Page 115 – Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters (2024)

Members of Lubavitch World Headquarters are shocked and saddened bythe tragic car accident that claimed the life of Toby Eagle, 21, of Baltimore, MD, who was traveling to visit former campers in Camp Gan Israel of Myrtle Beach, SC.

Maital Habusha, from Brooklyn, NY, was grievously injured in the crash and is listed in critical condition at MUSC Medical Center Hospital in Charleston. A third passenger in the car, Chani Goldstein of Brooklyn, NY, was unhurt.

"Our hearts go out to the tragically bereaved family of Toby Eagle. We fervently pray for the complete and speedy recovery of the injured," Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky said in a statement from Lubavitch Headquarters.

Toby and Chani, who had been counselors at Camp Gan Israel of Myrtle Beach, "always talked about their campers. They wanted to surprise them on their last day of camp," Ora Goldstein, Chani's mother, told Lubavitch.com. The three young women set out for South Carolina from Toby's home in Baltimore.

Mrs. Goldstein remembered Toby as "an amazing girl, sweet, bubbly." Toby studied in a women's seminary in Jerusalem's Old City and wanted to become a medical researcher.

On this Shabbat eve, prayers are being said by Chabad centers worldwide in memory of Toby and for the recovery of Marcel Maital bat Bella.

After successfully meeting 425 rigorous criteria, Chabad of South Carolina received word yesterday that its school is the first in the state to receive a prestigious accreditation.

For fourteen months, Columbia Jewish Day School administration, teachers, board and parents worked toward the goal of obtaining the seal of approval from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

The school already received NAEYC’s previous accreditation, based on its fulfillment of 120 criteria. In 2006, NAEYC reformed its standards, and CJDS is the first school in the state, and among a handful in the United States, to meet the new goals.

Plowing hundreds of extra hours into the process yielded positive results for current and prospective students, according to school principal Rabbi Meir Muller.

“It made teaching a much more reflective process. We are all more aware of why we do what we do.”

NAEYC accreditation opens doors to parents who weigh the school against the high standards of University of South Carolina’s school, also in Columbia.

“We have to present positive secular credentials before parents will consider sending children to our school,” said Rabbi Heshy Espstein, who has co-directed Chabad of Columbia with his wife Chavi for two decades. Receiving the nod from NAEYC also gives CJDS a boost as it kicks off a capital campaign for its new building.

To qualify, the school completed an exhaustive 400-page study, compiled student portfolios, assembled hundreds of individual files, and passed a thorough inspection in May.

NAEYC’s standards evaluate the gamut from sweeping philosophical approaches and teachers’ degrees in early childhood education to schedule for sanitizing classroom toys. Success depended on “everyone buying into the process, families, teachers and our board,” said Rabbi Muller.

Pulling together for a common goal is an aspect that distinguishes Columbia’s Jewish community. They share space, holidays, and fundraisers: CJDS’s classrooms are housed in the educational wing of the city’s conservative synagogue. Rabbi Epstein lit the candles at the JCC’s Chanukah party. During the community’s Israel Bonds Dinner, rabbis from all synagogues divvy up benediction and invocation honors.

Proceeds from the Chabad’s fundraising auctions were shared with the JCC, and the local federation offers some support to the school. “We are all part of the same family,” said Jennifer Kahn, president of the CJDS board. With only 3,000 Jews in Columbia, “the size of the community makes cooperation necessary.”

That commitment to unity will not end with the construction of the new CJDS building. It’ll be built on the JCC campus.

“The idea is to grow the pie, not divide it up into smaller pieces,” said Rabbi Epstein.

CJDS’s student body reflects Chabad’s acceptance by the wider community. Of the school’s 100 students, Rabbi Epstein estimates 65% attend the conservative synagogue, 8% are members of the reform temple, and the rest are either members of Chabad or unaffiliated.

Shep Cutler, an engine behind the fundraising effort for the new building, sees Rabbi Epstein’s and Rabbi Muller’s “charisma and understanding” as the driving factor behind Chabad’s integration in the community.

“Because of their personalities, I can go to people for a contribution who do not go to the synagogue. It’s been a joy.”

Kahn said she’s glad her children Abby, 6, and Emily, 4, both CJDS students, are growing up with Chabad’s representatives in Columbia as role models.

“They are more welcoming than people expect them to be. It’s been healing and instructive for people to see that.”

They are the founders of the wildly successful Friendship Circle with numerous chapters in 20 cities across the country and growing fast.

Yesterday, Shmais.com reported that that Rabbi & Mrs. Levi & Bassie Shemtov of West Bloomfield, MIhave been chosen as one of this year's recipients of the Manhattan Institute Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

The Manhattan Institute Award for Social Entrepreneurship honors non-profit leaders who have found innovative, private solutions for America's most pressing social problems.

The award, along with a check of $25,000 for the Friendship Circle will be presented to the Shemtovs at the institutes annual dinner that will be held in October in Manhattan.

By now, Bracha Sara Leeds’s degree from UC Berkeley would have paved her way to medical school. But she’s chosen a different road: life as a Chabad representative on her alma mater’s campus.

Raised in the So Cal bedroom community of Woodland Hills, CA, Leeds isn’t the product of a home steeped in Lubavitch teachings. She didn’t attend a yeshiva. It wasn’t until college that she became involved with Chabad. Yet as of June 11, she and her husband Rabbi Gil Yosef Leeds landed at UC Berkeley as Chabad reps.

The Leeds ought to be an anomaly, but they are not. Out of the crop of 4000 Chabad representatives a guesstimate 10 percent grew up outside of Chabad homes. They chose Chabad leadership life not out of familial tradition but because they are the spiritual children of the Chabad movement. In some countries, like Argentina, the numbers are much higher. Chabad’s senior representative of Argentina, Rabbi Tzvi Grunblatt, told Lubavitch.com that 70% of his fourteen centers are led by couples where at least one spouse was not raised in a Lubavitch home. “Most of our shluchim are homegrown,” he said.

Alumni of Barnard, Stanford, and other prestigious universities form a plurality among this category of Chabad leaders. Before Gil Yosef Leeds earned his rabbinical degree, he was on his way to a degree in psychology from UC Berkeley, which tied with Princeton in U.S. News and World Report’s 2006 ranking of universities nationwide. For Rabbi Leeds, college was the gateway to his calling.

