Here’s My Story: It’s The Daughter From Baltimore!

Mrs. Chanie Levitin

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My parents, Berel and Miriam Weiss, both came from chasidic communities in Central Europe. My mother came from a distinguished family of Vishnitz chasidim, while my father’s father was a chasid of the Kossoner Rebbe. Both lost most of their families in the Holocaust.

While recovering from the war, they met in a hospital. Together, they decided to move to Los Angeles, where my father had some family, and they got married there in 1948.

At some point, my father became connected to Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Raichik, who had come to Los Angeles as a Chabad emissary in the late 1940s. As a result, when my father felt a need for spiritual guidance, he began to correspond with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and in 1961, Rabbi Raichik convinced my father to make a trip to visit him.

No sooner than when he saw the Rebbe, my father was enchanted. He just saw something special there — a purity, a simplicity — and he fell in love with the whole scene in 770. He connected with the Rebbe right away, and the Rebbe connected with him.

You have to understand that for a Hungarian, going over to Chabad was quite unusual. Hungarian and Romanian chasidic groups, and even Polish ones, would interact with each other more, but the Russian chasidic milieu remained somewhat apart.

Also unusual was the Rebbe’s appearance. When my father came back from his first visit, he brought a small five-by-seven picture of the Rebbe.

“Where’s his shtreimel?” I remember asking, referring to the traditional fur hat worn in chasidic communities.

“This Rebbe doesn’t wear a shtreimel,” he replied.

In terms of our actual practice, not much changed at first. My father still didn’t grow a beard, we continued to use the same prayer book, and my father continued to sing the same songs at the Shabbat table that he had grown up with — but my parents had made a decision about the fundamental orientation of our family.

Growing up, my siblings and I went to a small chasidic day school called Toras Emes, but in 1964, when I was entering high school, my mother wasn’t satisfied with the local options. Instead, she became interested in sending me to a high school in Switzerland that she knew about from before the war.

Although my mother wasn’t eager to send me so far away, she had a friend who sent her daughter there, and she thought that it would be a good place for me to get a proper Jewish education. But before that was decided, Rabbi Raichik advised my father to write to the Rebbe about the idea.

“That isn’t the school for your daughter,” the Rebbe replied, to my mother’s disappointment. “It’s gone through some changes, and it is no longer the school that it was.” She couldn’t understand how this Rebbe — who didn’t wear a shtreimel or dress like any of the other Rebbes she was accustomed to — would know what was going on in a school in Switzerland, but with that answer, there was no way my father would agree to send me there.

That year, as it happened, the man who ran the school became ill, and his son took over, which set off a quarrel between them about how the school should function. The police and the courts got involved, and it ended up being a horrible year for the school and its students.

Instead of Switzerland, a friend and mentor of my parents recommended the Beis Yaakov school in Baltimore. This time, when they wrote to the Rebbe, he agreed to the choice.

I was still only thirteen, so my mother first took me on a trip to visit Baltimore. New York was hosting the World’s Fair then, and since this was our first trip to the East Coast, my mother decided to take me there first. Of course, Rabbi Raichik saw this as an opportunity for my mother to make a visit to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, which she agreed to do.

We took a train into Brooklyn from Manhattan, where we were staying, which was very exciting because I had never been on a train before.

Rabbi Raichik had prepared my mother for the audience before we left California, and even wrote a letter for her to give to the Rebbe. “Mrs. Weiss, when you go into the Rebbe’s room, hand this letter to him,” he instructed her.

“Rabbi Raichik, I can’t do that!” my mother protested. Growing up, she had seen many Rebbes going through their home, and in the Hungarian chasidic world she knew, these kinds of things were simply not done. A woman would not even go into a room with a Rebbe; maybe she would talk to him through the doorway. But Rabbi Raichik insisted.

So we went into the room and, trembling, she approached the Rebbe’s desk, gave him the letter, and began to back away. The Rebbe gave us a big smile, welcomed us very graciously, and invited us to sit down. Chabad chasidim don’t sit down in front of their Rebbe, but we weren’t really chasidim yet, so we did, and soon the Rebbe started talking to me.

I was surprised to see that the Rebbe looked older than in my father’s picture, but his eyes were so kind, and he made me feel very comfortable. He had an aura about him, although it wasn’t something that intimidated you; it was an aura that drew you in.

The Rebbe began to ask me questions: “What do you like to do in school? What do you like to read?”

I told the Rebbe that I was reading Oliver Twist, the classic Charles Dickens novel. I had also started to read A Tale of Two Cities. So we had a discussion about Oliver Twist, and we even spoke about the scene where Oliver, a hungry orphan living in 19th-century London, holds out his bowl to beg the head of his orphanage for a second helping of gruel. “How did you feel about that?” the Rebbe wanted to know.

What is happening? I thought to myself. This was not what I had expected.

“Are you a good student?” the Rebbe inquired.

“Sometimes,” I answered. “I’m not always the best student.”

The Rebbe smiled at this. “I hope you’ll do well.”

The Rebbe seemed concerned about me going away from home at a young age, and asked if I was comfortable with the idea. He was very grandfatherly.

“I think I’ll be OK,” I said.

The Rebbe gave me a blessing to do well in school and to settle into Baltimore, and he said that he hoped to see me again soon.

As we left the room, my mother and I were so emotional that we both burst into tears.

A couple of months later, once the school year had started, my father came back to Crown Heights for Simchat Torah. We arranged that I would meet my father in 770 on Hoshana Rabbah, when the Rebbe would be giving out honey cake in his Sukkah. My father insisted that I stand together with him in line, which made me feel out of place since I was old enough to be in the women’s line.

As we came up to the Rebbe, he gave me a huge smile. “Ah!” he said, “It’s the daughter from Baltimore!”

Mrs. Chanie Levitin has served as a Chabad emissary in Seattle, Washington, since 1972. She was interviewed in February 2023.