Three or four months after I started studying in kollel, the rabbinical seminary where young married men go to study for a year or two, I was asked to see Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Aizik Hodakov, who was the head of the kollel and the Rebbe’s chief secretary. Rabbi Hodakov told me that he had a special mission for me that would take priority over everything else I was doing, even over my studies.

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The mission involved helping a young, seventeen year-old girl who was experiencing great emotional difficulties with teenage issues – rebelliousness, religious confusion, her home situation – the typical things that trouble teenagers. In her case though, these problems were quite severe. The Rebbe had taken an extraordinary personal interest in helping this girl through this stage in her life, and I was recruited to do what needed to be done.

For three or four months, I spent fifty percent of my time working on this issue. I didn’t do a single thing without consulting Rabbi Hodakov, who in turn would consult with the Rebbe and relay the Rebbe’s instructions how to deal with each particular situation.

This young girl often wrote to the Rebbe directly, and when the Rebbe responded, I was instructed to discuss his response with her. What I want to describe is one particular exchange that was absolutely extraordinary. (more…)

Rabbi Mottel Deitsch

With much gratitude to Hashem, the My Encounter with the Rebbe team is proud to announce that they have hit the milestone of 50 interviews conducted in our studio in the heart of Crown Heights! A special thanks to Haysha and Bassie Deitsch of Crown Heights for graciously donating the studio space. These testimonies would simply not have been recorded but for their generosity.

Interviews conducted in-studio feature a significantly reduced cost-per-interview, allowing us to conduct more critical interviews at a faster pace. Individuals from various backgrounds have been coming through the studio to share their encounters with the Rebbe – a number of them, many of them over the age of 80!

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In the late 1970s, I asked the Rebbe for a bracha to open a kosher restaurant, Mintz’s Buffet, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. At the time there was nothing glatt kosher there. They only had “kosher style.” The only real kosher place was Meal Mart on the West Side, and aside from that, there was nowhere an observant Jew could eat.

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When I first opened and people saw the glatt kosher sign and then saw that I was wearing a kippa, they said, “Young man, you’re wasting your time and money in this place. You belong on the Lower East Side.” But I said, “I appreciate your interest and advice but the success of the business depends on G-d.” dairy

The restaurant became a huge success. I did a lot of take-out and a lot of catering. People would often ask me for ice cream, to which I would reply, “The food is fleishig, so in the same meal we can’t have ice cream.” They said, “Okay, then we’ll buy our own ice cream.”

That’s when the seeds were planted in my head. I started to do research and finally decided to make non-dairy parve ice cream which I could sell with a fleishig meal. I read an article about tofu. I didn’t even know what tofu was at the time, and I went to Chinatown to buy it.

I started experimenting with it but at first I had little success and whatever I made, I had to throw out. During this time, whenever I met with the Rebbe I would mention what I was doing, and he would say to me, “You have to have faith. If you have faith in G-d, you can do wonders.” So I kept trying. (more…)

Forty-six years after Israel’s current President, Mr. Shimon Peres, met the Rebbe in a private audience at 770, he spoke about it on the record for the first time, sharing previously-unknown details about their conversations and correspondence.

It has long been known that the Rebbe received Peres for an audience in 770 during January of 1970, but it was largely unknown that his first meeting with the Rebbe took place four years earlier, in 1966.

Prior to interviewing JEM’s My Encounter with the Rebbe team conducted several months of research in New York and Israel. After learning about the two audiences, the team studied whatever details were available, uncovered photos of Mr. Peres’ at 770, as well as correspondence between the Rebbe and Peres.

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After conducting over 70 interviews in their new studio in the heart of Crown Heights, the My Encounter with the Rebbe team hit the road again! This time they decided to leave the confines of North America and headed south to the largest country in the Southern Hemisphere: Brazil.

In just four days in Sao Paulo, they managed to squeeze in twelve interviews with over 25 hours of video footage!

Some highlights from the trip:

Monday: The My Encounter team arrived in Brazil Monday morning, after taking a red-eye flight from New York. Wasting no time, they headed straight to the Escola Gani Chaya Mushka girls school to interview the dean of the both the boys and girls school, Rabbi Hirsh Leib Begun. He spoke about the early years in 770 in the late 1940s when he first met the Frierdiker Rebbe!

Mrs. Devora Blumenfeld came in special from Rio De Janiero for interview

Later that night, they interviewed Mr. Sacha Kalmus in his home, where he spoke about his special relationship with the Rebbe.

Tuesday: In the morning the team interviewed Mrs. Devorah Blumenfeld, who flew in special from Rio de Janeiro to tell her stories of her late husband, the Rav of Rio, Rabbi Yerachmiel Blumenfeld with the Rebbe. She has an incredible memory!