“In Berkeley, there’s no kosher meal plan and Shabbos was tough to keep, so it was either sink or swim,” he said. Stuck for a place to live while at school, Rabbi Leeds rented an apartment at the Berkeley Chabad. Having attended preschool at Chabad of Tarzana, CA, Chabad’s Camp Gan Israel, and Jewish day schools, he was familiar with Chabad. But his closeness with Chabad of Berkeley’s Rabbi Yehuda and Miriam Chaya Ferris had him realign his career goals.

Opting in to life as Chabad Shluchim means opting out of a life of affluence, the nice house, new cars and vacations. Parents ask: “Do you think $100 bills land on your doorstep?” They alternately marvel at their children’s prowess as teachers, leaders, crisis counselors, and worry about the stress they endure.

It took time for Rabbi Leeds’s father Steve to adjust to his son’s decision. “I thought he wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer, and I wanted to know from him what happened to his original intentions,” he said, “but I was inspired by his and Bracha’s commitment together to this mission and the vision that they have for creating the possibility of an enriched Jewish life in Berkeley.”

For Perel Hodakov, her decision to seek a position as a Chabad representative was an act of coming full circle. Though she grew up in a modern orthodox home, her father’s extended family members are lifelong Lubavitchers, as was her grandfather. “I always liked these relatives. I was always in awe of the ones who lived in South Africa and Australia. They were always alive with purpose,” said Hodakov, now co-director of Chabad of Westville, CT. Admiration of Chabad representatives themselves, more than inventive programming or, initially, than intellectual forays in Chasidic philosophy, appears to be the deciding factor for taking the road to Chabad leadership.

Hodakov’s own experiences broaden the common ground between her and the community she serves. Aviva Andrusier of Chabad of Columbus, OH, agrees. She feels comfortable with Jews on a spiritual journey having lived through her parents’ transition from proud but non-observant Jews to involved Chabad devotees. “I understand them, because I saw all the stages,” she said.

Aside from empathy, becoming a Chabad leader from a non-Chasidic background has its practical advantages. In the Leedses’ search for an apartment near UC Berkeley, they already knew which side of campus would be most convenient for students to reach. In addition, the Leeds still have access to their UC Berkeley email addresses, raising the comfort quotient with UC students from day one.

On the other hand, not growing up Lubavitch comes with its challenges. “I wasn’t raised in a family where we hosted dozens of people every Shabbos,” said Hodakov.

Even considering the lack of family network and Chabad House know-how, Rabbi Grunblatt said that in his experience, a representative’s background plays less of a role in his or her success than commitment.

“What counts more is spirit and humility,” he said.

The toughest challengefor the new Chabad representatives to Santa Fe, in Santa Fe province, Argentina, isto gentlydispel mistaken notions about Jewish identity pervasive to this community of 1500 Jews.

“Assimilation here is very high, and we have a lot of people of mixed marriages harboring misconceptions about Jewish identity,” Rabbi Yair Vassershten told Lubavitch.com.

Since coming here from Buenos Aires by the invitation of Rabbi Shlomo Tawil, Chabad’s representative to Rosario, Rabbi Vassershten and his wife Debby have been received with warmth and even gratitude by people on the street and in their places of business, where Vassershten goes to seek them out.

The people here are remarkably “absorbent,” he says, describing their openness to yiddishkeit, despite so much misinformation.

Rabbi Vassershten has been going door to door, introducing himself. “Many are telling me that they feel so good to know that someone finally cares about their spiritual life.” One non-Jew approached the rabbi, and upon learning why he was there, said that he wished his priest would come knocking at his door too.

At least as far back as anyone seems to remember, this community has never had an Orthodox rabbi, which may explain why Judaism here is perceived and defined arbitrarily, as a matter of personal feelings.

With intermarriage rates hovering well over 60%, the young Chabad couple must straddle a delicate line, reaching out to people while at the same time, breaking painful halachik facts to them, such as that their children may not be Jewish.

It’s sensitive, it’s difficult and sometimes, it comes as a shock to people who insist that they feel Jewish. But in cases where matrilneal descent cannot be established, Vassershten does not mince words.

“We will do whatever we can to reach out to a Jew who may be in a mixed marriage,” explains Vassershten. “But we need to be very clear about how Judaism defines a Jew.”

If the truth hurts, as it surely must in many such instances, people nonetheless seem to appreciate that theShluchim approach them with respectful honesty.

Estela Ribak, 57, whose business is on the same block as the Vassershten’s apartment that now doubles as a Chabad House, told Lubavitch.com that she feels “so thankful to Deborah. Every Friday afternoon I come to her house to light Shabbat candles. I don´t know if it is the smell of the Challahs coming out of the oven, or the light of the candles, but it became a very special moment for me.”

The Shabbat minyan that Rabbi Vassershten started only four weeks ago, now draws 30-plus people. More are becoming acquainted with Jewish practices, especially tefillin.

One individual, 59 years old, accepted Rabbi Vassershten’s offer to wrap tefillin. The last time he did it was 46 years ago, at his Bar Mitzvah, he told his new Chabad rabbi.

The new representatives will extend their outreach to small pockets of Jews in the surrounding towns of the Santa Fe province.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 29, 1963

LUBAVITCH INAUGURATES JEWISH BOOKMOBILE

NEW YORK (LNS) – The Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Lubavitcher movement, announced that its publications department has inaugurated the use of a Jewish Bookmobile, another first in the pioneering educational projects of the Merkos.

The Merkos publications department, which publishes Jewish educational literature in twelve languages, is the largest Jewish organizational publishing house in the world. Its bookmobile will carry a complete library of Merkos publications and other books of Jewish interest, along with various Jewish religious articles.

The vehicle was converted from a large bus into a mobile library, bookshop and reading room, with bookstacks, chairs and tables. It will also serve as a rather unique Jewish information center and synagogue. A tefillin booth has been specially partitioned for use in instructing anyone requesting instruction on the use of tefillin (phylacteries).

The mobile unit will visit Hebrew schools, day schools, Jewish educational institutions and various neighborhoods so that as many people as possible will be able to avail them­selves of its facilities. It will also visit outlying Jewish communities, where Jewish bookstores are often sparse.

Visitors will be able to browse the bookshelves while listening to stimulating Lubavitch melodies of the Chabad-Lubavitch recordings.

