Mr. Amram Malka
We came to Israel from Casablanca when I was five, and for the first seven years, we lived in a migrant camp in Pardes Chana. My twin brother Eliyahu Moshe and I studied in a government school, but when our parents realized how far it was from traditional Judaism, they moved to Bnei Brak, where we received a proper Torah education. When we graduated from the school in Bnei Brak, they sent us to the Chabad yeshivah in Lod and then to Kfar Chabad.
In those yeshivot, the children of Yemenite and Moroccan families learned alongside the sons of old-stock Russian Chabad families. And so did we discover the world of Chabad, imbibe its spirit, and eventually adopt its way of life as devoted chasidim of the Rebbe. That is why it was only natural that I joined a group of students who were going to study in New York, in the Rebbe’s court – a program known today as “kvutzah.”
When we arrived in 1965, I was thrilled to be the first member of the Malka family to ever visit the Rebbe. A few weeks later, after Rosh Hashanah, a friend of mine asked me whether I could help build the Rebbe’s sukkah. “But no looking around, and no questions,” he warned me. Of course, I agreed, while wondering to myself how I – a simple, wide-eyed yeshivah student – had landed the privilege of working for the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
First, we carried sukkah walls from the basement of 770 up to the second floor, which was where the Previous Rebbe had lived. There I met the Previous Rebbe’s wife, Rebbetzin Nechama Dina, for the first time. Until her passing in 1971, her son-in-law and her husband’s successor, the Rebbe, used to have meals during festivals in this apartment, and there, on the balcony, we built the sukkah that would host them.
Next, we built a sukkah at the Rebbe’s home on President Street – which was another first for me. The Rebbe’s wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, opened the door for us when we came, and after we finished working, she brought out some fruit and other treats. “You worked hard,” she explained, and encouraged us to partake. (more…)