As the summer heat bears down on Australia, a small group of Chabad Bochurim are canvassing RARA (Regional and Rural Australia) in a Mitzvah Mobile, searching for Jewish souls and bringing them the light of Chanukah. Just two weeks into their journey, these ‘roving rabbis’ have already touched hundreds of Jewish souls.
“Roving Rabbis” Mendel Weinfeld and Mendel Erlenwein were handing out Shabbat candles, mezuzahs and kosher food while making their usual rounds in Contra Costa County in California when they got an unusual request.
Tzvi Alperowitz, 20, of Great Britain and Mayer Brook, 19, of Brooklyn, New York, both rabbinical students, were in Rapid City early last week and in Pierre on Thursday. Along the way, they stopped at landmark South Dakota sights such as Mount Rushmore and the Capitol Dome.
Waves crashed on the shore and palms trees swayed in the wind as the Jamaican sun baked down on two rabbinical students standing in dress pants and starched white shirts. They were fiddling with a portable printer, with neat stacks of paper meant be bound into Tanyas, the slim but significant volume penned by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Rebbe of Chabad.
While traveling on Merkos Shlichus in rural New Mexico, Bochurim Duni Blotner and Zalmy Goldberg stopped for a routine cup of coffee at Starbucks. Outside the shop, they met someone who – unbeknownst to them – was experiencing ‘the darkest day of his life.’
Accosted. That was the word that came to Phil’s mind when the three bearded jacketed Rabbis approached him. “Excuse me, are you Jewish?” they asked.
The mattresses had been much thinner and harder in his former prison, which lacked air-conditioning and was full of gang activity. So why did L.S. (who is currently serving time in Kansas) want to transfer back there?
Forty Jewish people from around the world sat around a table not too long ago in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, celebrating Shabbat together.
In anticipation of their upcoming Merkos Shlichus assignment, 275 Bochurim gathered at the Jewish Children’s Muesum for an intensive instructional seminar. They are preparing to be dispatched to tens of cities around the world, where they will bring much needed Jewish resources and inspiration to local Jewish communities.
Lubavitcher photographer Meir Alfasi traveled with his wife and three children to Kosovo in Eastern Europe to conduct a Pesach Seder – the first of its kind – and at first, was mistaken as Middle Eastern Refugees.
As the sun went down Friday evening, candles were lit and blessings were spoken in a conference room at La Quinta Inn and Suites in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where a small group of Jews gathered on the first night of Passover.
A passerby may have assumed a major farbrengen was going on as Rabbi Menachem Posner demonstrated the power of a niggun. At the Yom Iyun for Bochurim departing on Merkos Shlichus for Pesach, Rabbi Posner encouraged bochurim to use the niggun as a tool to help open bring warmth and camaraderie to a crowd of strangers. “If I could get 200 bochurim to sing along with me now, you could certainly get your guests to join in the singing. Make sure to use this tool!”
On a brisk evening last week, when Purim was more on people’s radar than Pesach, several hundred bochurim gathered at Chabad HQ. The night’s agenda: assessing their knowledge and preparedness in leading public Seders — and being the de facto Chabad presence in outposts across the globe.
Iquitos in Peru is known as the most isolated city in South America. Surrounded by thick jungle, it sits on the banks of the mighty Amazon River. For the first time in decades,it was recently visited by a group of rabbinical students, who were there as part of the Merkos Shlichus Chabad “Roving Rabbis” program.
Traveling in a motor home armed with Jewish gear, Rabbi Yossi and Malki Rodal make their way around the Australian outback in search of Jews. Some 7000 Jews live in outlying areas with no Jewish community infrastructure, so these “Jewish […]
Two rabbinical students from the Chabad Community Center for Jewish Life and Learning in Oklahoma City are traveling to small Jewish communities in Oklahoma and North Texas, hoping to spread goodness and kindness.
The summertime travels of “Roving Rabbis”—young Chabad-Lubavitch rabbinical students and newly minted rabbis who visit isolated Jews and small Jewish communities all over the globe—are filled with exciting, hectic days and nights in which they share the joys of Judaism with others. But on Tisha B’Av, they have a unique opportunity for a relatively quiet day of reflection, in which they can learn more about the local Jewish community and deepen their times with them.