The University Campus Educational Programs sponsored by the Lubavitch Youth Organization, will also benefit from this new project. The youth organization is sponsoring a series of lectures on Chabad-Lubavitch philosophy in various universities, and the bookmobile which will be able to drive up on the college campus and will bring most of the available Chassidic literature to the students doorstep.

This new project was introduced as part of the new Merkos expansion program in conjunction with the 150th anniversary year of the passing of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, spirited by the present world leader of the Lubavitch movement, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson.

Mod design, eco colors and a spiritual message allow FridayLight kits to cross into new frontiers, program director Rabbi Ari Baitelman told Lubavitch.com. Inside each kit are four tea lights, matches, a guide and necklace. “It doesn’t look like your grandmother’s Shabbos candles.”

For nearly four decades Chabad has been urging Jewish women to light Shabbat candles. The practice ushers in the Sabbath and may be understood on many spiritual levels. Bringing tranquility to the home and a spark of light to a world rife with metaphorical darkness are among the reasons cited by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, for lighting the candles. The Lubavitcher Rebbe initiated the campaign to spread the observance in the 1970s, and it has reached a worldwide audience.

Rabbi Baitelman rattled off a list of those who’ve ordered the kits outside of the usual Chabad circles. Among them, Sinai Temple, a prominent conservative synagogue in southern California, which bought 1000 for inclusion in their Purim packages. A woman about to undergo a surgery for cancer purchased several dozen of the $1 kits for her friends and relatives to use as they prayed for her recovery.

Another bulk order came in from the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts. They became part of a pack handed out to 150 families participating in the Rekindle Shabbat program in Springfield, North Hampton and Amherst. The program brings families together to share four Shabbat meals throughout the year. Coordinator Chava Edelman chose FridayLight kits because of their design and the explanatory materials that explained the spirit behind the deed.

“The whole image lets you see lighting Shabbat candles as something that goes with your life.” She tucked them in among the Kiddush cups, kippas, challah covers and other paraphernalia and got good feedback. “They’re so much more appealing than flimsy candlesticks.”

By reinventing the look and feel of an age-old mitzvah, Chabad is working to pump up the numbers of women who light Shabbat candles each week. A 2005 study of the Greater Boston Community by the Steinhardt Social Research Institute found that Shabbat candles are always lit in 18% of the 3000 households surveyed. In contrast, Chanukah candles are always lit by 68%. Given Boston’s solid Jewish infrastructure and relatively strong numbers of traditional Jews in the area, it’s likely that Shabbat candle-lighting rates elsewhere are lower.

To combat the low stats, Chabad added two new tools to the kit: a website and a necklace. Both aim to nurture a community of candle-lighting women.

FridayLight.org’s pages include a space for women to share their candle-lighting experiences, essays by women around the world, and map of the U.S. and Canada with a flickering candle icon for every city with a registered user. By registering at FridayLight.org users are notified of weekly Shabbat candle-lighting times, eighteen minutes before sunset, via email or text-message. So far, 5000 women have signed up.

The necklace’s pendant, a Picasso-esque hand looped ‘round a flame, has already worked its charms. Chana Tiechtel, a Chabad representative in Tempe, AZ, handed FridayLight kits out to the students at a program in Arizona State University and to girls at Camp Gan Israel. Shortly afterward, an ASU student reported back that she’d been approached by one of Tiechtel’s campers at the mall because the two were both wearing their FridayLight necklaces.

Instances like this have Tiechtel eager to find more venues to hand out the kits. Friends of hers have used the kits as bat mitzvah favors and at their daughters’ third birthdays, the age young girls first light Shabbat candles. She’s thinking of handing them out to AEPhi sorority sisters who’ve invited her to talk at the beginning of next semester and envisions them fitting right in at a “Spa for the Soul” event.

FridayLight kits, said Tietchtel, “make the mitzvah more versatile because they are done so beautifully.”

Few overnight camp directors could have missed a small news item about a whopping 11.2 million dollar gift to the Federation of Jewish Camp (FJC) last week.

The grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation will “provide financial incentives to Jewish pre-teens in target communities west of the Rockies to enroll for the first time in Jewish nonprofit overnight camps,” said the press statement on the FJC website.

Echoing a sentiment of so many who’ve known this intuitively, even before studies confirmed the long term benefits to Jewish continuity that come from a 24/7 Jewish immersion experience, Al Levitt,Jim Joseph Foundation president, said, “Jewish camping is one of the keystones for connecting these youngsters to the Jewish community."

The FJCmission statement and other information with illustrative graphs on the website, confirm its commitment to Jewish camping as aneffective means of enhancing Jewish affiliation and Jewish identity.

With a constituency of over 130 non profit Jewish camps, the FJC, to its credit,is helping a lot of Jewish kids who might not otherwise afford it, the chance to spend a summer, or a few weeks of the summer, at a Jewish camp.

WhenI clicked on “find a camp” I found an interesting menu offering me a choice of everything from “Lubavitch”—once again, Chabad seems to defy categorization—to Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Secular, Cultural and more.

And then there was a choice of dietary preferences. This included Kosher, Kosher Availability, Kosher Style and Not Kosher.

Maybe this shouldn’t surprise, but then, if the FJC is doing what it does to “increase Jewish practice” among other Jewish identity-building points, it behooves a miminal standard that would require, at the very least, that camps serve only kosher food to be eligible for FJC support.

No?

In an interesting news item published by the University of Manchester, a recent study finds that the ultra-Orthodox Jewish population will constitute a majority of Jews by the year 2050.

The study looked at population growth in the United Kingdom, with similar patterns confirmed for Israel and the United States, showing that every 20 years, the ultra-Orthodox population doubles in size.

That’s not enough, though, to turn the almost negative growth rate of the Jewish population around, any time soon. For that to happen, larger families may well need to start showing up among a much wider Jewish demographic. Maybe that’s why the Lubavitcher Rebbe granted so many the blessing of children, and encouraged the desire for large families.

Jewish continuity, he insisted, depended on Jewish children first.

But the concern is broader yet. From a Jewish perspective, ensuring positive human population growth is a moral imperative. “Be fruitful and multiply” is the particular mitzvah given to the Jewish people. But the Torah applies the mitzvah to populate the earth with human life, to humankind at large.

