Rochele Fogelman, 98, Pioneering Worcester Rebbetzin, Renowned Educator

by Mendel Scheiner – chabad.org

In 1953, Rochele Fogelman, then serving as a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Worcester, Mass., brought a group of women from her community for a private audience with the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. As the Rebbe began to speak, he saw Fogelman taking notes.

At the conclusion of the audience, the Rebbe asked Fogelman to translate his words into English and prepare a written transcript. As her daughter, Bassie Levin, later recalled, “She worked for months writing it up,” ensuring that her English rendition of the Rebbe’s Yiddish talk retained both its depth and its warmth.

In that talk, ‘The Woman’s Role in Teaching Judaism,’ the Rebbe taught about the unique spiritual power of the Jewish woman. Her natural kindness, her capacity to soften and her role in making Torah understood. The Rebbe brought the example of a nurse. He explained that although the doctor prescribes the cure, only a nurse can serve the bitter medicine. It is the nurse who makes the medicine sweet and palatable.

For anyone who knew Fogelman, it is no coincidence that this was the lesson entrusted to her.

Rebbetzin Rochele Fogelman, together with her husband Rabbi Herschel Fogelman, was a pioneer of Chabad-Lubavitch in America, working every day for the betterment of the Jewish people since being dispatched to Worcester in 1947. An emissary of both the Sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Y. Schneersohn, of righteous memory, and the Rebbe, she was also a leader of the N’shei Chabad movement, and a formative influence in American Jewish education.

After 78 years of devoted service, she passed away on Tuesday, 7 Cheshvan, 5786 (Oct. 28, 2025), at the age of 98.

Early Encounters With Greatness

Rochele was born in New York in 1927. At the time of her birth, her parents worked in a Jewish orphanage. Her father, Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Magnes, served as a principal there, and her mother, Basya Magnes, was a teacher. It was through their shared devotion to education that the two met and married.

One night, when Rochele was still a young girl, there was a knock at the door. It was Mrs. Fruma Leah Mandel. She pleaded with Basya that Jewish girls needed help, too. There was no formal Jewish education for them. “We need to save Jewish girls,” Mandel told Rochele’s mother.

In response, the Magneses moved to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and helped establish Bais Yaakov, the first Jewish school for girls in the United States, revolutionizing Jewish women’s education, with early classes in their home. When the Rebbe later founded Bais Rivkah, he consulted with her father Moshe Mordechai, a well-known educator.

Soon after, Rabbi Magnes founded a yeshivah in Brighton Beach, and the family moved again.

Fogelman’s mother would tell her Jewish stories on their walks along the Brighton Boardwalk. Whenever Basya saw a Jewish child, she would say, “Look at that beautiful Jewish boy, that beautiful Jewish girl.” If she asked a child their name, she would exclaim, “What a gorgeous Jewish name!” She made every soul feel seen. Always making a point of bringing out one’s Jewish identity.

During the Great Depression, a woman once came to their door, ashamed, asking if she had money to spare. Without hesitation or apology, Basya replied, “Of course, here is $10.” That was the type of home they were brought up in. Those $10 had been set aside for Shabbos. Rochele would later say she doesn’t remember what her family ate that week, only the dignity and open hand with which her mother gave.

Basya Magnes passed away at age 47, leaving behind her two daughters, Rochele and Esther. Rochele was 14 at the time.

“And yet, both my mother and her sister lived lives of giving, learning, and putting their parents’ values into action,” says Levin. “Her mother passed away so young, but her lessons were strong enough to last a lifetime. She instilled in my mother an immense sense of Jewish pride and purpose.”

Though Rabbi Magnes came from Ger and Aleksander Chassidic roots, the family eventually became closer to Chabad.

Years later, at an International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Women Emissaries, Rebbetzin Fogelman described her first encounter with the Sixth Rebbe. She began to cry as she tried to speak of the presence and holiness visible in his face.

As a young adult, her father was told by the Rebbe that Rabbi Moshe Hecht was seeking teachers in New Haven, and there Rochele went to teach young Jewish souls. It was in New Haven where she was introduced to a young Rabbi Herschel Fogelman.

At the time, Herschel worked in Worcester, establishing and building up a yeshivah, Yeshivat Achei Temimim. The couple were married in 1947 and immediately dispatched to Worcester by the Sixth Rebbe as his permanent emissaries in the city.

