violent rioting over the international Miss World contest, these feelings were echoed by local Jews, 200 of whom attended a Chanukah party at the Canadian embassy in Abuja earlier this week. “Jews here are surrounded by Christians and Muslims,” says Rabbi Chananya Rogalsky, who visited the community with Rabbi Mendy Zirkind. “It gives them a very strong sense of Jewish pride to participate in an event like this.”

The two are currently spending the last days of Chanukah with the small Jewish community in Accra, Ghana.

In an email received this week by Rabbi and Mrs. Bentolila from the Jewish community in Gabon, one of the wealthier African countries and home to a relatively large population of close to 1000, the community thanked Chabad for bringing Rabbis Mendel Goldberg and Mendy Narboni to celebrate Chanukah with them. “You have brought so much joy and spirit to our holiday,” the email read, “Thank you for lifting our spirits and making us proud to be part of the Jewish people.”

Jason, a 24 year old Australian ski enthusiast was heading down the slopes one day in the winter of ’95 during a season-long ski stint, when he saw something that made him stop in his tracks and stare. Standing 9-feet tall in the center of Whistler Village, Canada’s world famous ski resort was an illuminated menorah. A small crowd was gathered around the menorah, and, as Rabbi Yitzchak Wineberg recalls, “Jason’s first words to us were, ‘Oh my G-d, how did you find me here?’

Jason had grown up in a traditional home in Melbourne and even attended a Jewish day school as a child. But he had since drifted so far that it took the menorah lights in the village square to remind him that it was Chanukah.

Rated in recent years as the top ski destination in North America, Whistler, on the Western edge of Canada, is a two-hour drive from the small Jewish community in Vancouver, and very remote from anything Jewish. It ranks up there with some of the places you’d least expect to find a menorah, but in fact, Chabad has been putting up a menorah and hosting Chanukah celebrations in local hotels for twenty years now. The menorah stands in the center square of Whistler village, at the foot of the mountain, where, for skiers coming off the slopes in the early evening, it is “literally impossible to miss,” says Rabbi Wineberg, director of Chabad of British Columbia.

Over the years, countless Jewish visitors to Whistler have been warmed and inspired by the sight of a Jewish symbol displayed so proudly in the square. Jewish locals—15 Jewish families live here year round–coordinate the lighting of the menorah throughout the holiday, and Chabad Rabbis drive up from Vancouver one night each year for a menorah lighting ceremony.

For Jason, Whistler’s menorah brought back memories of a Jewish tradition that he had all but left behind. Several weeks later, he ended his stay in Whistler and headed back to Australia, fully equipped, says Rabbi Wineberg, with the numbers of local Chabad Rabbis and the determination to reconnect.

Against a snowy backdrop, the lights of the Menorah seem the perfect way to add warmth and brightness to the long winter nights. But in the Sunshine State of Florida, where temperatures seldom fall short of the 70 degree mark, and sailing and surfing are year-round activities, Chabad puts a uniquely tropical spin on its Chanukah celebration.

Illuminating the night sky each of the eight nights of Chanukah is a seashell menorah designed by artist Roger Abrahamson. For an entire year Abrahamson, also a professional diver and a long time friend and supporter of Rabbi Zev Katz, director of Chabad House on Wheels, dived the seas surrounding Florida fishing for seashells of every shape, color and size. And after several weeks of single-handedly crafting a Menorah out of 10,000 seashells, Abrahamson’s work of art stands 10 feet tall.

Set in a sand dune created by Abrahamson, the Menorah graces the famed Euclid Circle in South Beach, Florida’s favorite party spot, a magnet for the young, hip and heady. With Chanukah only a day away hundreds of passers-by are learning about the Festival of Lights, some for the very first time, and Abrahmson’s goal “to publicize the message of Chanukah and of Chabad,” is fast being realized. The menorah has also attracted the attention of reporters from several local television stations and the Miami Herald.

On Sunday, December 1st, a grand Menorah lighting ceremony is expected to draw close to one thousand people, as Miami’s mayor David Dermer officiates at the kindling of this distinctively Floridian Menorah, followed by a celebration which will feature live musical entertainment as well as the traditional Chanukah fare: latkes and doughnuts.

Some two thousands tourists traipse through this area each week, and while Chabad House on Wheels, a project designed to reach Jewish pedestrians, is not new to the streets of Miami, its seashell Menorah will be a traffic stopper. In the three years since its founding, Chabad House on Wheels has reached Jewish tourists from across the spectrum and the globe. Rabbi Katz keeps up with many of the people he meets, and connects them with Chabad in their respective areas.

