Th e Toby Press

David Eliezrie

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vContents

Introduction: An Encounter in Brooklyn vii

Gabi and Rivkie 1

America Iz Nisht AnderishAmerica Is Not Diff erent 27

Even a Needle Could Not Fit Between the Crowds 59

Th e Great Escape 73

Th e Front Row 89

Th e Birthday Present 117

Th e Menorah Wars 135

Every Shliach Is an Entrepreneur 165

Dancing with the KGB 187

Out of the Shadows 205

Building Bridges 239

Th e Yeshiva 267

Balancing on the High Wire 289

A Tale of Two Cities 309

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vi

Afterword: Th e Oath 343

Acknowledgments 351

Notes 353

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Introduction

An Encounter in Brooklyn

It was a wintry New York night in January of 1966. Some high-school and college-age rabbinical students from Montreal were spending their last evening in Brooklyn. Th ey had come as part of a spiritual pilgrimage to what is known, simply, as 770. Th e name was taken from the address of the three-story red brick building located at 770 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, the center of the Chabad-Lubavitch Movement. At the time, this Chassidic community was still small, but it held on to the historic Jewish neighborhood, even as white fl ight lured many Jews to the green lawns of Long Island. It had been fi fteen years since Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson had become the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Th e group had made the journey from Montreal to Brooklyn to mark the yartziet (Yiddish for anniversary of the passing) of the Sixth Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. Over the few days of their visit, the students had attended a farbrengen (a Chassidic gath-ering), and the fi fteen high-school students had enjoyed a private group meeting with the Rebbe. Now, the night before returning to

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Montreal, theyand guests from other communities, clustered in the small synagogue just off the main entrance waiting for the eve-ning service, Maariv, to begin. Th ey wanted to see the Rebbe for the last time before their early morning departure.

One of the teens, who was only fourteen at the time, had just begun attending the Lubavitcher High School in Montreal that year. He arrived at 770 a few minutes before the service was to begin. He tried to squeeze into the sanctuary, but that was impossible, since it was full to capacity. Th e overfl owing crowd blocked the second entrance at the end of the hallway, so he stationed himself in the lobby that straddled the synagogue and small foyer that led into the Rebbes offi ce. At the very least, he thought, he would see the Rebbe as he walked across the fi fteen-foot-wide lobby. Suddenly, there was a hush. Th e Rebbe opened the door of the foyer and strode across the lobby. Holding the synagogue door open, standing like a sentry, was the Rebbes secretary, Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Aizik Hodakov. Caught up in the emotion of the moment, the teen suddenly turned and followed closely behind the Rebbe. Th e Rebbe entered the synagogue, and Rabbi Hodakov started to close the door. Th e teen suddenly found himself halfway in and halfway out with the door closing on him. Since the Rebbe was always the last one to enter, those inside, surprised that the young boy had broken the protocol, made motions with their hands for him to back out. Th e boy was confused. Like someone stuck on a road with headlights glaring at him, he did not know exactly what to do.

Th e Rebbe turned to see what the commotion was. He noticed the high-school student (without the classic black hat), whose face refl ected bewilderment. Th e Rebbe motioned to Rabbi Hodakov to open the door and for the teen to stand next to him during the service. Standing at the Rebbes side, the young boy watched as the Rebbe opened the pages of a worn prayer book and intently prayed.

Th e next morning, the group boarded the buses. Th e trip orga-nizers had chartered a regular school bus in an eff ort to save a few dollars, but by the time they reached Saratoga Springs, four hours north of New York, the wisdom of that decision seemed doubtful. Th e bus broke down, and it would take hours to repair. Th e students

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found refuge in a local Conservative synagogue, Congregation Shaarei Tefi llah, just a mile off the highway. Later that afternoon, the pupils of the synagogues Hebrew School began to arrive. One of the more outgoing rabbinical students on the broken-down bus, twenty-year-old Moshe Yosef Engel, had befriended the Hebrew-School director. Within a short time, Engel stood at the front of the room dazzling the children in this small Jewish community with stories and song.

