Rabbi Attacked in Orleans, France. His Community Strikes Back with a Mitzva

by chabad.org

This past Shabbat, Rabbi Arie Engelberg—director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Orléans, a city about two hours south of Paris—was walking home from synagogue with his young son when the attack came suddenly. A teenage assailant launched a violent, antisemitic assault on the unsuspecting rabbi, hurling physical and verbal abuse.

French authorities responded swiftly. The suspect was arrested within hours, with local law enforcement treating the incident as a clear antisemitic hate crime.

The attack sent immediate shockwaves across France. President Emmanuel Macron condemned the “poison of antisemitism” and offered full support to the Jewish community, while Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin pledged that such hatred would not be tolerated.

On Sunday after the attack, Chabad emissaries from across France gathered together in Orléans to stand in solidarity with their colleague and his community. Inspired by the approach of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, the rabbis, along with André Eliyahu Druon—the president of the Orléans Jewish community—resolved to respond to the act of hatred by doubling down on strengthening Jewish life in the city, launching an initiative to build Orléans’ first mikvah.

Jewish law states that constructing a mikvah is so vital that it even takes precedence over building even a house of worship. Both a synagogue and a Torah scroll, Judaism’s most venerated treasure, may be sold to raise funds for the building of a mikvah. As Chabad.org’s extensive mikvah section explains, so crucial is this mitzvah that “it is no exaggeration to state that the mikvah is the touchstone of Jewish life and the portal to a Jewish future.”

“This is the Rebbe’s message,” says Rabbi Mendel Azimov, who serves as the regional director of Chabad-Lubavitch of France. “When faced with darkness, we don’t retreat—we advance. Attacks that are meant to intimidate us won’t extinguish our light; it only encourages us to double down on building something that will literally impact future generations.”

Reinvigorating Judaism on the Riverbank

Since 2018, Engelberg, together with his wife Esther, have transformed Jewish life in Orléans, which sits on the banks of the Loire River. Rabbi Engelberg serves both as a Chabad emissary and as the city’s rabbi, and over the years the couple has revitalized a community that until their arrival was getting smaller and smaller.

They reignited the Jewish community with regular services and innovative programming, including Torah classes, holiday events, and launched a CTeen youth club. Engelberg recently took a number of his young charges to New York for the annual CTeen Shabbaton, introducing them to thousands of their fellow young Jews from around the world.

In addition to his work with the Jewish community in Orléans, Engelberg—who welcomed a baby only weeks ago—recently became the Jewish chaplain to all prisons in the Loire region, traveling the area to visit Jewish prisoners and ensure they have access to their heritage.

Azimov attests that the Engelbergs have made a lasting impact on Jewish life in Orléans.

“During Chanukah a few years back, Rabbi Arie invited the press for a public menorah lighting, and it received a nice amount of media coverage. A couple of days later, he was in shul when two men that had never been there approached him and said they only thought to come because they had seen the menorah lighting in the newspaper,” says Azimov. “This is what the Engelbergs have been doing since they arrived in Orléans—introducing Judaism to people who would not have encountered it otherwise.”