They then made their way to the house of Henry Sobel. A noted reform rabbi, Sobel emotionally spoke about his yechidus with the Rebbe in 1980, when his mother was ill.  Holding back tears, Sobel said, “The Rebbe was the greatest religious Jewish leader of our times”.

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A fascinating relationship between the Rebbe and Rabbi Avraham Yosef Leizerson, the Chairman of Chinuch Atzmai (the independent religious education system in Israel), was just discovered in a recent interview for JEM’s My Encounter with the Rebbe project.

In the interview, Rabbi Leizerson talks about his extensive relationship that he had with the Rebbe for over 20 years! He first met the Rebbe in the 1970s when he came to the Rebbe to discuss a variety of issues in Israel’s education system.

Over the years, Rabbi Leizerson held a wide range of jobs, ranging from the System Administrator for “Agudas Yisroel”, to the various public functions as a member of the Jerusalem City Council, to his duties as a senior member of Chinuch Atzmai.

In the interview, he also discussed the interesting relationship the Rebbe had with his late uncle, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, OBM.

In this week’s Living Torah, Rabbi Leizerson is featured, discussing an amazing story of Ruach Hakodesh with the Rebbe.

Thanks to a generous grant from Dovid and Malkie Smetana, in honor of Yud-Alef Nissan, the Rebbe’s 110th birthday, JEM’s My Encounter with the Rebbe team has built a studio to conduct interviews about the Rebbe’s interactions with individuals.

A recent interview in our new studio with Rabbi Moishe Goldman.

Since the studio was set up last week, interviews have been occurring around the clock, night and day. The Smetanas, another anonymous donor, and the My Encounter team were moved to take this step due to the pressing need to interview thousands of people – in particular “the older generation”– about their encounters and stories with the Rebbe before they are lost forever. The new studio allows them to conduct many more interviews now at shorter advance notice, and lower cost.

Their focus now is to interview local people living in the Crown Heights area or in the greater NY metropolitan area who they can bring into the studio. Sometimes, it’s a race against time.

You can help! You know someone that had an interesting experience or encounter with the Rebbe. Whether it is a parent, grandparent, an uncle, aunt, neighbor, business associates, or a cab driver. Let us know of it, so we can share it to the world!

To support the project through the dollar-per-interview campaign, email My Encounter’s director at: ycagen@jemedia.org.

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Rabbi Zusha Wolf coordinates the office of JEM in Israel. He is also the lead interviewer in Israel for our oral history project called My Encounter with the Rebbe. Recently, he received an interesting phone call.

Rabbi Zusha Wolf. The representative of JEM and lead interviewer in Israel.

The yeshiva student on the other end of the conversation told him about an older man that he recently met, who claimed to have met the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Y. Schneersohn, in 1929!

At that time the Previous Rebbe was on an international trip to raise Jewish awareness, strengthen Jewish communities and raise much needed funds for European Jewry. While in the Holy Land, he made a point to visit the “Holy Sites” of the land, i.e. the resting places of our holiest sages, etc. A story is told that the Previous Rebbe’s vehicle broke down on the road to Tzfat, and he was warmly welcomed in to someone’s home and served tea. Who was this family? Did this incident really happen?

The yeshiva student insisted that he met the man in whose home the Rebbe stayed! This led Rabbi Wolf to contact 90-year-old Aviv Kalar. Over the phone, Rabbi Wolf was impressed by the clarity and details of Mr. Kolar’s recollection, and the obvious authenticity of the encounter.

Mr. Aviv Kalar

On September 20, 2011, the My Encounter crew in Israel met Mr. Kalar in the small village of Rosh Pina (which is on the road up to Tzfat) at the home where he grew up, and where the Previous Rebbe stayed. Mr. Kalar, who was 10 years old when the Rebbe stayed in his family’s home, described the entire episode with specifics, details and great spirit!

In a break from the norm, the Rabbi Wolf and the My Encounter crew seized the opportunity to record Mr. Kalar outside of the interview chair.  In a documentary style, the My Encounter team filmed on the street, as Mr. Kalar pointed out where different parts of the story took place.

We are very happy to add this piece of oral history to our library.  As the subjects get older, and the memories shorter, this recording of a youthful and healthy 92-year-old at the scene of the historical event, was a special opportunity.

The My Encounter with Rebbe project is now in a campaign to record 1000 individuals who have had special and meaningful encounters with the Rebbe, in order to preserve and share the oral history that affects ours and future generations.

The My Encounter project is looking forward to using the footage in a future project.

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Recently the My Encounter with the Rebbe team interviewed Rabbi Avraham Friedman of Coral Springs on their trip to South Florida.

Here he shares a powerful story when he was a child in the 1970s when he davenend with the Rebbe on Yom Kippur.