Monthly Archives: March 2020

When I was growing up in Crown Heights, for a while we lived on Brooklyn Avenue which was on the Rebbe’s route from his home on President Street to Chabad Headquarters on Eastern Parkway.

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As he was walking by one time just before Rosh Hashanah of 1956, it so happened that my mother was outside with us kids, and my little sister Kraindy, who was playing on the ledge outside of the house, fell down the stairs. My mother, who was in her last months of pregnancy, ran to pick her up.

That evening after prayers, the Rebbe motioned to my father that he should come into his office with him. At first my father thought it must be a mistake because he had not requested to speak with the Rebbe on such a holy day, but then it became clear why the Rebbe wanted to speak with him. The Rebbe explained that he had seen what happened earlier in the day and that my father should reassure his wife – the little girl was not injured in the fall and would be fine, the Rebbe said, because when a child falls an angel puts out his hands as a cushion. However, his wife should focus on taking care of herself during her pregnancy and try not to run so fast.

Thus, I learned at an early age that the Rebbe was always looking after us.

At that time, I was enrolled in the Chabad school at Bedford and Dean, which I attended from first grade through high school, after which the Rebbe directed that I should go to the yeshivah in Montreal. That is where I learned until I received my rabbinic ordination and got married.

While still in Montreal, I had the experience of hosting a short Jewish radio broadcast. What happened was that Chabad bought ten minutes of time on a religious program called “The Jewish Hour” (which, despite its name, actually ran for two hours) and I was asked to introduce a recorded Tanya lesson, say a few inspirational words, and announce Chabad events in town. Half of this was in Yiddish and half in English. (more…)

I am a Persian Jew, born in Tehran, Iran. As a young man, I immigrated to the United States where I was educated at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Then, just about the time when I finished graduate school, the Islamic Revolution happened, and I became involved with the Rebbe’s efforts to rescue the Jewish children of Iran. And this is the story I would like to share in brief.

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By way of background, I need to point out that there were some 100,000 Jews happily living in Iran under the rule of the Shah. In those days they had a great deal of freedom, both personal and religious (even if there were some restrictions). This was true until the overthrow of the monarchy in January 1979, and the establishment of an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Persian Jews did not want to get rid of the Shah; they loved him. He was a peaceful man, a behind-the-scenes friend of the State of Israel, and when the demonstrations against him started in October of 1977 and grew more intense throughout the following year, they got very nervous. If the Shah lost his throne, the Muslim hardliners would attack them, they feared, and so they appealed to people in the United States to at least get their children to safety.

Rabbi Sholom Ber Hecht – the son of Rabbi J.J. Hecht who headed the Rebbe’s educational programs – led a Sephardic synagogue in Queens, and many Persians came to him asking for help. He went to his father, who in turn went to the Rebbe. And the Rebbe gave Rabbi J.J. Hecht the green light to do whatever it took to bring the kids out of Iran.

At that point I became involved and I sat down with Rabbi J.J. Hecht to begin planning. First, we needed to organize proper documentation – the I-20s required by the US government – showing that we accepted all the responsibility for these children and that they would not become a burden on the United States of America. Rabbi Hecht – through the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education of which he was the executive director – guaranteed the financial support of every child, which was about $6,000 per kid (equivalent to about $22,000 today). As well, we got Chabad schools for boys and girls, and also Touro College, to agree to formally accept them as students, which was another requirement of the documentation process. (more…)

The first time that I had the privilege of meeting the Rebbe, he told me that he stayed for some time in the home of my grandfather, Rabbi Chanoch Etkin, in Luga, Russia.

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This must have been in 1926, when he was engaged to be married to Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, the daughter of the Rebbe Rayatz. The Rebbe was then heavily involved in his future father-in-law’s educational programs and was working underground.

Just to illustrate how dangerous this work was – the following year, the Soviets arrested the Rebbe Rayatz and sentenced him to death for the crime of “counter-revolutionary activity” – namely, promoting Judaism. It was only due to international pressure that he was released but was exiled from Russia.

The Soviets were after the Rebbe too. They were searching for him, seeking to arrest him, so he had to flee.

This is how it happened that he was brought to my grandparent’s house, and he stayed there for several months until it was safe for him to leave. He slept and ate there, with my grandmother taking care of his needs, and he studied Torah with my grandfather. They developed a deep friendship although my grandfather was not a chasid but a follower of Mussar, the Jewish ethical movement.

I believe that, because my grandfather took him in during a time when his life was in danger, I had the merit to develop an especially close connection to the Rebbe.

I once asked him about what happened back in Russia, and he related to me a chasidic story – which I don’t recall precisely – about a man who rows a boat across a lake to take people to the Garden of Eden. But he himself cannot enter until he finds somebody to take his place. The Rebbe said that he ended up putting his life in danger because he couldn’t leave Soviet Russia until he found somebody else to continue the holy work of the Jewish underground. Finally, someone was found to take his place, and that is when he went into hiding at my grandfather’s house. (more…)

Since 1954, I have served as the Rebbe’s emissary in Boston, and this is where I met Rabbi Yosef Ber Soloveitchik from whose lips I heard the story I am about to relate.

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Rabbi Soloveitchik – who for many years headed RIETS, the rabbinic school of Yeshiva University – had studied at the University of Berlin in the late 1920s and early 1930s together with the Rebbe. But in 1932, he immigrated to America and settled in Boston. Even after he became the rosh yeshivah of RIETS, he continued to be involved in the Boston Jewish community, and because of that, I invited him to participate in a local Chabad celebration in 1983.

That year, the Rebbe was campaigning for communal Torah scrolls to be written on behalf of the Jewish people, and the yeshivah which I managed – Yeshivas Achei Temimim – signed on to participate. I launched a publicity campaign to make the community aware of the project and to get as many Jews as possible to sponsor letters in the Torah scroll. When the scroll was finished, we planned a big celebration, booking a hall at the Statler Hotel, one of the largest hotels in Boston, in anticipation of a huge crowd, and we even got The Boston Globe to cover the event.

I hoped that Rabbi Soloveitchik would join the event, so I went – together with our rosh yeshivah, Rabbi Chaim Wolosow – to invite him, and I took that opportunity to ask him about his years in Berlin with the Rebbe.

“I tell you something,” he said, “Chabad chasidim think they know their Rebbe, because they hear his Torah lectures and they see his greatness. But as much as they think they know him, they don’t. He was a nistar in Berlin, and he is still a nistar. His righteousness was hidden in Berlin, and it is still hidden. Chasidim think they know him, but there is so much more to his greatness.” (more…)