What happens with a 10-foot tall Chanukah menorah made of seashells? It’s not the kind of thing you can take apart and rebuild next year. But, says the artist, there is talk about the Menorah becoming part of Miami’s Jewish Museum’s permanent collection. Now if they could only figure out a way to get the menorah through its doors.

Collectors of Jewish artifacts will be amused by this menorah, too large to take home, yet unlike any of the giant menorahs that will grace public squares next week.

Made entirely of cans—food cans—the menorah will stand 15 feet tall, and will be disassembled by the holiday’s end for a very noble cause.

“You can light up a life!” Chanukah campaign by Chabad of Binghamton University, creatively combines a worthy humanitarian aid project with a joyous Chanukah celebration. Hundreds of students have committed their time, effort, and donations to a project aimed at collecting as many, maybe even thousands, of cans of non-perishable foods to form a fabulous menorah on the center of campus.

The novel menorah will be kindled at the culminating menorah lighting ceremony and Chanukah bash, after which the cans will be donated to CHOW, an organization that provides food for the destitute.

Inspired by the wide appeal and success of Chabad’s Mitzvah Marathon—a September 11th commemorative event (see Lubavitch.com archives), Rabbi Aaron and Rivky Slonim, directors of the Chabad Student Center here hit on this idea as a way to get students to put their energy toward an important cause in the spirit of the Chanukah holiday. Alpha Sigma Phi frat members lit up when they heard the idea, and invited two campus sororities –Sigma Delta Tau and Phi Sigma Sigma, to join.

“When we first heard about the project, the plans were vague and some students were skeptical about it ever coming through,” says Gil Efrati, a fraternity member and chairman of the project. But a table in the student union manned by members of the fraternity and sororities has attracted the attention of hundreds of students, and dorm-to-dorm publicity and fundraising has generated widespread enthusiasm for the project, bringing an outlandish idea to fruition.

According to fraternity member Jordan Gherson, “this year’s Chanukah celebration is going to be really big.” The reason, he says, is the “support and involvement of a wide range of students.” And with poverty in the Binghamton area on a 40% increase, the project couldn’t have been more appropriate.

“You Can Light Up A Life!” addresses many concerns, says Gil. Not only are students participating in the mitzvah of tzedaka, but the project is making everyone aware of the Chanukah holiday. “Everyone will know about Chanukah this year,” says Gil. “If they haven’t heard about it, then they’re sure to see it,” he says.

Ultimately, says Gil, the project will boost student morale and convey the importance of coming together for a positive cause. “It will show students the power of the collective student body, and what great things can be accomplished when we unite.”

Commuters passing through the Holland Tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey every day will soon be noticing a new sign of the season at the tunnel’s New Jersey entrance, on the outskirts of Hoboken: A twelve-foot electric menorah, brightly lit, with a large sign wishing drivers a Happy Chanukah from Chabad of Hoboken. Erected in a parking lot alongside the entrance to the tunnel, the menorah is expected to attract the attention of some one-million viewers daily.

The menorah’s highly visible location was the brainchild of Rabbi and Mrs. Moshe Shapiro of Hoboken, conceived last year while the couple was living in New York, before their move to Hoboken. Feverish efforts before the onset of the holiday last year saw rewarding results: reactions to the menorah were overwhelmingly enthusiastic, so much so that despite initial reservations, the Port Authority of New Jersey granted Chabad full permission to erect the menorah once again this year and will even be supplying the electricity to keep it lit.

The Shapiros had come to Hoboken to conduct Rosh Hashana services in September 2001. Several days later, this town, all of only one square mile on the Hudson River, facing lower Manhattan, and nearly all the town’s residents were in one way or another, personally affected by the 9/11 attacks. Nearly all of the town’s residents commute to Manhattan each day and so the tragedy hit really close to home. “People were looking for spirituality that Rosh Hashanah, to make some sense of their world that had just been turned upside down,” says Rabbi Shapiro. More than 150 people joined Chabad for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, many of whom have come back often to attend Chabad’s ever-increasing range of programs for the community.

A busy industrial zone until about 1970, Hoboken has since become a residential hub for affluent yuppies and students looking for a little distance from the city and lower housing costs. Urban and hip, but with a small town feel, Hoboken has over 50,000 residents, an estimated 4500 of whom are Jewish. In their months here, the Shapiro’s have been making efforts to meet up with many of the town’s Jewish residents and often have them over for Shabbat dinners. “There is strong potential for a vibrant Jewish community in Hoboken,” says Mrs. Shaindel Schapiro. Currently, Jews from Hoboken traveled to nearby Newport or Jersey City to attend services or Jewish programs. Since Chabad’s arrival here last March, the level of Jewish activity in the town itself has risen considerably. Community programs for every holiday, Shabbat services and dinners, and individual and group learning sessions are slowly creating a Jewish reality in the area.