It was developed as an educational program that would provide adults in Jewish communities the essentials of Jewish literacy. Since its establishment several years ago, the Rohr JLI (Jewish Learning Institute) has become the largest adult learning program of its kind, operating multi-linguallyin over200 cities andaround the world.

Now,one university, the Lauder Business School inViennahas integrated theJLI track into itsJewish Leadership Program, with 80 of its students having recently completed the course..

The students, an international group from Austria, Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria and other countriestraining at the Jewish Leadership Program, a unique academic program that offers high achieving students the opportunity to earn an EU degree in applied sciences or business education,alsoparticipate in a double concentration on Jewish philosophy and ethics.

Led by Rabbi Shaya Boas and instructed by a team of JLI-trained teachers, 20 of the students studied JLI’s course “From Sinai to Cyberspace” during the twice-weekly, two-hour sessions. Student assignments and exams were part of the curriculum and at the recent graduation ceremony, diplomas were issued to the students with an 80% passing grade.

The course was a real eye-opener for the students, says Rabbi Boas. “Many of them were under the impression that the level of sophistication in Jewish learning is similar to the rather primitive theology in other religions. They did not just gain knowledge; they gained respect and honor towards Jewish studies. This along with other factors led to an actual increase in practical Mitzvos.”

The university has also successfully taught JLI’s “You be the Judge” course and plans to offer its students two more JLI courses in the upcoming fall semester.

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It’s not the first time that Chabad representatives are setting up home in the vacation villages of the world. But it’s always a curious juxtaposition, so Cancun’s Jewish community of 200 is embracing the new Chabad representatives to this island resort on the northeastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, with sunny delight.

"We're very excited," the president of Cancun's Jewish community, Samuel Rovero, said in a press release issued by Chabad. "We truly believe that it is better for the community to have a spiritual and religious authority."

Cancun’s local Jewish population is small—numbering only about 200, but the resort town sees thousands of Jewish vacationers annually.

Rabbi Mendel and Rachel Druk, who arrived three weeks ago with their baby girl, will address the needs of both. The young couple is exploring their new environment, hitting the malls to introduce themselves and invite people to their new home.

They’ve set up a website, www.jewishcancun.com where visitors and locals will learn about the programs and services, including those for the high holidays, that Chabad will offer.

In an interesting architectural improvisation, a precise replica of Jerusalem’s Western Wall is coming to Berlin’s 12,000-member Jewish community. The replica, 100 square meters of imported Jerusalem stone, will be installed in the city’s new $8.2 million Jewish community center.

According to Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, Chabad representative to Berlin and executive director of the center, the architecture is a reflection of the center’s philosophy that looks to the future while building upon a long tradition.

Teichtal’s observation, and the idea of replicating a remnant wall from ancient Jewish times in an otherwise sleek structure with a blue glass window, calls to mind the post-modern architectural philosophy of liminality, associated with transitional spaces.

The new center’s design is the work of the highly regarded Russian-born, German architect Sergei Tchoban who designed the Berlin Aquadom, one of the world’s most unusual aquariums near Alexander Platz.

The center, already being used, will be formally dedicated at a ceremony on September 2nd.

Corkscrew willow branches twist in serpentine curves, quite an unusual wood to use for fence-building, but Aviva Spiegel selected itto create a gate around theChabad House of Eugene, OR. An offbeat choice, but a natural one for a woman who takes special pleasrein building bridges between Jews by defying typecasting.

“When people first approach our Chabad house, and they see that it is not very conventional, not what they would expect from a religious Jew, I am able to blow the stereotype a bit,” Aviva told Lubavitch.com.

Rabbi Asi and Aviva Spiegel arrived in Eugene in 2002, seeking a community as nonconformist as they are. Two hours south of Portland, Eugene is as green as the 150,000 eco-loving organic foodies living there, and as liberal as it is isolated from a major metropolitan Jewish community. When locals and Jewish students at University of Oregon join a Chabad activity, the Spiegels are often the only observant Jews they’ve met. Aviva’s creative flair squelches fears that getting involved with Judaism quashes self-expression.

The daughter of a dermatologist, Aviva grew up in California, attended Jewish camps affiliated with the Reform movement. With high grades and scores, she easily snagged a spot in Stanford University. During college, an interest in alternative healing sparked Aviva’s spiritual journey. Mind-body-soul connections evident in Chinese medicine, India’s Ayurvedic therapies led Aviva on a quest to find the Jewish way of healing. On a grant from Stanford, Aviva traveled to Israel for research. The number of religious Jews in Israel involved in alternative medicine staggered her. “How could such conservative people practice such far out medicine?” Her conclusion that Judaism sees emotional, physical and spiritual lives as a whole piqued her pursuit of Jewish knowledge.

Several years and yeshivas later, she married Rabbi Asi Spiegel. His unconventional background includes his upbringing in Israel, the son of a Bar Ilan University professor, and a reputation for being something of a folk musician, acoustic guitar and all. In their honeymoon years, the Spiegels lived in Brooklyn. Aviva planted a flowerpot garden on her balcony and painted it with a rainbow of butterflies and flowers. Neighbors noticed, commented kindly, but Aviva “felt like a fish out of water.” Moving to Oregon was more than a change of coasts.

“The whole Eugene is creative. I completely blend in, in that particular aspect.”

Aviva capitalizes on the benefits of living in a community where artsy isn’t a pejorative. At her classes for women, molding clay and homemade honey facials are as much a part of the curriculum as rabbinical commentaries. She uses the hands-on crafts to give participants a medium to “process what they have learned” and provide a physical vessel for the spiritual concepts.

At Chabad of Eugene, the atypical collides with the expected. Students are as likely to be bowled over by the front steps Aviva tiled in a colorful mosaic as they are by the Spiegels’ four young children. Fanciful artwork hangs alongside pictures of Chabad rabbis. Organic cookbooks share shelf space with volumes of Chasidic philosophy. Aviva figures the mix is a good primer for her community.

“If they were able to drop their preconceptions and get to know me,” said Aviva, “then they can have the same experience with other religious Jews if they give it a chance.”

Cut off shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops: Israeli backpackers in Thailand don’t shed their travel uniforms when they join Chabad for the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, and that suits Rabbi Yosef Kantor just fine.

