No Torahs on Mars Yet, but One Small Step Closer

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to live in League City, Texas. But it doesn’t hurt.

The city is within the Greater Houston metropolitan area, with a local population of nearly 84,000 people, according to the 2010 census. It’s home to several waterside resorts that are popular with nearby Houston residents. It’s also eight minutes away from the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, the lead center and headquarters for U.S. space shuttle activities, and the home of mission control and the NASA astronaut corps.

And it’s now the place where Chabad Rabbi Yitzchok Schmukler, his wife Malky and their six children call home.

The family arrived there in the summer of 2012 to start Chabad of the Bay Area, geared for a small but growing population of Jewish individuals and families in the Clear Lake, Pearland and Galveston areas, even though Houston itself is well-served by Chabad centers and numerous synagogues.

“We started from scratch,” acknowledges the rabbi. “Our work requires lots of outreach. On Chanukah, we had hundreds of people turn out for programs at area malls and on the historic Strand Street in Galveston. We also offer lots of classes, including the very popular JLI (Rohr Jewish Learning Institute) courses.”

Truth be told, the couple didn’t even have a Torah scroll at first. They made due for a year with a borrowed one for short-term periods from another Chabad center.

But in the course of a Google search online, Schmukler discovered the Beis Yisroel Free Loan Torah Society, also referred to as the Torah Gemach, a project of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch Suite 302 in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. He followed the procedure for making an official request, and just before Rosh Hashanah this past September, the organization provided him with a long-term loan.

“This Torah has been a very great favor for us,” he says.

Dressed in a deep-blue velvet cover edged in gold fringes with the words “Torah Gemach” on it, the Torah is kept at the rabbi’s home, and brought out for services and holidays.

Services are held on Friday nights and periodically on Shabbat mornings as well. For the High Holidays, the couple rents space at nearby hotels.

The congregation includes a real variety of residents, including both newcomers and those who have lived in the area for a while. “And yes, we do have rocket scientists … they’re regular people who also happen to be scientists and engineers who work with NASA. But we are here for everyone, and our aim is to offer them a positive experience with Yiddishkeit.”

‘A Sense of Belonging’

The Berezin family has lived in Texas more than a dozen years, raising three sons and living a typical Jewish life in suburbia—active with work, school, sports and their local synagogue. Yet Boris and Ida Berezin have been connected with Chabad for the better part of their lives.

The day after Boris, then 25, and his mother, Pesya, 58, arrived in 1977 in the United States as Jewish émigrés from southeastern Ukraine in the former Soviet Union, three Chabad rabbis visited them, speaking to his mother in Yiddish, he recalls. That Friday, they came again with challahand wine for Shabbat. “I had never tasted Manischewitz super-sweet wine before,” says Berezin, “and the challah was not as good as my mother’s, yet the essence of being so genuinely welcomed by these young shluchim was felt. Their sincerity was refreshing and reaffirming, especially to restore whatever remnants of Jewishness we carried away from the Soviet Union.”

Berezin and his mother—a lifelong supporter of Chabad, he says—settled in Seattle. With a degree in electrical engineering from Donetsk, Ukraine (he later earned a systems engineering degree and a master’s degree in technical management), Berezin went to work as a design engineer for Boeing there. Eventually, he was sent to Houston as an integration specialist/scientist for the Boeing Space Division in the Nassau Bay area.

“My job took me to Moscow—and all around the world—to interface with Russian managers, engineers and cosmonauts. My job was to make sure all the various spacecraft systems worked as one, to make numerous mechanisms work properly as intended,” he explains.

Berezin, now 62, retired in November. He and his family live in Nassau Bay, a community south of Houston and a stone’s throw from the space center.

One of his friends was Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, a member of the crew who died in the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster. “I designed for him a space patch, an astronaut insignia,” says Berezin, a graphic artist in his spare time.

Before presenting it to Ramon, he had the Jewish symbols and Israeli geography incorporated into it examined by Rabbi Zvi Konikov of Chabad of the Space & Treasure Coasts in Satellite Beach, Fla. Berezin calls him “the rabbi of the astronauts” … “every Jewish astronaut goes to him beforehand to say a bracha for a safe flight.”

In fact, Berezin and the rabbi—longtime friends who still visit and make time to study together—were Ramon’s guests for the Columbia launch in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

When the Schmuklers arrived in town, the Berezins got to know and spend time with them. “Chabad takes you in as you are; there are no expectations of knowledge that have to be demonstrated, no prerequisites or statements. You just belong. That sense of belonging is exactly why I feel comfortable—why everyone feels welcome and comfortable.”

“The rabbi is a very charismatic, very pleasant fellow,” says Berezin. “He has taken this community almost by storm. He is extremely erudite, and he appeals to many. And as for Malky, going to their house is a joy, the ease and warmth … plus, she makes the best eggplant southwest of New Jersey.”

Malky Schmukler may be renowned for her cooking skills, but she also runs a Jewish Women’s Circle, holds holiday celebrations and programs for children, and hosts large Shabbat and holiday dinners for the community.

“The Jewish community is spread out in small cities throughout the area,” she explains. “They come from all over—college students, families with children, couples, older people. It’s a mix.”

It’s certainly a change from the proximity of Jewish families in her home town of Crown Heights (the rabbi is from Montreal).

‘A Catalyst for Change’

Lynn Donovan, who lives on Galveston Island with her husband, Jimm, says the first Chabad event they attended was a Lag B’Omer barbecue on the beach.

“It was very engaging,” says Donovan. “They had live music and my husband, who’s a retired drummer, brought his bongo drums. Since then, we try to go to every event that they sponsor, and we try to bring friends.”

The mother of three and grandmother of eight says the rabbi is a “catalyst for changing people’s lives; I don’t know if he recognizes it himself. He brings such a spiritual connection into his events, classes, even Shabbat at their house. His enthusiasm, his love for Judaism and his efforts to want people to get involved and learn more … he’s really perfect for this community.”

Tracie Bein of Clear Lake agrees. “I’ve been taking all the classes he’s offered, and I’ve spent Passover and the High Holidays and Shabbat with them.” She goes by herself, and says she’s met a lot of people through them.

She’s also been to the bat mitzvah of one of the Schmukler daughters and an upsherin—a hair-cutting ceremony for boys when they turn 3—of one of their sons. A psychotherapist, she says “it’s all been very interesting, and I feel comfortable asking the rabbi questions.”

Donovan adds that “we’re an eclectic group, those of us involved with Chabad.” She says she likes the intimate nature of it all; the Chabad couple has brought something different to their Jewish community that wasn’t present before.

And she puts those feelings in very strong terms: “We couldn’t be happier. G‑d couldn’t have sent us a better rabbi.”