Monthly Archives: June 2015

I come from a family of chasidim. My father was a Boyaner chasid, while my mother’s family was Chabad, and she had a connection – from the time that she was a young girl – to the family of the Rebbe in Russia.

The Rebbe – I’m speaking now about the Previous Rebbe, the Rebbe Rayatz – had three daughters, Chaya Mushka – who would later marry the future Rebbe – Chana and Shaina. These three girls would spend time in the countryside, where my grandparents, Levi and Rochma Lagovier, also liked to spend time, and there my mother and the three girls would be together. This went on until 1917, when the Russian Revolution broke out. After that, my mother lost contact with them until 1935, when she and my father went to a health resort in Marienbad. There they met up with the Previous Rebbe, who was taking the restorative waters. One of his daughters had accompanied him there, and my mother was able to renew the friendship. As well, my father got a chance to spend considerable time with the Rebbe.

Click here for full-color print version

In 1940, when the Previous Rebbe arrived in New York, we were already living here for over a year, and my father made it a point of going to welcome him. I was 14 at the time, and I was invited to come along.

The Rebbe was staying at the Greystone Hotel, and I remember that when we came in, he was sitting at a small table. He gave me his hand. At that moment he looked at me and I felt his eyes piercing me like two swords. In Europe I had met many other Rebbes, but never before had I experienced such a feeling and, ever since, I’ve been connected to Chabad.

After the meeting there was a joyous farbrengen, full of young people. That’s another thing that attracted me to Chabad. My father’s Rebbe, the Boyaner Rebbe, was a very sweet person, a talmid chacham, a wise sage, but he was surrounded by old people. Here were people like me, full of energy, and this also pulled me over to Chabad.

At this time, my father was trying very hard to bring over my mother’s parents to America. They were stuck in Belgium and needed a transit visa to Lisbon, Portugal, from where my father had arranged a boat passage for them. My father had a fish oil business, on account of which he had very close connections with steamship lines, and he was able to procure two tickets for them. But no matter what he did – the sums of money he spent to pay off officials – he could not get them that transit visa. There was one Nazi who refused to be bought and who stood in the way and, because of him, my grandparents never did make it out of Europe. Years later I found records that they were sent on a transport to Auschwitz. (more…)

I was raised in a traditional Zionist Jewish home in Sydney, Australia. While on a visit in Israel, I became attracted to Chabad-Lubavitch and, upon return to Australia, I enrolled in a Chabad yeshiva, which eventually led me to learning in New York. That is when I found out I had Chabad ancestors – including the Tzemach Tzedek, the third Rebbe of Chabad – and I

Click here for full-color print version

became a loyal follower of the Chabad Rebbe.

While I was in New York, I was approached by a prestigious rabbi from another chasidic group, who told me about a family that was searching for their long-lost daughter. She had been born and raised in Boro Park, and she had married there; unfortunately, the marriage ended badly, but her husband – for whatever reason – refused to agree to a divorce.

After this went on for a period of time, she “snapped” (to use a slang term), and she suddenly disappeared. Her family had learned that she had gone to Australia, but they had no idea where. Since I was from Australia, the rabbi w

My name is Ben Zion Shenker. My parents came to the United States in 1921 from the Lublin area of Poland, settling in New York, where I was born and raised.

When I was about 13 years old, a famous cantor by the name of Joshua Samuel Weisser heard me sing in our synagogue – this was a Polish shtiebel in Bedford Stuyvesant – and he asked my father if I could join his choir. At first, my parents wouldn’t give permission but Cantor Weisser persisted. Finally they agreed, with one condition: If I had to travel away from home because of a performance, then I would have to be housed at the home of a local rabbi, so that they could be sure I was in good hands.

Click here for full-color print version

Cantor Weisser was chazan at the Avenue O Jewish Center in Bensonhurst where Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Kazarnovsky, a Chabad-Lubavitch chasid, was the rabbi. It is at Rabbi Kazarnovsky’s Shabbos table that I first heard Chabad teachings, and I learned to sing Chabad niggunim which I found very stimulating.

In 1946, when I was 21 years old, I accompanied my father on a trip to Eretz Yisrael and there I met a man by the name of Moshe Shimon Geshuri, who was very involved in chasidic music. Mr. Geshuri requested that I take some material back to New York to be delivered to a certain Rabbi Schneerson, who was the son-in-law of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

When I returned home, I went in search of this Rabbi Schneerson and found his office at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. Although I appeared there without any appointment, he welcomed me in. I had no way of knowing that, in a few years, he would become the Rebbe. I do recall, however, that he made quite an impression on me. He had a lot of charisma, that’s for sure, and he took an interest in me. I thought that I would just hand him the material from Mr. Geshuri and go, but he started asking me questions. He wanted to know who I was, where I was learning, and why I had gone to the Holy Land. So I explained that my father went to visit his brother and had taken me along. While in Eretz Yisrael I composed a niggun to Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd,” which they immediately started singing in a shul in Haifa. Eventually, this became my most famous composition.

Not long after that meeting with the Rebbe, I started attending addresses that he was giving on special occasions. These classes were not specifically geared to Lubavitcher Chassidim, and they had become popular with other yeshiva students in the area – students from my school, Torah Vodaas, from Chaim Berlin, and from other yeshivas. (more…)

I am the daughter of Rabbi Sholom Posner who, for many years, operated a Yeshiva Day School in Pittsburgh. That’s where I was raised and that’s where I went to school until age 12, when I was sent to a Bais Yaakov seminary in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Click here for full-color print version

It is from this time that my memories of the Rebbe begin. I and another girl would walk from Williamsburg to Crown Heights to observe the Rebbe’s farbrengens. I always waited for the Rebbe to look in my direction as he was passing by, because the Rebbe’s smile would light up a room.

I had previously accompanied my parents when they went to see the Rebbe about matters dealing with the yeshiva, but my first private audience came in 1960 when I was finishing teacher’s seminary, and I was trying to decide what to do next. I had four options – to teach at my father’s school in Pittsburgh, to accept an offer from a school in New York, to travel to Eretz Yisrael, or to join my sister Bessie in Milan, where she and her husband served as Chabad emissaries. I didn’t know what to do and I made an appointment with the Rebbe to seek his advice.

I was very nervous and worried about how I would begin explaining everything. Then my turn came and the door opened. As I walked in, the Rebbe was sitting behind his desk, writing something, and he lifted his head. “Good evening, Miss Posner,” he said. I wasn’t expecting that, and I just burst out laughing. My nervousness completely left me.

The Rebbe asked me lots of questions – why I was so thin and had dark circles under my eyes – and I explained that I was studying very hard for final exams, plus also teaching in another school. So the Rebbe gave me a blessing that I should be successful in all my endeavors. He also told me not to worry about what to do next year, just to take some time off and relax. (more…)