Monthly Archives: September 2013

My name is Bernie – in Hebrew, Baruch Shlomo – Cytryn. I was born in 1927 in Kelsa, Poland. When I was 12 years old the war broke out, and we were all herded into a ghetto. In 1942, the Kelsa ghetto was liquidated, and we were put on a cattle train to Auschwitz.

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I was moved around to several concentration camps. First I was in Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg, Mauthausen, Dachau, Gross-Rosen and other places. Though my family perished, somehow I survived.

On April 27, 1945, I was liberated by the American Army. I told the HIAS – the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society, which was taking care of the refugees – that I had family in America, and they located an aunt who brought me to Brooklyn. After a time I moved to Crown Heights – 272 Kingston Avenue – right around the corner from the Lubavitcher synagogue, and I befriended Rabbi Eliyahu Gross. From time to time he would take me to Chabad gatherings.

Meanwhile, I got a call-up letter from the US Army. This was 1950, when the Korean War broke out. I wanted very much to serve because the American Army saved me. My relatives were against it, but I wanted to serve because I felt I owed a thank you to the young American boys – not much older than me – who had saved thousands of us Jews.

When I told Rabbi Gross that I was going to Korea, he said that I had to meet the Rebbe and get his blessing. He arranged everything, and I was already in uniform when I went to see the Rebbe. (more…)

In 1976, my daughter Chana Bayla fell ill with cancer. Doctor Daniel Krasnekuky at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem took an extraordinary interest in her treatment. He was incredibly dedicated to her. He’d come from his department to the children’s ward, and he’d sit next to her bed and administer the injections himself. Unfortunately the treatments were not successful, and she passed away.

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After the seven-day mourning period for Chana Bayla had ended, I went to his office and I told him, “Listen, doctor, I can’t pay you. But I can share with you what G-d has graced me with – I can study with you. Would you like to study a little Torah?

He was a Jew without even the most basic knowledge of Torah and mitzvos, but he was interested. “What will you learn with me?” he asked. I mentioned the Tanya, which contains a little Kabbalah. He liked that – everybody likes Kabbalah.

So we agreed to study together – Monday nights at his house. I would arrive like clockwork. We would study a few lines and it would develop into a discussion. In a short while, this man started to put on tefillin and becoming more observant, but his wife – who would sometimes join us in our Torah debates – was impervious to the whole thing. She simply said, “I’m not interested, I’m perfectly happy the way I am…”

One day, I arrive at his house at my set time, I knock on the door, but there’s no response. I knock again and again. Finally, the door opens. I notice that the blinds are drawn and it’s dark inside. The doctor comes out all depressed. (more…)

I was born in Hungary, but I came to America as a youngster, before my Bar Mitzvah. My father was already here, he was a rabbi in upstate New York, and he enrolled me in Yeshiva Torah Vadaas in Williamsburg. From there I went to Yeshiva University – known today as R.I.E.T.S. – and to Brooklyn Law School.

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In 1942, I received my rabbinic ordination, and shortly thereafter became the rabbi of Mount Eden Jewish Center, which was considered one of the largest congregations in America. It was located in the Bronx, not far from Yankee stadium. I was the rabbi there for 36 years, during which time I was also elected as the president of the Rabbinical Council of America, and subsequently of the Hebrew Alliance of America.

By the late 1970s the Mount Eden neighborhood had begun to change, and my congregation dwindled away. I no longer even had a minyan, and I felt that the time had come for me to retire. Why I didn’t do it has everything to do with the Rebbe.

I had known the Rebbe since 1950 when he recommended that I travel to the Soviet Union, where Jews were being persecuted. I began to visit the Soviet Union and I did this many times. On many occasions, I spoke with the Rebbe in preparation for these trips, and I’d also brief him upon my return.

Every year, on the day before Yom Kippur, I’d visit the Rebbe to get a piece of lekach, the honey cake which he handed out on that day, and also to get his blessing for the new year. But one year – it was 1985 –  instead of going to Brooklyn to see the Rebbe, I had to take my wife to a doctor’s appointment in Manhattan, and as a result, I almost missed him. By the time I got to Crown Heights, the Rebbe had finished receiving people, and everyone had gone… This was an inauspicious start to my year, and I was upset. (more…)

In 1941, Chabad opened a yeshiva for young boys at its headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. In those years, Crown Heights was a very affluent Jewish community. There were about a dozen students at the time, and my brother Leibel and I were two of them. I was thirteen years old, and I tell this story from the perspective of a young boy.

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At that time, it was the custom on Rosh Hashana for those praying at 770 to walk up to the Botanical Gardens off Eastern Parkway to do tashlich – a special High Holiday prayer – at the pond there. Everybody – the whole community – walked down the street. How many people that was I cannot tell you, because when you’re thirteen you can’t estimate crowds. But it was a lot of people.

The Previous Rebbe, Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchok, was Rebbe at the time. The Rebbe was not yet the Rebbe – he was better known then as the Rebbe’s younger son-in-law, Ramash.

So that year, when we started going outside, Ramash stopped us and said, “Wait, that’s not the right way to walk. You should march down the street two-by-two and you should sing.” It was unheard of – singing in the street. Nobody sings in the street!

I was very shy and self-effacing, and walking down the street and drawing attention to myself seemed awful to me – I just withered at the thought. All the people in the apartment houses we passed were watching us from their windows. I felt that they were staring directly at me and grinning. I felt terrible, and I was praying to G-d – the way a thirteen-year-old prays to G-d – to get me out of there. (more…)