“Come as you are Judaism,” at the Jewish Association of Thailand comes in many styles: as a taste of home ala hot pita served up in their Bangkok café and announcements about holiday services blasted from megaphones mounted on tuk tuk motor carts. But as summer numbers peak, Chabad draws a different, more contemplative crowd off the streets with a no-frills offer to commemorate the day of fasting and mourning known as “Tisha b’Av.”

Most who enter Bangkok Chabad’s doors on Tisha b’Av already know what they are looking for. As a day when eating, drinking, bathing, leather shoes are just the beginning of the off-limits lists for the day, Tisha bAv is not where most choose to start their exploration of Judaism. Israelis already aware of the traditions of the day stop in at Chabad for a chance to pray and to hear the reading of the Eicha, Lamentations, scroll.

“Religious observance is often habitual,” said Rabbi Kantor. When Israelis are in Thailand, “they have to deal with religion in their own mature terms. They have a chance to open up to new vistas.”

In Israel, the mood of the day that commemorates the destruction of the first and second Holy Temples in Jerusalem, the loss of sovereignty, death and exile that went with it, draws Jews from all factions toward the Western Wall. Today when Israel’s relationship with its land is tenuous, boundaries shifting in accord with political maneuvers, Tisha b’Av is stirring, emotional.

The power of the day tugs at Israelis all the way to Los Angeles. Seconds before speaking with Lubavitch.com, Rabbi Amitai Yemini of Chabad Israel Center flipped open his cell phone to answer a call from a secular Israeli who wanted to know when the fast began.

“They fast even if they don’t come to hear Eicha,” said Rabbi Yemini.

However, like most Israelis, Jews around the world are unaware of Tisha b’Av. The day lacks the glitz of Chanukah, the starring role of Yom Kippur, the unusual foods of Passover, the masquerade mystique of Purim. Matty Bryski of Chabad of Conejo devotes several sessions of her weekly classes to the day’s background and significance to address the lack of knowledge. It takes some telling, explaining why a temple destroyed nearly 2000 years ago should still capture of piece of the heart. To gain an edge, Mrs. Bryski takes class participants on a virtual tour of the Holy Temple via a computer simulation program.

Multimedia also plays a role at Chabad of Brooklyn Heights, NY. After a day of lectures and classes, a screening of the documentary “Paperclips” will cap Tisha b’Av activities, which are a joint effort between several area synagogues. That a group of adults who’ve gone without food and drink for nearly 25 hours would want to chill out with a movie is no surprise. What is out of the ordinary, though, is the 100 or so people who showed for Chabad’s Eicha reading.

“When it comes to sadness, people turn up to support each other,” said Rabbi Ari Raskin of Chabad of Brooklyn Heights. He anticipates that bigger crowds for Tisha b’Av may be a growing trend. “People used to wish each other an easy fast. Now they say, ‘have a meaningful fast.’ A lot of these rituals are become much more accessible, and much more practiced.”

Monday morning, at a shul in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, a Russian Jewish boy was called to the Torah in honor of becoming a Bar-Mitzvah.

Alex Tkach, still raw from his father’s passing three weeks ago, donned tefillin like his dad did shortly before his death, with the help of Rabbi Dovid Okunov.

“Igor –Alex’s father–wrapped tefillin with me just two months ago,” Rabbi Okunov told Lubavitch.com. Okunov is director of F.R.E.E., (Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe), the Chabad-Lubavitch outreach organization for Russian Jews.

Igor spoke to Rabbi Okunov of wanting to strengthen his Jewish commitment, and “he specifically expressed his desire to be careful about eating kosher.” He was concerned, says Okunov, that his son learn to live more fully as a Jew.

In his remarks to Alex and the guests, Rabbi David Halpern, spiritual leader of the Flatbush Park Jewish Center, spoke glowingly of the work of Lubavitch around the world and especially in the former Soviet Union, where he recently visited.

F.R.E.E.’s relationship with Alex’s family began when they arrived to the United States after the fall of communism in 1991. Thirteen years ago, when he was an eight-day old infant, Alex had his bris through F.R.E.E.

To learn more about F.R.E.E. visit their website at www.russianjewry.org

Chabad's slogan, "No Jew Left Behind," is gaining new currency with its recent investment of resources to a senior segment of the Jewish population, most recently with the opening of Chabad's Jewish Senior Center in South Broward.

A cultural and social services outfit, the Jewish Senior Center, under the directorship of Rabbi Moshe Kieveman is run by Chabad Chayil of Highland Lakes.

Geriatric professionals and volunteers will be on hand to service the seniors, and the center will involve them in a colorful offering of yiddish classes, health seminars, and nutritional programs. All of which, says Chabad of South Broward's executive director Rabbi Raphael Tennenhaus, will help this population thrive and become engaged in Jewish life.

Chabad of California today announced the acquisition of a 23,000 square foot building on La Cienega Boulevard that will become the new campus of the Cheder Menachem elementary school, named after the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson. Plans are underway for a full renovation and upgrade of the facility, which is located just south of Pico Boulevard in the heart of West Los Angeles' Jewish community.

“Today is the fifth day of the Hebrew month of Av, an auspicious date since it marks the passing of the Holy AriZal Chai, whose teachings continue to illuminate the path of the Jewish people during the dark days of exile,” said Rabbi Boruch S. Cunin, Director of West Coast Chabad. “It is a fitting day to announce this exciting development, which will benefit the children of our community as we create a wonderful new learning center for Cheder Menachem."

The spacious new facility on Pico Boulevard offers a convenient location with much potential for a growing educational institution. Rabbi Cunin noted that on this Hebrew date two years ago, Chabad purchased the beautiful 70-acre mountaintop campus in Running Springs that now serves as the site of the successful Camp Gan Israel Running Springs. The wooded property — renamed Kiryas Schneerson — is also the home of The Panikoff Center of Love and Kindness.

Recent years have brought remarkable change to Russia's citizens, especially to its Jews. But for the incarcerated segment of the country's population, change is moving at a snail's pace, if at all.

That may begin to change now that Russia's infamous IK-22 prison some 350 miles east of Moscow, will receive a gift that will give inmates jobs and help them adapt to society once they are released, says a JTA report.

The Russian Jewish Congress, the Federation of Jewish Communities and the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations are donating 33 machines for a new sewing facility in Russia's only prison camp for foreigners.

