Boruch Dayan Hoemes: Reb Shmuel Azimov, 69, OBM

With sadness we inform you of the passing of Reb Shmuel ‘Muleh’ Azimov, OBM, the head Shliach to Paris since 1968, who was much beloved by the Jewish community he served and helped revitalize. Rabbi Azimov spearheaded the ‘French Jewish Revolution,’ which saw close to 100,000 French Jews become Baalei Teshuvah over the past five decades. He was 69 years old.

From Lubavitch.com by Baila Olidort:

Rabbi Azimov is credited by many of France’s Jews for the sweeping changes that have turned Paris and its surrounding areas—once a Jewish wasteland—into a vibrant hub of Jewish life. Over the years, they have flocked to him, seeking his mentorship, guidance, and friendship.

With his deep-rooted Chabad Chasidic world-view and a profoundly compassionate concern for others, “Muleh” (short for Shmuel), a household name in France’s Jewish circles, negotiated every aspect of Jewish communal life, working cooperatively and effectively with all of the city’s Jewish organizations and municipal authorities. Together with his wife, the late Bassie Azimov, who passed away three years earlier he opened Paris’s first Chabad House in 1972. Under his leadership, Chabad centers have since opened in every district of Paris and its suburbs.

France is home to one of the largest Jewish populations in the Diaspora, and Jewish life in Paris, where some 375,000 Jews reside, is thriving. With forty Chabad centers and some 170 Shluchim in Paris, a day school bursting at the seams with 2,000 students, and an annual budget of roughly $25 million, Rabbi Azimov has built a remarkably successful Jewish infrastructure.

Chasidic Upbringing

Shmuel Azimov was born in Russia, in 1945. He was three years old when his family arrived in Paris after fleeing communism. For most Chabad Jews escaping communism, France was a point in transit—either to the Holy Land or North America. The Azimovs were among the few Chabad families who remained. There were not many Jews in Paris; most were disaffected Holocaust survivors, and the city was largely devoid of any real Jewish activity.

Rabbi Azimov got his early grooming as a teacher from his father who went door to door searching for students. Reb Chaim Hillel Azimov founded 20 Talmud Torahs in Paris and its surrounding areas.

When he was old enough, he went to the Chabad boys yeshiva founded in Brunoy in 1947, by Rabbi Joseph I. Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe. In 1963, then a teenager, Rabbi Azimov made his first transatlantic trip to see the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, traveling by charter flight from London.

“I was one of three Chabad boys from Paris who lived in the yeshiva dormitory. After returning from my first visit to the Rebbe, the three of us were instructed to start our activities as shluchim in Paris while continuing our studies in the yeshiva in Brunoy. So every Shabbos, we would return to the city. There were many children of Holocaust survivors who assimilated. But we reached some, we began to learn with them, to teach them, and eventually, they joined us in the yeshiva in Brunoy.”

The boys kept up a regular correspondence with the Rebbe, informing him of their activities. The Rebbe wrote back with instructions. At some point, his two friends continued their rabbinical studies in New York. So when he came next to see the Rebbe in 1965, he asked the Rebbe if he too, should remain in New York.

“My meeting with the Rebbe (yechidus) was at 6 a.m. The Rebbe told me to return to Paris, and he blessed me with “great success.” He then said to me, “Do you know what ‘great success’ is?”

“It is success beyond your expectations,” he told Azimov.

There are many ways to measure success, but by all accounts—by the numbers of Jews who have been reached, and by the opportunities for Jewish engagement that the city’s Jewish population enjoys today—it is indeed “success beyond expectations.”

Rabbi Azimov is survived by his three children: Rabbi Mendy Azimov, Rabbi Levi Azimov and Mrs. Esther Golda Marozov, all of Paris, France.

Levaya and Shiva information will be posted shortly.

Boruch Dayan Hoemes