Library and Media Center to Open in Wake of Sudden Loss

WOODMERE, NY — Fighting against the anguish that has struck their family and community, Rabbi Zalman and Chanie Wolowik, the co-directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of the Five Towns in Nassau County, N.Y., announced the building of a children’s library in memory of their son, Levi Yitzchak Wolowik. The nine-year-old boy suddenly passed away in the middle of the night last month.

The Levi Yitzchak Jewish Children’s Library is slated to open in late spring.

In an announcement posted on their Chabad House’s Web site, the Wolowiks drew on the response of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, to two particular tragedies in Chabad-Lubavitch history: one, the 1956 murder of five school children in Kfar Chabad, Israel, at the hand of Arab terrorists, and the other, the 1988 passing of the Rebbe’s wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, of righteous memory.

“After the passing of his wife of 60 years, the Rebbe repeated time and again the verse from [Ecclesiastes], ‘And the living shall take to heart,’ ” the Wolowiks wrote just after concluding the weeklong period of mourning known as shiva. “Each one of us must become better, must change, must do more good.

“When five young children were murdered in their classroom in Kfar Chabad in 1956, the Rebbe responded by building,” they continued. “He expanded the school, sent more [emissaries] to Israel, and founded more institutions. To this day, those institutions and the lives they have touched stand in everlasting memory to those who passed on.”

The creation of the library, they said, grew out of wanting to do something that reflected their young son’s interests. Already, family members and friends have signed on to the project, as have people from the community.

“Our son very much enjoyed reading and writing,” said Zalman Wolowik. “He kept a personal journal that he wrote in everyday. We decided that a Jewish Children’s Library would be the most fitting way to bring life and richness into our community.”

Article continued at Chabad.org