The JTA reports that according to a questionnaire sent to prisons this year, 242 Jewish prisoners are incarcerated in Russia. But, it goes on to say that Chabad's Rabbi Aron Gurevich of the Federation of Jewish Communities believes the number is probably closer to 1,000, with the disparity reflecting prisoners' reluctance to reveal their identity. "Many prisoners may not want to disclose their Jewish background, while some others may have falsely indicated they were Jewish in order to receive additional humanitarian aid from the Jewish community," the report attributes to Gurevitch.

With Chabad in the US in the vanguard of outreach to Jewish prisoners under its well established Aleph Institute, the trio may find themselves looking westward for inspiration and ideas in rehabilitating this neglected population.

In an exclusive interview with Lubavitch.com, Rabbi Yossel Kranz, executive director of Chabad of the Virginias, named the young couple who formally accepted the offer to head the new Chabad House opening next month at Virginia Tech.

Rabbi Elazar and Rivkah Bloom, both with advanced science degrees and Chabad outreach experience, tied up loose ends with Rabbi Kranz late on Sunday. Earlier in the week, an innkeeper chose Chabad’s bid for her bed and breakfast that stands a block from campus, to become the home of the new Chabad House, named for Liviu Librescu. The inkeeper gave V Tech Chabad six months to secure the funds to complete the purchase.

“It’s auspicious that we have ironed out the last of the wrinkles this evening—the eve of the beginning of the month of Menachem Av—a month symbolic of Divine blessings of healing and consolation,” Rabbi Kranz said.

When tragedy struck Virginia Tech last April, after a deranged students sprayed gunfire at students sitting in their classrooms, Rabbi Kranz pledged to open a Chabad center on campus to serve as a house of healing for Virginia Tech’s students, adding yet another to the 100-plus Chabad Houses on college campuses worldwide.

On their first tour of the campus, Rabbi Elazar, 31, and Rivkah Bloom, 25, noted orange and maroon banners that proclaim, “We will prevail” still dotting college grounds. In VT colors, they remind Blacksburg of that horrific day in April when student Seung-Hui Cho’s shooting rampage ended the lives of 32 people. Included in the carnage was Prof. Liviu Librescu, a Romanian-born Holocaust survivor, whose heroism during the shooting saved students’ lives and catapulted Chabad’s drive to open a campus center.

Prof. Librescu’s bravery became a source of much pride among the estimated 1,400 Jewish students at VT.

“They came out of the woodwork at that moment, and now many of them are really searching” for a way to understand that surge of Jewish feeling,” Rabbi Bloom told Lubavitch.com.

Both Blooms’ savvy mix of secular and religious qualifications makes their placement at V Tech a no-brainer. Rivkah Bloom earned her Bachelors and Masters degrees from MIT. Rabbi Bloom carries parchment from University of California, S. Barbara in Environmental Science, a rabbinical ordination, and – nearly – a Masters in Jewish education.

The Blooms’ offbeat background is where they really get interesting. Crosses planted alongside the road into Blacksburg reminded Rivkah of her childhood in Charlotte, NC, driving through the Bible Belt. Rivkah’s parents took steps toward greater Jewish observance after Rivkah attended Chabad summer camp in Detroit. Rabbi Bloom is also a child of the south, sort of. Raised in Florida, Elazar Bloom attended Hillel Day School of North Miami Beach. After graduating from a Jewish high school, he got to know Chabad during college and went on to study in yeshivas in Jerusalem, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. The Blooms cut their milk teeth as Chabad representatives in Milwaukee, where they assisted Rabbi Yisroel and Brocho Devorah Leah Shmotkin. Experiencing the Shmotkins’ “devotion to the community, after 40 years of shlichus,” said Rabbi Bloom tuned his approach to outreach.

Though the Blooms will get their chance to invite VT students to share a Shabbat meal starting in August, they’ll have to wait at least six more months before welcoming Hokies to the B and B. It’s by that date that the Blooms will know if the $1 million L’Arche Bed and Breakfast with its six guest bedrooms, owner’s suite, colonnaded porch, gazebo and 4,650 sq. ft. of Southern charm is theirs.

“The owner wanted her home to be used in a meaningful way to memorialize the hero of V Tech,” said Rabbi Kranz. “Now we want to get the word out, and find the money to buy the place so we can make this happen.”

Contributions to the Librescu Chabad House at Virginia Tech can be made online at http://www.chabadofva.org.

On the first Friday of the month, hundreds of culture hounds out to sniff and sneer at contemporary paintings and sculptures catch a whiff of Shabbat at Old City Jewish Arts Center in Philadelphia.

Slashes of black seize the mid-ground of ‘Conversations,’ a work by Philadelphia artist Rhea Dennis now on view at the 3rd Street Gallery. Down the street, a conversation of how Shabbat can fit into an art lover’s life takes place over kosher Merlot. Every 20 minutes, Rabbi Zev Baram, Chabad’s rabbi in Old City, recites the traditional Sabbath blessing over wine.

“Amens” number in the hundreds by the time the evening is done. There’s no shortage of foot traffic in the brick-walled space. The center, opened as a joint venture between the Jewish Heritage Program and Lubavitch House of Philadelphia, times its Shabbat hours to coincide with “First Friday,” a giant open house thrown by Old City’s arts community from 5 to 9 p.m. on the first Friday of each month.

“We see this as a way to fuse Judaism and the arts together,” Chani Baram, representative of Chabad of Old City told Lubavitch.com. “People who would not feel comfortable in a synagogue setting may be open to incorporating Judaism through art.”

Local artists submit pieces that fit the gallery’s theme. Explanatory notes posted in the art-scape emphasize Judaism’s more universal messages that may be drawn from the works. A favorite exhibit with gallery goers was a pre-Passover presentation of culturally Jewish breads from around the world and across the ages alongside hand-painted, beaded, mosaic and other modern interpretations of the challah cover that traditionally adorns Shabbat table.

“Transformation through paint is a pretty wild thing,” said artist Paul Santoleri, whose murals grace once decrepit buildings in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Inspiration for Old City Jewish Arts Center struck when Rabbi Menachem Schmidt, director of Chabad of Center City, saw thousands gathered on a Friday night with an array of cultural options to enjoy – everything from vinyl sculptures to avant-garde theater – but no mention of Shabbat.

“We wanted to create a Jewish outpost for them,” said Rabbi Schmidt in an interview with Lubavitch.com. “The potential is really amazing.”

