Monthly Archives: October 2021

My grandfather came to the United States in 1910. He belonged to the Karlin Chasidic group and originally came from a city called Blezov, in Russia, which is how my family got its last name. How he managed to remain a religious Jew even after coming to America is a story in and of itself.

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He met and married my grandmother, who was also of Chasidic descent, and when my father was born in 1921, they named him Shneur Zalman after her grandfather. His parents sent him to Torah Vodaas, which was a religious yeshivah in the Lithuanian style, since there were only a couple of options available to them in New York at the time. Every day he’d schlep over the Williamsburg Bridge, from the Lower East Side of Manhattan to the yeshivah, and it was there that he got to know the Malach – “the angel.”

The Malach was a nickname for Rabbi Avrohom Dovber Levine, who was also a story unto himself. He was originally a respected figure within the Chabad community in Russia, but parted ways with it, before coming to America in the ‘20s. For a time, he taught some of the yeshivah students from Torah Vodaas, and attracted a following among them. While some of their peers assimilated and stopped keeping Shabbat, Rabbi Levine’s students remained very observant. They began to dress in a distinctive Chasidic style, with long peyot, long coats, with the brims of their hats turned up – the whole nine yards. All of this was very unusual in America at the time; normally people just wore suits and fedoras with the brim down; and so people began to call them “the Malachim” – the angels. After Rabbi Levin passed away in 1938, they stuck together.

My father hung onto this little Chasidic group, or as we called them, the “gang.” Eventually they got a building of their own, with space for a yeshiva and a little synagogue – a shtiebel – in Williamsburg. By the time he married my mother in 1941 and started a family, he was a full-fledged Malach. He would go to that shtiebel, and had a custom to stay there late on Thursday nights, studying Torah. (more…)

In 1955, I became the principal of Bais Yaakov of Boro Park, a religious girls’ school, and in the sixty years since, I’ve had the exciting job of raising the daughters of Israel in the traditional Jewish way.

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In those early years, I had a little office in our building on 45th Street, and people used to come in to schmooze. Once, Mr Rubashkin, a Chabad chasid who had children in our school, came by, and in the course of our conversation he suggested, “Why don’t you come to see the Rebbe?”

I don’t count myself as a Lubavitcher, but, there was no doubt in my mind that he was a great man, and I was very much interested in meeting with him. So, we set a date, and organized a little committee to go to the Rebbe.

It was about one o’clock in the morning when the four or five of us – faculty and supporters of the school – entered the Rebbe’s office. The Rebbe welcomed us very graciously. He struck me as a real gentleman, a continental European of the old school. We presented a few issues of concern and he addressed each of them in turn.

When he started talking, I realized that, though I had heard him deliver addresses to the public before, this was the first time I had heard him speak in conversation and respond to questions. It was obvious that he was brilliant – brilliant, but with two feet on the ground – and well thought out. Whatever we asked him, he gave clear, concise, and definite answers without hesitating or searching for words. There was also a lot of wisdom there, and sincerity too. No doubt, it was one of the outstanding experiences of my lifetime. (more…)

I always had a love and a longing for Judaism. I was a little girl from a traditional Conservative family, but when I would see Chasidic-looking people I would say, “Oh, they’re so beautiful,” like I wanted to be like them. When I grew up and got married, I lit Shabbat candles and kept a kosher home but I was not Shabbat observant.

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And then my brother Levi Reiter and his wife Raizel became Lubavitcher chasidim. Through them, I started coming to classes in Crown Heights every Sunday and then I became a lot more observant.

I went on to have three children, and before each of them was born, the Rebbe gave me a blessing for everything to be okay. At one point, he told me I would have tremendous nachas from my children, and as it turns out, they are all amazing, thank G-d.

But when my middle son, Yehoshua Leib, was one year old, he had his first seizure. The doctor felt it might have been caused by a fever, but then there was another mild seizure, maybe six months later. Apparently, he had a kind of seizure disorder. Then one night in 1981, when he was nearly three years old, I went in to check on him. Even in the dark, I could just tell something was wrong.

I turned on the lights and his face was blue. I don’t know how much time he had been in that state, but by the time I got there, he was totally limp and his breathing was very shallow. We picked him up and ran outside, hoping that the cold night air would revive him, but nothing did. We called the ambulance.

At the hospital, while the doctors were checking him out, they mentioned something, in this matter-of-fact way, about his paralysis.

“What?” I gasped. (more…)

When I moved there to set up a Chabad House in 1972, Berkeley was a very tumultuous place.

I found myself doing a lot of work with young people who had left home and somehow lost contact with their parents. I would get two or three calls a week from mothers saying, “My daughter is in an ashram somewhere. Can you try to get in touch with her?”

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I became so busy driving around to visit these people that I began taking my talit and tefillin along with me in my car, in case I got stuck someplace overnight. One Friday, as I was sitting in the Chabad House, I got a call from a Mr. Friedman.

Between sobs, Mr. Friedman told me that his daughter was on her way to Hawaii with a young man who was a born-again Christian. She had become attracted to him and to his new religion and they were staying together in a small town called Emigrant Gap, but just after Shabbat, they would be leaving for Hawaii.

“Please,” he says, “I beg you to go speak to her before she leaves.” Shabbat is a few hours away, but as he’s talking, I recall seeing a sign for Emigrant Gap on the I-80 interstate highway, past Sacramento. Not too far away, I think.

For some reason, I hear myself saying, “I’ll do my best.” I hang up and call my wife to say that I’m going to Emigrant Gap, near Sacramento. It’s about two hours away, so I’ll be able to make it back before Shabbat.

“Okay,” she reluctantly agrees. “But just remember that after Shabbat we’re having a special event in our house, so you need to make it back.

“No problem,” I say. (more…)

When I got engaged in 1971, I was very concerned. I was head over heels for my husband, who had recently become religious and was very dedicated to Torah study. Reuven was everything I wanted, and I would have followed him anywhere.

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But I knew that while my whole family was Orthodox, my in-laws in Detroit were Conservative and not very observant. I was a graduate of Bais Yaakov, a religious girls’ school, and hadn’t been around many secular people. Now I was hoping to build a traditional Jewish home, and felt frightened and worried that this could lead to tension between us. I wanted to be welcoming to my mother-in-law and it was important to me to have a close relationship with her, but I also came with my dukes up: “What happens when she starts questioning the way we choose to do things?” I thought to myself. “I want to be the one who decides what goes on in my home!”

So, when my husband and I had the opportunity to meet privately with the Rebbe before our wedding, this was the main issue I wanted to speak with him about.

Before we went, my husband’s friend from yeshivah kept telling us about the Rebbe’s greatness. I was nervous to go in as it was, but the things he was saying seemed over the top. (more…)