Three months ago, we published Rabbi Cohen’s description of his first encounter with the Rebbe in 1972. Here is his account of two subsequent audiences.

As an administrator and fundraiser for various institutions associated with the Sadigura community, I joined the recently appointed Sadigura Rebbe, Rabbi Avraham Yaakov Friedman, and a group of his chasidim on a trip to the United States. The year was 1980, and we were going to attend the wedding of the son of Reb Avraham Yosef “Monye” Shapiro, a leading Sadigura chasid as well as a relative of the Rebbe’s family. Reb Monye was a successful industrialist, as well as being politically active; later he would become a member of the Knesset for the Agudat Yisrael party.

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Upon arrival, I made contact with Rabbi Hodakov, secretary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I myself had met with the Rebbe before, but this time, I set up an appointment for the Sadigura Rebbe with the Rebbe. The two already knew each other, from the time that Rabbi Friedman lived in Crown Heights, while heading up the Sadigura study hall there, years before succeeding his father as Rebbe.

I invited Reb Monye to join us on the visit to the Rebbe’s court. As a wealthy businessman and a leading figure within Agudat Yisrael, he was close with the leaders of the Labor party (then Mapai) and was generally influential within Israel’s upper political echelon. The last time I had met with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I told Reb Monye, I promised to return with someone who could assist the Rebbe’s “Mihu Yehudi campaign” to legislate Halachic standards on questions of Jewish identity. He agreed and came along.

The meeting was a lovely, dignified affair, and it lasted for an hour and a half. For the most part, the Rebbe conversed with the Sadigura Rebbe and Reb Monye, although at the end, as we were heading for the door, he turned to me and expressed his appreciation for organizing the meeting.

Throughout their discussion, which was recorded and eventually released in print, they exchanged words of Torah and also touched on many matters of public interest.

One subject was that of natalist policies in Israel. The Rebbe observed that, on one hand, the Israeli government offered new immigrants an “absorption basket” valued at some thirty thousand dollars so as to encourage population growth from abroad. On the other hand, they were spending money on “family planning” initiatives in order to reduce the domestic birth rate, rather than increasing incentives for having more babies. (more…)

This story is an excerpt from the book My Story 1. Get your copy today at www.jemstore.com.

I was raised in South Africa, where my parents – who were not Jews but Christians, specifically Presbyterians – emigrated from England when I was nine. Eventually, after a lot of searching, I made my way to Israel and in 1965, at the age of twenty-five, I converted to Judaism.

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Shortly after my conversion, I got married. My husband was a Jewish psychiatrist at the Sha’ar Menashe Mental Health Center near Haifa, where I worked as a social worker. At first I was very enthusiastic about Judaism but after interacting with many non-observant Jews who questioned my observance, I became confused and riddled with doubts.

Fortunately, two years later, we moved to South Africa. There, I was able to restore my faith and my Torah observance after coming in touch with Chabad. This led to my desire to meet the Rebbe, which I first did in 1972.

In advance of that audience, I had written to the Rebbe. I had been told to limit my letter to one page, but I had so much to say and so much to ask that I wrote in very tiny script to fit it all in. When I presented this one-page letter to the Rebbe, he actually took out a magnifying glass in order to be able to read it.

Among the many things I wanted to know was, “Can I really still count myself as a Jew?” I was worried that my lapse in observance had disqualified me somehow.

The Rebbe looked at me as if he was seeing through me. His eyes were so bright and full of light, I felt as if he was seeing my soul. And then he said – after noting that my conversion by the Haifa Rabbinical Court was sound in the eyes of Jewish law – “You most certainly can count yourself as a Jew. Indeed, you must. But how good a Jew you are going to be – that is up to you.”

I replied, “I want to be one completely.” (more…)

I was born in Yemen in 1944, and five years later my family emigrated to Israel. Our material circumstances were harsh; brought from one migrants’ camp to the next, we lived in tents that let in the winter rain. I remember once, in the middle of the night, that our entire tent simply flew off into a powerful storm, leaving us exposed to the rain.

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Nor were the spiritual conditions straightforward. There wasn’t yet a well-organized public religious education system, and so although we all came from observant homes, the authorities put us Yemenite children into classes combining boys and girls, with nonobservant teachers. Additionally, they attempted to draw us away from our faith. For example, they cut off our long peyot, under the pretext of a scalp ringworm outbreak. Once, they even tried to make us desecrate the Shabbat, but we refused and ran off. Eventually we left the school, and stayed home, where we received a traditional education.

In time, I attended the Porat Yosef yeshivah in Rechovot until 8th grade, before moving to another yeshivah high school in Kfar Haroeh. In my last couple of years there, Rabbi Yissachar Meir came to teach our class. He had been one of the first students of the well-known Ponevezh Yeshivah in Bnei Brak, and before joining us, he spent some three years in Morocco, setting up boys’ and girls’ Torah institutions.

Before our graduation, Rabbi Meir convinced our class to join him in forming the nucleus of a new yeshivah in Netivot which became known as the “Yeshivah of the Negev.” I ended up spending ten years there, through to 1968.

A year before that, in 1967, I got engaged and the question of where my wife and I would live came up. Of course, I wanted to remain in Netivot and continue my studies close to Rabbi Meir, to whom I had become attached. But my wife wanted to be in Rechovot so that she could live near her parents and help care for her sick mother. Having learned in the Chabad institutions of Rechovot, she had a connection with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, as did Rabbi Meir. With his guidance, we decided to write to the Rebbe, seeking advice on our dilemma. (more…)

My father, Yankel Katz, was born in Mogilev, Belarus, to a Lubavitcher family that moved to Chicago a few years later, in about 1905.

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He began working as a child laborer in a printing plant, and by the age of fifteen was the main provider for the Katz family since his father could not provide very well for them.

Although my grandfather parted ways with Chasidism, my father was dedicated to the community, and became an outstanding member of Congregation Anshei Lubavitch, an elegant synagogue that was one of four Lubavitcher shuls in Chicago at the time. He was also a friend of great rabbinic leaders, and as a young man in the 1920s, he would correspond and donate money to the great rabbis of Europe, like the Chafetz Chaim and Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski.

In 1929, the Previous Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, visited Chicago and my father was fortunate enough to make his acquaintance. There, in the Lubavitcher shul, began a close and dear friendship. My father was smitten with the Rebbe’s charisma, his manner, and his friendship. (more…)