The center saw nearly 1,000 visitors the first First Friday it opened in February 2006. That night, and all First Fridays since, Chani Baram and a minivan full of volunteers served up a buffet full of Shabbat food for the lookie loos. Just as the gallery aims to dispel the stereotype that Jewish art is the domain of kitsch, the fare served during the event is light and fresh, leaning toward salads and lean dishes and away from heavy kugels and kishke.

When the evening winds down and other galleries lock their doors, the Barams break out long tables and chairs. They serve a full Shabbat meal to 60 to 100 gallery viewers who’ve lingered for a fuller taste of Shabbat. Surrounded by art, the conversations swerve from Rothko to the magic of challah to Jasper Johns to the Torah portion of the week.

“It’s a real Chabad house experience," says Chani Baram.

Shimmering above the weatherman’s smile is a headline forecasting “Deadly Heat.” Next week’s weather predictions for Glendale, AZ, sizzle between 108 and 111 degrees.

Beating the heat complicates Rabbi Sholom Ber Lew’s goal to convince parents to send their children to a Jewish camp. The closest Jewish day camp is 20 minutes away, not far, but it’s a brutal commute if the family car’s air-conditioning isn’t arctic quality.

Once the heat and commute have been overcome, the next hurdle between children and a Jewish summer is not exclusive to Glendale. It’s a matter of money.

Chabad-Lubavitch’s 400 Gan Israel camps worldwide stretch their budgets to ensure 120,000 children enjoy a Jewish summer experience. In a 2002 study conducted by the Center for modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University, Chabad camps were among those found to “not only charge the lowest tuition but also support a significant percentage of campers who otherwise might not be able to attend summer camp.

We have a no child left behind policy,” said Rabbi Mendy Solomon, co-director of Sherry Wilzig-Izak Gan Israel Day Camp in Morristown, NJ. Throughout the year, while his wife and co-director Chana Devorah Solomon plans activities for the camp’s five divisions and 500 campers, Rabbi Solomon raises funds for scholarships. Nearly one out of every four campers receives some form of financial assistance to attend.

Still more get the cash boost they need to take part in camp through local Chabad rabbis who channel community members to the Morristown camp from as far as 25 miles away. Cases of extreme need comprise some of the demand for financial aid. Four siblings from out of state are summering in New Jersey while their father serves in Iraq. A pair of young sisters joined camp gratis after their 33-year-old father suffered an unexpected, fatal heart attack.

At Chabad of the Valley in Encino, CA, several campers have parents serving time in jail; another lives with grandparents while her mother recovers from an addiction. But these children with sensational life-stories are a miniscule minority in the tuition-break pool, said longtime camp director Rabbi Mayer Greene. Most parents come to him for help because they are tapped out. Jewish day school tuitions have gone out of control,” said Rabbi Greene. “Some people are paying their kids’ school tuition over all twelve months, and others need a break over the summer” to recover from the strain. Another set of parents get breaks because they’re not convinced that Jewish camp is worth the extra money and will send their children the local “Y” where hours are shorter, but costs are lower.

In the CIS, where Jewish camps are not quite the foreign commodity they were when the Iron Curtain first fell, most parents pay nothing or a symbolic fee – as low as eight dollars a week – to send their children to any of Chabad’s 50 camps. The 80 children frolicking in the rustic outdoors of Vinnista, Ukraine’s new camp, owe their summer to stalwart supporters like Lev Leviev, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in the CIS. Across the former Soviet Union, the cost of presenting more than 15,000 Jewish children with a summer of Jewish experiences is estimated in millions of dollars. An all-volunteer staff, college age men and women who often raise money to pay for their flights to Russia, Ukraine, Siberia and beyond, keep budgets as lean as possible.

Chabad centers toil year ‘round to bring children to camp, largely because of the emphasis placed on camp by the Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. Over a 45-year period, the Rebbe left the New York City metropolitan area only three times, and every time he left it was to visit a Gan Israel camp.

The Rebbe viewed summer not as a vacation from Judaism, but as prime time to catch up on Jewish expression and study. In an open letter to schoolchildren written in 1974, the Rebbe wrote: “Summer vacation seems to be so well planned for this purpose, for it is a time when you can devote yourselves to Torah study and Torah activities in particularly agreeable circ*mstances: in a relaxed frame of mind and in pleasant natural surroundings of sunshine and fresh air.

Studies conducted decades later by scholars of modern Jewish life have borne out the Rebbe’s observation. Professor Bruce Phillips of Hebrew Union College found attending a “Jewish summer camp is a more powerful predictor of ‘endogamy’ (marriage within the faith) than Jewish day school. Rabbi Greene sees proof of camp’s role in providing for Jewish continuity every morning of the summer. Of Gan Israel of the Valley’s 510 campers, nursery age through teens, 35 are the children of his former campers.

That’s the bottom line. Camp Gan Israel keeps a tremendous amount of children coming back” to Jewish life.

Before the ink dried on a free trade deal between U.S. and South Korea, a first-time ever import arrived in Seoul: two young Chabad rabbis. They came to find Jews and help them reconnect with their heritage. The same factors that powered the economic diplomacy are what attract businesspeople from around the world, Jewish ex-pats and travelers among them.

And where there are Jews, there’s Chabad – especially in the summer.

Since about 1946,young Chabad rabbis have spent their summer breaks on “Merkos Shlichus,” traveling off the beaten path to reach and teach Jews in the hinterlands. This year, 330 newly ordained rabbis and rabbis-in-training, mostly in their twenties, traveled off to 160 locations around the globe. Their suitcases are filled with Jewish prayer books, mezuzah scrolls, and guides to Jewish rituals for beginners. They’ve rented cars and Mapquest-ed their routes. They may look the part of itinerant rabbis, but as Chabad’s worldwide scope has evolved so has their mission.

“This program is truly illustrative of Chabad-Lubavitch in action at its most basic level,” says Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, Vice Chairman of the Lubavitch educational division. “It’s about finding Jewish people in real spiritual wastelands, and connecting with them in a way that opens up a whole new world for them.”

Each summer, international Jewish outreach bites an estimated half-million dollar hunk out of the budget of Merkos Linyunei Chinuch, Chabad-Lubavitch’s education division. Actual costs are many more times that. Individual Chabad representatives lay out their own funds to cover expenses that exceed the grants from headquarters. Furthermore, if the 330 rabbis were not an all-volunteer force, the cost of the program would climb into the multimillion-dollar range.