I was that fourteen-year-old high-school student. Earlier that year, my family had moved to Montreal, and I had enrolled in the Chabad-Lubavitch Yeshiva just down the block. It was a bit more religiously intense than the Modern-Orthodox day school I had attended in California. I had joined the New York trip with a sense of adventure, but I had not expected the two events on the trip to set the tone for my life. Th e Rebbe saw a confused teenager, not wearing Chassidic garb, ill at ease, and out of place. Instinctively, he reached out to me, breaking the protocol, taking away the angst I felt at that moment. Th en the next day, I witnessed the power of the Rebbes teachings and how his students view their lives as a series of opportunities to inspire others: Moshe Engel, instead of complain-ing about being stuck in upstate New York, seized the moment to touch another soul.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, would open the doors of Judaism for millions. He would do it Jew by Jew. It would be slow, painstaking work. He would have to overcome skepticism from his own Chassidim, from Orthodox Jews, and from the broader Jewish community. Few envisioned that in the process, the Rebbe would redefi ne Judaism in the modern age as a balance of tradition and compassion, observance and responsibility. He would inspire thousands of his disciples to become his shluchim ( emissaries), to take up the mantle of Jewish leadership in over eighty countries, as well as countless others who did not consider themselves follow-ers. A small Chassidic group, hammered by the Holocaust and the harsh hand of Communism in Russia, would become the largest Jewish organization in the world4 and the fastest-growing in the United States.5

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It would be a daunting task. Th ere were many challenges, both internal and external. A Chassidic community whose historic focus was on spirituality and scholarship would be redirected toward activism and responsibility for Jewish destiny. A Jewish community whose level of Jewish scholarship and observance had weakened6 would learn to appreciate the timeless teachings of the Torah and traditions of their ancestors. In the US, Orthodoxy had retreated to the sidelines as communal leadership marginalized tradition. Change could not happen from within, so there would be no choice but to create a totally new community infrastructure, costing billions. In Europe, Australia, South America, and South Africa, more open to observance,7 Chabad would have to overcome local opposition as it slowly became an essential part of the communal leadership. During Communist times, while millions were trapped in the Soviet Union, the Rebbes underground operatives preserved the community. With the fall of the Soviet Union, Judaism would emerge from the shad-ows. Chabad would take the lead in rebuilding from the bottom up. Schools, synagogues, and communities would have to be recreated after seventy years of Communist rule. In Israel, where politics and religion split the country, Chabad would take the role of a unifi er, straddling the societal divide. In smaller remote countries, such as the Congo, Th ailand, Tunisia, and the Caribbean Islands, Chabad would provide vital leadership and new strategies to preserve Jewish life in shrinking communities.

Creating this Jewish renaissance would entail a paradigm shift. Since Jews began to wander the globe after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, the position of Jews in many countries has been precarious. Religious and human rights were subject to the whims of kings and despots. Anti-Semitism, culminating with the Holocaust, shaped a communal culture of defensiveness. Th e Rebbe instilled in his followers a bold new self-confi dence. As Dennis Prager8 says: Chabad changed the outlook of Judaism that had been preva-lent for two thousand years.

An army of rabbis and rebbitzens would have to be trained and encouraged to move to the four corners of the earth. Th ey would live far from friends and family, dedicating their lives to Jewish destiny

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and the welfare of others. Th ey would need to learn to remain true to their ideals and raise their own families outside the classical religious community, and, at the same time, create environments of openness to Jews of all backgrounds, and a culture of welcoming.

Never before in history9 did a single Jewish leader undertake the task of Jewish renaissance on a global scale, attempting to reach every Jew in the world. As Great Britains former chief rabbi, Jona-than Sacks, said, Th e Nazis hunted down every Jew with hate and the Rebbe hunted every Jew with love.

Few understood the immense scope of the Rebbes vision. Th ose who did thought the goal diffi cult, if not impossible, to attain.

Th e historian Dr. Jack Wertheimer, remarked to me some time ago, We are all wondering about the mystery of Chabad. Hopefully this book will unveil that secret.

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