A Mother to All

Like her mother, Rochele devoted herself to women’s Torah learning and education. Known for her wisdom and eloquence, she became a beloved teacher and a sought-after speaker. Worcester, at the time, was a deeply Jewish city, filled with immigrant families who needed guidance and community.

Upon arrival shortly after their marriage, the Fogelmans continued to develop the fledgling Achei Temimim. Under their leadership, a beautiful new school building was constructed, the first purpose-built Chabad structure in the United States. The couple later founded a girls’ high school, which the Rebbe asked to be named Bais Chana, after the Rebbe’s mother, Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, of righteous memory.

The Fogelmans not only built schools but families for generations.

“We’ve received letters, calls, emails, messages from all over,” says Levin. “The common thread is that my mother was like a mother to them.”

Rabbi Mendel Fogelman, director of Chabad of Greater Laurel, Md., one of many grandchildren who followed in her footsteps as emissaries or educators, recalls her counseling distressed women late into the night, offering them advice and comfort.

“She had a powerful presence,” recalls her granddaughter, Shterny Tubul. “When she spoke to you, you felt she was fully there, all her energy.”

An articulate and captivating speaker, she spoke across the world. She addressed gatherings for Jewish women in Europe, Australia and across the United States, and the annual N’shei Chabad convention, where she was frequently seated near Rebbetzin Chana. After one speech of Fogelman’s, the Rebbe’s mother remarked, “She speaks like the elder chassidim!” Later, the Rebbe congratulated her on the speech.

In Worcester, she was asked to lead book discussions at non-Orthodox temples, bringing Torah to women far beyond the observant community. When the Rebbe heard, he instructed her to speak about Family Purity during her next club meeting. At that time, it was unheard of to discuss the topic publicly.

The book her group was discussing at the time was The Chosen by Chaim Potok, a story without a single mother figure. How could she speak about Family Purity and mikvah without women in the narrative?

Yet she trusted the Rebbe.

The day came and the book club, usually held in a temple’s basement, began to fill fast. Soon there was no space, and the group was forced to move upstairs. Even in the sanctuary, a room that could fit 1,000, women stood against the walls.

Spontaneously, Fogelman pointed out that the absence of women in the novel reflected the depth and sacred privacy of the marital relationship in Judaism. That to portray the holiness of a woman would require an entire additional book. She then went on to speak about the beauty of Family Purity and how it has been the key to Jewish survival.

After that night, women approached her everywhere, seeking to learn more. The city’s mikvah was then in the old Jewish neighborhood on the East Side, and it was decrepit. This led to the building of Worcester’s new mikvah.

‘The Role of a Giver’

Despite her communal responsibilities, her devotion to family was absolute.

“My mother always said how beloved she felt by her mother,” says her eldest daughter, Bassie Levin. For her, it was never community service and family as two separate things, says Levin. “It was always one whole. Our parents’ attention, our education, our childhood were never compromised.”

As a child, Levin recalls that a little girl from a poor family visited. Rebbetzin Fogelman was concerned about the clothes that her daughter wore. “She taught us that we needed to be sensitive and to make sure that this girl didn’t feel less in any way,” says Levin.

People used to tell Rabbi Fogelman that his wife should be the rabbi. “He loved hearing that,” says Levin. “He was so proud of her.”

She was known to have a special power for giving blessings, and often repeated the teaching that everyone can give a blessing that makes an impact On High. “You could see on her face how happy she was to be in the role of a giver to be able to bless somebody,” says Tubul.

Her sister, Esther Serebryanski, passed away only months before her. Though Rebbetzin Fogelman was never told, those close to her felt that she sensed it. The sisters shared a deep, intuitive closeness.

Rebbetzin Fogelman was predeceased by her husband, Rabbi Herschel Fogelman in 2013, and her son, Rabbi Chaim Yosef Fogelman, in 2001.

She is survived by her children: Bassie Levin (Worcester, Mass.); Rabbi Mendel Fogelman (Worcester, Mass.); Rabbi Levi Fogelman (Natick, Mass.); Rabbi Shmuel (“Mushi”) Fogelman (Los Angeles); Sheva Liberow (Worcester, Mass.); and Rabbi Mutty Fogelman (Brooklyn, N.Y.).

She is also survived by numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and countless individuals whose lives she so profoundly influenced.