David Eliezrie

The Toby Press

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Contents

Introduction: An Encounter in Brooklyn

Gabi and Rivkie

vii

America Iz Nisht AnderishAmerica Is Not Different

Even a Needle Could Not Fit Between the Crowds
The Great Escape
The Front Row

27
59

73
89

The Birthday Present

117

The Menorah Wars 135

Every Shliach Is an Entrepreneur
Dancing with the KGB
Out of the Shadows
Building Bridges
The Yeshiva

165

187
205

239
267

Balancing on the High Wire

A Tale of Two Cities

289

309

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Afterword: The Oath

Acknowledgments
Notes

343
351

353

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Introduction

An Encounter in Brooklyn

t was a wintry New York night in January of 1966. Some highschool and college-age rabbinical students from Montreal were
spending their last evening in Brooklyn. They had come as part of a
spiritual pilgrimage to what is known, simply, as 770. The 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 flight lured many Jews
to the green lawns of Long Island. It had been fifteen years since
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson had become the Seventh
Lubavitcher Rebbe.
The 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 gathering), and the fifteen 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 evening service, Maariv, to begin. They 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. The overflowing 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 office. At the very least, he thought, he would see the Rebbe
as he walked across the fifteen-foot-wide lobby. Suddenly, there was
a hush. The 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. The Rebbe entered the
synagogue, and Rabbi Hodakov started to close the door. The 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. The boy was
confused. Like someone stuck on a road with headlights glaring at
him, he did not know exactly what to do.
The Rebbe turned to see what the commotion was. He noticed
the high-school student (without the classic black hat), whose face
reflected bewilderment. The 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.
The next morning, the group boarded the buses. The trip organizers had chartered a regular school bus in an effort 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.
The bus broke down, and it would take hours to repair. The students

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An Encounter in Brooklyn
found refuge in a local Conservative synagogue, Congregation Shaarei
Tefillah, 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-yearold 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. The 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. Then 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 complaining 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 redefine 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 followers. 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. There 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 shadows. 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 unifier,
straddling the societal divide. In smaller remote countries, such as
the Congo, Thailand, 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. The Rebbe
instilled in his followers a bold new self-confidence. As Dennis Prager8
says: Chabad changed the outlook of Judaism that had been prevalent 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. They would live
far from friends and family, dedicating their lives to Jewish destiny

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An Encounter in Brooklyn
and the welfare of others. They 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, Jonathan Sacks, said, The Nazis hunted down every Jew with hate and
the Rebbe hunted every Jew with love.
Few understood the immense scope of the Rebbes vision.
Those who did thought the goal difficult, if not impossible, to attain.
The 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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