And now, in the Chabad tradition of placing menorahs in the most visible spot possible for Chanukah, Jewish awareness for Hoboken residents, or those just passing through on their daily commute, reaches an all-time high. “Next to all the other symbols of the season, Chabad’s Chanukah menorah is a source of Jewish pride for so many who see it each day,” says Rabbi Shapiro.

“If it’s an event in L.A., it’s happening on CityWalk!” proclaims Universal Studios CityWalk website. Chanukah 2002, then, must be an event in Los Angeles, because this year Chabad of the Valley, Chabad of Conejo, and Chabad of Studio City are taking Chanukah to the busiest place in southern California: Universal CityWalk on the busiest day of the year, December 1st , expecting to draw some 25,000 people in all.

What began as Chabad of Studio City’s plans for a small Chanukah ice-skating event at the CityWalk’s rink, soon drew the attention and interest of CityWalk staff, who agreed to host a massive Chanukah celebration for six hours on Thanksgiving weekend. “People are very excited about this event,” says Rabbi Yossi Baitelman, Chabad representative to Studio City. “This marks the first time Chabad has come to Universal Studios, and people are thrilled to have such an event happening here,” he says.

From noon until 6 p.m., famous Jewish music bands and Jewish DJ’s flown in especially for the event will grace the main stage. The 18×22 foot Astrovision movie screen will feature footage of Chanukah with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and Chanukah celebrations worldwide. Kosher food, children’s crafts and various forms of Chanukah entertainment including clowns, jugglers and face painters, will transform this central meeting ground for Californians and visitors alike into a hub of Chanukah activity and light. Some six large Menorahs will adorn the Walk in addition to a fifteen-foot tall menorah off the main stage where the lighting ceremony will take place.

Dignitaries and celebrities, among them Gabe Kapler, an outfielder for the Colorado Rockies, and baseball player Adam Kennedy will officiate at a menorah lighting event to top all others. The celebration will recognize the American armed forces for their dedication to life and liberty, and will as well, pay tribute to the Israeli people who persevere in the face of so much horror and tragedy.

“Universal CityWalk is honored to serve as the location for Chabad’s
annual Chanukah celebration,” says Ron Herman, General Manager of Universal CityWalk. “We look forward to honoring the traditional Jewish holiday with a free afternoon of non-stop entertainment and the
ceremonial lighting of Los Angeles’ largest Menorah.”

Ever since Chabad put down roots here some 30 years ago, Chanukah has been a highly popular event for people of the Valley. Still, this year’s event is expected to raise Jewish awareness in an unparalleled way. As Rabbi Mordechai Einbinder, associate director of Chabad of the Valley, said: “Chanukah represents the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil. Judaism enjoins us to share this positive and enlightening message with the world at large and what better venue to do that than at the famed Universal CityWalk.”

Chabad-Lubavitch of Ontario was the proud recipient of a major government grant by the Trillium Foundation, last Thursday, November 14th, to help launch the Friendship Circle program in Toronto. The Friendship Circle, initially founded by Chabad of Michigan, caters to children with special needs through a unique chain of goodness that involves teenage volunteer mentors forging close friendships with these children, encouraging inner growth and feelings of self-worth in both parties.

It is a costly program, notes Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum, Chabad representative to Ontario, one that “would not be possible without the generous seed money we received from the Trillium Foundation of Ontario.” The Trillium Foundation is a government organization responsible for distributing surplus lottery money in the form of grants to qualified applicants. Presented to Rabbi and Mrs. Grossbaum and Chaya Perman, by Tina Molinari, a member of the Provinicial Parliament, the five year gift will provide $310,000 in funding for Friendship Circle programming and activities.
The grant expresses the Foundation’s recognition of this project as one that will not only serve those involved, but one that will serve as a model for other areas of concern across the province. The launching of the project here couldn’t have come at a better time. With Chanukah just around the corner, this Festival of Lights will illuminate the lives of the entire Jewish community here as a program that has brightened the homes and hearts of hundreds of special needs children and their teenage volunteers across the U.S. comes to Toronto. The first in a series of holiday programs scheduled for this year, the Chanukah celebration will bring together seventy-five high school and college student volunteers from across the Jewish spectrum and some thirty special needs children and their families for an afternoon of Chanukah crafts, fun, and entertainment. “Plans for the Friendship Circle have been in the making since May,” says Mrs. Esther Grossbaum who, together with Mrs. Chaya Perman, directs Toronto’s Friendship Circle. But the program demands meticulous planning and involves many delicate issues, from pairing up volunteers and their charges, to administering proper training for volunteers and creating a loving, relaxed environment for the special needs children. And next week, after attending several training sessions, volunteers will be making home visits to scores of children to become acquainted and build an easy, warm rapport that will set the tone for months and possibly years of mutual friendship and growth. The Friendship Circle, says Rabbi Grossbaum, “provides an excellent opportunity to reach teens of all backgrounds by involving them with special needs children. As the teens interact with these children and see them deal in a constructive, positive way with challenges that often appear overwhelming, the teens learn to appreciate their own good fortune.” Being of help to these children, says Rabbi Grossbaum “builds up a healthy sense self-esteem and maturity in the volunteers.”

