Monthly Archives: November 2022

My father was a wanted man in the Soviet Union. In 1936, after years of narrowly evading arrest for the crime of promoting Jewish observance, he fled and arrived in Israel. He settled in Ramat Gan, where he helped found the “Sukkat Shalom” synagogue and served as its rabbi. When he passed in 1960, his will included a request that I be chosen as his successor. I was only eighteen and a half years old at the time, shortly after receiving rabbinic ordination from a few prominent Israeli rabbis, among them Rabbi Shlomo Zevin.

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About three months later, I received a letter from the Rebbe, in which he expressed his condolences and support to myself and the rest of my family. I also heard from others that the Rebbe would ask about our welfare during those years, showing particular concern for my younger unmarried sisters.

In that same letter, the Rebbe encouraged me to keep the Chabad traditions of our shul; most of the congregants at that time were not Chabad chassidim, and had asked to omit the recital of the Tachanun prayer from Mincha, the daily afternoon service, as per the Sefard prayer rite. In this context, the Rebbe spoke of the special quality of Mincha, which made it an especially opportune time for the recitation of the Tachanun.

Beyond the customs of our shul, the Rebbe also took a keen interest in my official election to succeed my father as the rabbi of his synagogue, and he even worked behind the scenes to help in that regard. In several letters to Rabbi Zevin from that period, the Rebbe urged him to exert “all of his influence, with the utmost energy and strength,” toward this end.

Just before Rosh Hashanah of that year, my appointment was made official. Despite the many pressing matters weighing on him, the Rebbe took time out of his schedule on the day before Rosh Hashanah to write to the legendary mayor of Ramat Gan, Mr. Avraham Krinitzi, to personally thank him for the decisive role he played in my appointment. (more…)

There are two kinds of moshavim – Israeli agricultural settlements. A small portion of them were founded before the State of Israel by non-observant Jews; the majority, however, were founded by religious immigrants from Arab countries or by Romanian and Hungarian Jews, after 1948

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For many years, I have served as the rabbi of the Moshavim Movement, an organization once associated with the non-religious Mapai party that helped found many of these settlements in Israel. While the religious Zionist HaPoel HaMizrachi helped found perhaps 70 settlements, there are 270 Mapai moshavim. In the early days, the difference between these two groups was that the religious Zionist ones didn’t have enough money, but they did have synagogues and Torah scrolls. Meanwhile, the Mapai moshavim had more money, but not enough synagogues and not enough Torah scrolls.

So, in approximately 1960, I went to America, where there were many defunct synagogues, to collect some of their Torah scrolls for the moshavim. At the time, I was also involved with the Histadrut, Israel’s main labor union, as well as the editor of Machanayim, a magazine published by the IDF chaplaincy.

When my brother, Pinchas Peli, heard about my trip, he arranged for Rabbi Berel Levy to come pick me up from the airport. “You’re coming to my house for dinner,” Berel told me, “and then we are going out. I’ve arranged an audience for you with the Rebbe.”

That is how, just a few hours after my arrival, I came to 770, and at about 2:30 AM I went into the Rebbe’s room.

“You are Rabbi Menachem Hacohen?” asked the Rebbe. “I thought there were a few of you: One of them is the editor, one of them the Histadrut rabbi, and another the author!” (more…)

I was a child of the Depression, born in 1933, to a non-Orthodox household in New York. I attended medical school and went on to work at several hospitals throughout the city, becoming chief resident in general surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, as well as in academic surgery and private practice.

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My connection with the Rebbe began in 1954 after my engagement to my wife Gladys – her grandfather was Rabbi Menachem Mendel Cunin, a prominent chasid, and her parents were close with the Rebbe’s family. Being exposed to the world of Chabad, and the Rebbe in particular, was quite a revelation.

Gladys and I would join her parents to visit the Rebbe’s wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, and eventually I met the Rebbe independently. There were several occasions where I met him on the sidewalk and we stopped to talk. Later on, there were many times when the Rebbe, through his secretary or an invitation to his office, would question me on various medical matters that people had presented to him.

When my office was in downtown Brooklyn, the Rebbetzin would call to invite me over for cake and tea in the afternoon, if I wasn’t busy. The Rebbetzin’s cakes, I have to say, were a treasure; I know they were store-bought, but I have yet to find the store that made them. One afternoon, time flew by, and I was probably there for close to two hours. As I was getting ready to leave, she said, “My husband is coming home,” which I took as a cue to make my exit. (more…)

This story is an excerpt from the book My Story 2: Lives Changed. Get your copy today at www.jemstore.com.

My story begins at the University of Maryland, where I was studying engineering and where I was first introduced to Chabad. Although my parents weren’t religious, I had grown up in a traditional Jewish atmosphere, and I had gravitated to other Jews at the university, occasionally participating in Hillel House programs. It was there, in 1964, that two graduate students named Larry Levine and Joel Sinsky suggested that I explore Chabad.

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I had no idea what Chabad was, what Lubavitch was, but I felt very empty inside – something within me was yearning to be satisfied – and I followed their suggestion to go to New York for Shavuot, when we celebrate receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. Arriving at the Chabad Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway, I sensed the excitement in the air, as though it was only ten minutes ago that G-d gave the Torah to the Children of Israel.

I was warmly welcomed in the home of Rabbi Yossel Goldstein, where I spent the holiday. I found it to be an amazing experience. I remember sitting at the holiday table while Rabbi Goldstein spoke words of Torah and feeling that something very mystical was going on. He said that every soul comes down into this world with a mission to fulfill, and wherever you find yourself is not an accident, but an act of Divine Providence – you are supposed to be right there. (more…)

I was born in Poland, in 1929, into a family connected to the Belz and Dinov chasidic courts. When the war broke out, I was ten years old, and on the same day the Germans invaded, we were expelled into the Soviet Union, and eventually wound up in Irkutsk, deep in the frozen Siberian taiga.

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One day, a young bearded man appeared at the door of our home, to propose that I join an underground yeshivah. My parents, who did all they could to provide their children with a Torah education, even under those trying circumstances, leapt at the opportunity. That young fellow was a Chabad chasid.

Eventually after the war, we emigrated to Israel in 1950. There, I became reacquainted with Chabad, attending a Tanya class as a young man. After my military service, I went into journalism and again encountered Chabad, when I got to know Reb Berke Wolf, who served brilliantly as the movement’s spokesman in Israel.

In 1971 I visited the United States, still working as a journalist, but under the auspices of the Israeli foreign ministry, and put in a request to make a stop at Chabad headquarters.

Arriving at 770 at the appointed hour, I was informed by the Rebbe’s secretary that a quarter of an hour had been set aside for my meeting. The Rebbe then received me in his room with a smile, and invited me to sit. We ended up speaking much longer than fifteen minutes.

It had been four years since the Six Day War, and the Rebbe expressed his surprise that the Israeli government was not annexing Chevron. “There are several properties in Chevron that belonged to my predecessors,” he said, “and I would like the government to work towards recovering them.” (more…)