The economic burden is willingly endured, if only because of people like Joel Evans of Sun Valley, Idaho. Last summer, Schneur Lifsh*tz and Moshe Silberstein came across Joel on their journey through the resort town. Joel revealed that he had never had a bar mitzvah. Schneur and Moshe gathered a quorum and a Torah, and hosted Joel’s belated Jewish milestone. Schneur, a point man for the Merkos Shlichus program whose traveling-rabbi stints have taken him to Nigeria, Turkey, Bosnia, Estonia, Grenada, Germany, and Russia, returned to Sun Valley this year.

“One-time, spontaneous encounters are an important part of Merkos Shlichus, but building on friendships and renewing contacts enriches the experience for everyone involved,” Schneur said. He’s also looking forward to seeing how another Idahoan, Mike Ausman, is doing with the pair of tefillin Chabad helped him acquire in the winter.

“Putting on tefillin is my way of connecting with G-d every day,” said Mike. “I am very fortunate to have crossed paths with Chabad.”

Further north, in British Columbia, Canada, Rabbi Yitzchok Wineberg, Chabad’s senior representative in Vancouver, charged his two Merkos Shlichus volunteers with a scouting mission. Simcha Zajac and Yisroel Kotlarsky will be scoping out a Belgium-sized area of B.C. known as The Interior. Official censuses of the lake, mountain and vineyard laced region set the number of Jewish families living there somewhere in twenties, but the Jewish community has a list of 70, and the pair who have been there last year and are returning this year, met some 100 Jews there last summer, and maintain that thecount is higher.

Last year, the two went through the phonebook in search of Jewish sounding names, but one of their most memorable experiences happened at a gas station in West Bank, B.C. A woman named Yvonne spotted them and thumped on their window. The daughter of traumatized Holocaust survivors, Yvonne generally kept her Jewish identity cloaked, but Simcha and Yisroel had turned up right around the anniversary of her father’s death. Yvonne took it as a sign and approached the pair with an innocuous question about memorial candles. Later, Yvonne wanted to know more about Jewish approach to the afterlife, and the question grew into a sustained conversation.

“Merkos Shluchim get a close up, door to door view of the regions they visit. They reach Jews that the statistics overlook,” said Rabbi Kotlarsky, explaining that this program "endeavors to send Chabad rabbis to every community where there is, as yet, nofull time Chabad center."

Before leaving on their summer tours, the rabbinical students participate at a full day seminar led by Chabad outreach veterans who address relevant concerns, suchas making the most of out one-time encounters and strategies for handling potentially polarizing topics.

Chaim Shaul Bruk, rabbi of Chabad’s new center in Montana, mapped his journey from Merkos Shlichus volunteer to permanent representative as a case study in community building.

“Every speech was practical as well as inspirational,” said Simcha Zajac. Also new for this year, a website with sample Torah class materials and a guide from veteran Merkos Shluchim with how-to’s on car rental, dealing with the local press and a list of kosher travel friendly food necessities. Armed with information, enthusiasm, a love for fellow Jews and a nose for adventure, the 330 Merkos Shluchim are set to make their presence felt around the world this summer.

The 12th day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz, this year corresponding to June 4th, marks the date 82 years ago, that Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of blessed memory (1880-1950), sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, was liberated from Soviet prison. The 12th of Tammuz is thus a celebrated date on the calendar of Chabad-Lubavitch, and Jewish communities around the world. Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak led the movement for thirty years, and relocated its headquarters to New York, following WWII. From the lubavitch.com archives:

In the face of vicious attempts by the dreaded Yevsektzia to eradicate Judaism in Russia, Rabbi Schneersohn defied the authorities and persisted in all ways possible, to perpetuate Judaism. For these "subversive" activities he was imprisoned and sentenced to death.

The intervention of many leading foreign and American statesmen were significant in securing Rabbi Schneersohn’s miraculous release and arranging for his escape to the U.S. On the third day of Tammuz, 5687 (1927), Rabbi Schneersohn was released from the notorious Spalerno prison in Leningrad, after 18 days of excruciating confinement. He was then exiled to Kostrama, a small town in the Urals. But here again under high-level diplomatic pressure including that of the United States President Hoover, the Rebbe was released, on his 47th birthday, on the twelfth (though official notice came on the thirteenth) day of Tammuz. Less than a half year later he was able to leave Russia with most of his family, and the bulk of his famous library intact.

Throughout his ordeal of imprisonment and interrogation, Rabbi Schneersohn’s spirit remained unbreakable, confident and determined that his purpose would ultimately triumph. In 1940, barely escaping the burning streets of the Warsaw ghetto, he arrived in New York. Though no longer subjected in the New World to religious persecution, he was confronted with other handicaps, mainly the complacency and indifference to religion by certain segments of the estranged American Jewish community.

In the short span of one decade, until his passing in 1950, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak succeeded, almost single-handedly at first, to turn the tide, and introduce to the American Jewish landscape a spirit of Torah like that formerly known in Eastern Europe. Yeshivot and Day Schools, youth clubs, multilingual Jewish publications, appeared in communities that had seemed hopelessly lost to Judaism.

These and other related projects helped reacquaint multitudes with the Tradition and raise a Torah minded generation, while he restored faith, courage and dignity to countless refugees and D.P.'s whom he helped to resettle. His zeal and apparent success inspired many. Said to have "melted the ice of religious indifference," he and his disciples, many of whom were American born, were soon joined by others in their work to revive Judaism. Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak also published scores of Chasidic works, among them Chasidic discourses, commentaries and essays, some of which have been translated into English. The published parts of his voluminous diary reveal a treasure of hitherto unknown details of the history and development of Chasidism in general, and of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in particular.

Following his passing in 1949, Rabbi Schneersohn’s son-in-law, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, succeeded him, becoming the seventh Rebbe in the dynasty of Chabad-Lubavitch leaders.

A special web presentation on the arrest and liberation of the Rebbe is available at:

http://www.chabad.org/special/TheHeroicStruggle/001.asp

The book, The Heroic Struggle, is available at:
http://store.kehotonline.com/index.php?stocknumber=EFR-HERO&deptid=&parentid=&page=1&itemsperpage=10