Monthly Archives: October 2015

My father was born in the Ukraine and grew up there. At age twenty, in 1923, he left in order to avoid the Soviet draft. He traveled from the Ukraine to Romania, where he boarded a boat, thinking he was going to the USA. Unfortunately at that time there were immigrant quotas, so instead of the USA, he ended up in Canada, where he established himself in the menswear business. This was the right move and his business prospered.

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In 1945, the first Chabad emissaries arrived in Canada. There was a group of them – Rabbi Kramer, Rabbi Hendel, Rabbi Greenglass – and my father developed a connection with them, in particular Rabbi Greenglass.

It was at the encouragement of Rabbi Greenglass that my father first went to see the Rebbe – sometime in the early 1950s – to discuss the difficulties surrounding his business. What had happened was that my father owned an old building in Montreal – his store was on the ground floor, and the upper floors were rented out to small manufacturers. One of these small manufacturers found that it was more lucrative to start fires and collect insurance than to sell merchandise. And he did that a few times until the insurance people got tired of paying out. They came to my father and said, “You have a choice – either you install a sprinkler system throughout this old building, or your tear down this old building and put up a new one – but until you do one of those things, your insurance is cancelled.”

Since my father’s was a menswear business, his whole inventory was highly flammable, so it had to be insured. But installing a sprinkler system throughout this building was cost prohibitive. It would have been better to tear it down and start over. He hired an architect to draw up plans, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to go forward with the project. (more…)

My husband – Gershon Jacobson – was the founder, publisher and editor of the Yiddish newspaper, the Algemeiner Journal. The story I would like to tell is how this newspaper came into being, and the role the Rebbe played in its creation and content.

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In 1971, my husband was working as the city editor of Der Tog Morgen Journal, a privately-owned Yiddish daily paper. And then one day he came to work and the door was locked. There was no explanation, just a sign: CLOSED.

Gershon tried to call the owner, but got no answer. Meanwhile, the writers were asking what was going on. Finally, they determined that the owner had been losing money on the paper and just decided to close it. Now they were all out of a job.

Most of the workers at Der Tog Morgen Journal were elderly – in their 70s and 80s. They were semi-retired, while Gershon was only 37 with a growing family to support. And so he had to do something immediately to generate income.

As he looked for an appropriate position – picking up odd writing jobs here and there – it was becoming very apparent that the closing of Der Tog Morgen Journal had had a serious impact on the Yiddish-reading religious public. They had no alternative paper, since the only other Yiddish news journal of consequence was socialist and anti-religious. They had no place for their announcements or for the news of their community.

In short, Der Tog Morgen Journal had to be replaced. My son, Simon, remembers that the Rebbe was very adamant about that. (more…)

I grew up in a Chabad family. In fact, I was six months old when the Previous Rebbe passed away in 1950, and my mother brought me in a carriage to the funeral. When I was three, it was the Rebbe who did my upshernish, that is gave me my first haircut. As a child, I frequently accompanied my father to the Rebbe’s farbrengens, and I remember it all as very exciting – the whole idea of being a Lubavitcher chasid was very exciting.

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Naturally, I attended Chabad yeshivas, and – as was the custom – from the time of my Bar Mitzvah, I would have an annual audience with the Rebbe on the occasion of my birthday. I remember when I was sixteen years old, I had a dilemma weighing heavily on my mind, and of course, I asked the Rebbe’s advice.

What was my dilemma? I couldn’t decide if I should continue studying in yeshiva over the summer, or if I should go work with young children in a summer camp. It might sound silly to ask the Rebbe something like this, but it was quite important for me to do the right thing, and I was ready and willing to do whatever the Rebbe thought best.

The Rebbe said, “Work in the summer camp.” And the reason he gave was “Naase mocho velibo zakin elef pe’amim kacha,” meaning that, through giving to others, one’s heart and intellect become refined a thousand-fold.

A few weeks later, at a farbrengen, the Rebbe repeated this teaching and explained it further. He said that G-d grants us a gift when we set aside our own concerns and devote ourselves to others, and then our heart and intellect become refined a thousand-fold. That means a person could spend a thousand hours studying and trying to reach a higher consciousness, but the one who devotes himself to others acquires the same consciousness within the hour. (more…)

My name is Joe Davidovitz. I am an architect from South Africa. When I first set up my practice in Johannesburg as a young man, I did very well and I built it up quickly – in three or four years – into a massive business. At the height of my success, I was doing property development and employing 1,500 people.

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But then my business started to wobble. This was largely due to my inexperience. I had borrowed money short and invested long. This was a good way to get into trouble. When South Africa’s economy started reeling, there was a tremendous downturn in property values, and raising money for development became impossible.

Around this time – I believe it was in 1974 – I heard good things about a young Chabad rabbi who had come to South Africa. This was Rabbi Mendel Lipskar, and I went to hear him speak.

The time I went he was speaking about the Exodus from Egypt and what happened when the Jews arrived at the Red Sea and realized they were trapped. That struck a chord with me because I was in exactly the same place; I was at the sea with no future in front of me, with my business about to collapse.

Rabbi Lipskar’s father was there also – he was a really wise man, a very fine man – and I mentioned my troubles to him. He said, “You should go to New York and tell all this to the Rebbe.”

I said, “I’m not going to New York to speak to someone about property problems in South Africa.” (more…)