Twice a year, a hunched, old man would make his way over to the Chabad school at 141 Lacplesa Street in Riga, Latvia, and offer Rabbi Mordechai Glazman a small donation. Yitzchok Drizin, a native of Riga, was well into his 90’s and in poor health, and yet he continued to do this each year. Why, Rabbi Glazman would ask him repeatedly, did he have to make the trip? The Rabbi was certainly willing to come by and collect the donation. But the old man stood firm in his practice. “If G-d has kept me alive long enough to see this building go from a place where Jews were slaughtered to a place where Jewish children learn Torah, I must come myself and personally support it,” he insisted. Mr. Drizin, who died last year in Riga, recalled attending the wedding of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Warsaw in 1928. His life spanned nearly a century of war and destruction, and ultimately, in his last years, the triumph of Jewish survival in Riga, his native city.

Rabbi Mordechai Glazman, Chabad’s representative to Riga, Latvia, arrived in the city with his wife Rivka in the summer of ‘92, shortly after the fall of communism. Latvia, like all of the member states of the collapsed Soviet Union, was in the midst of a tumultuous transition. Finally having gained its independence after decades of communist rule, the government was just beginning to organize, municipal services were incredibly unreliable, if they existed at all, and basic staples such as baby needs for the Glazman’s infant son, Mendel, were unattainable.

Undeterred, the Glazmans set out building a Jewish infrastructure in a city where absolutely none existed, and where, only several months earlier, talk of it could possibly land you in jail.

Chanukah of ’93, several months after their arrival, the Glazman’s put up a large menorah in the city’s square and waited for the response. “People were just beginning to understand that being Jewish was no longer a federal offense,” recalls the Rabbi. “We weren’t sure how they would take this.”

Over 2000 people showed up at the Menorah lighting–the elderly weeping unabashedly at the sight of Judaism finally out in the open; the younger people staring wide-eyed at the phenomenon of a proud display of their own heritage that they knew nothing about. It was, as they say, an auspicious beginning.

In the ten years since, Chabad of Riga has grown into a city-wide network of institutions providing physical and spiritual nurturing for Riga’s 15,000 Jewish residents. A day center and soup kitchen for the elderly, a kindergarten and day school, summer camps, holiday programs, a recently opened kosher café and Judaica shop, all attest to Riga’s thriving traditional Jewish community. But none, perhaps, proclaim the fact as eloquently as the building at 141 Lacplesa Street, which houses the Chabad School, offices and social hall.

An unassuming four-story brick structure, the building was erected 130 years ago by the Haskalah, the movement for the “enlightenment” and secularization of traditional Judaism, to house a school for young children. The school’s founder, Max Lilienthal, was known to have engaged in fierce debate with the Tzemach Tzedek, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe, over issues of Jewish survival. The Rebbe fought long and hard to stop efforts by the Haskalah and Lilienthal to rid traditional Jews of their Judaism.

The school remained in the building for many years, until the Second World War, when the Nazis arrived in Riga. Ghetto walls were drawn up and 141 Lacplesa Street found itself right inside, the last house within the Ghetto limits. The Jewish police, working in cooperation with the Nazis, took over the building. It was here that Yitzchok Drizin and other survivors clearly remember Jews being shot and murdered, or deported to concentration camps from which most would never return.

After the war, the building was home to a communist school, and, finally, in the summer of 1995, the Latvian government returned the school to the Jewish community, who voted to hand it over to Chabad of Riga’s recently founded day school. “This building has come full circle,” says Mrs. Rivka Glazman, principal of the school. “For those who know its history, this is a poignant testament of the survival of traditional Judaism in Riga.”

Now settled in the building for nearly eight years, Chabad of Riga has just celebrated another milestone in the history of the city’s Jewish development: the completion of a beautiful, modern mikvah in a residential area in the city’s center. Previously, the only mikvah in the city was one built secretly in the basement of a shul run by Lubavitch Chasidim in the 1950’s. Now, with the generous support of the Rohr Family foundation, Mr. Yingy Bistritzky, and Rabbi Yitzchok Raitport, Chabad’s beautiful mikvah is open, and enjoys enough traffic to confirm that traditional Jewish life is flourishing once again in Riga.