Sixty’s Something: Group Reunites Each Year at Kinus

Most are turning 60 this year and they live on five continents, but the time and distance have not diminished the close connection felt by the Rabbinical College of America’s class of 1974. Every year, they sit together at the Friday-night meal during the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries, catching up on each other’s lives, reliving memories of times past, sharing Chassidic insights and enjoying each other’s company.

“We were a close group of friends,” explains Rabbi Yosef Landa, who grew up in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn, N.Y., and founded Chabad of Greater St. Louis in 1980. The Rabbinical College in Morristown, N.J., was a “small, intimate place, and we really meshed over those two years.”

“The next fall, just as we were settling in to the Central Chabad Yeshivah in Brooklyn, the Rebbe [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory] sent us and our peers to serve as his emissaries in Chabad yeshivahs in Montreal; Paris; Jerusalem; and Kfar Chabad, Israel,” continues Landa. “Many of us ended up serving as senior students at yeshivahs in Kfar Chabad and Jerusalem. We visited each other very often, and our bond was strengthened even more.”

By the early 1980s, almost all of the 22 classmates were married and serving as Chabad emissaries in places like Melbourne, Australia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; London, England; and a number of towns and cities in Israel.

When the first national conference was arranged in the fall of 1983, Landa and many of his friends were there among the several dozen participants, coming from places like Rochester, N.Y., and Indianapolis, Ind. “We sometimes felt isolated,” he acknowledges, noting that it was before the advent of email or even fax, and phone calls to Brooklyn were prohibitively expensive. “The conference was a place where we could feel connected, share tips, gain inspiration and support each other. We were so hungry for it.”

The next year, the conference grew, and approximately 100 emissaries attended from all over the United States. By 1987, the Rebbe announced that the conference would be for emissaries from all over the world, and many hundreds attended.

‘Glued Together’

“It just developed that we spent Friday nights together,” says Rabbi Yisroel Brod, who hails from the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., and now serves as an emissary based out of Kfar Chabad, Israel. “Every year we sit at a table that’s just to the left of the podium in the large banquet hall where the meal is held.”

When the tradition began, there were not many more than a dozen tables, so it was quite simple to find a gathering place. Now, with thousands of emissary attendees spread out over several hundred tables, Brod says he makes it a point to come to the hall right after evening prayers to reserve “the” table.

Despite his best efforts, he says there’s never enough room.

“It was always a tight fit,” he explains, “and now many of us come along with our sons and sons-in-law, so there’s no chance of us all squeezing in. Of course, we all still come and often stay until the wee hours of the morning.”

Among the regular attendees is Rabbi Yosef Mishulovin, who was one of three students who came to Morristown shortly after leaving the former Soviet Union.

“We were something of a phenomenon—young boys born and raised in Samarkand—and we were able to learn Talmud and Chassidism just as well as our American friends,” recalls the rabbi, who now directs Chabad Mid City Center in Los Angeles. “They used to call us the ‘Three Stooges’ because we often insisted on continuing to act as we had been taught in Russia with the tenacious devotion we had learned there, which was often different from what our American friends were accustomed to.

“But we became very, very dear friends,” he says, “a group that stayed glued together for 40 years. When we were in Morristown, we learned together, prayed together, did everything together—the yeshivah is located in a beautifully secluded setting, and we almost never had to go anywhere—and that bond is something that we can reconnect to every year.”

In recent years, the group has been joined at the table by Rabbi Elimelech Zweibel, who was their mashpia (mentor and teacher of Chassidic texts) at the Rabbinical College.

And last year, a thread of sadness was woven into the tapestry of joy—the gaping hole left by the untimely passing of their colleague, Rabbi Shaya Gansbourg, Chabad emissary to Harlem, N.Y., who passed away in early 2013 at the age of 57.

“Shaya was a big part of it every year,” notes Brod. “Even before he became an official shaliach [emissary] when he founded Chabad in Harlem at the age of 50, he was deeply involved in Chabad activities, and was a regular and vocal member of our group who we miss very much.”

Even as the longtime contingent maintains its position in the expanded banquet hall, Brod notes the many changes that have taken place around them. “It’s really incredible that we have been able to live with and experience the growth of Chabad worldwide, seeing it develop from year to year in front of our eyes. From when the conference became international in 1987, it’s grown every year exponentially.

“To walk into a room with thousands of your fellow emissaries is inspiring,” he says, “but to know your friends are waiting for you makes it so much more exciting.”