Birmingham Celebrates 25 Years of Couple’s Jewish Service

When Rabbi Fishel and Esther Cohen came to Birmingham, England, in 1984, neither had any idea what the future would hold.

He, a young Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi fresh out of school, had been asked to become the area’s first full-time university chaplain for the Midlands Region, providing religious and pastoral support to Jewish students attending universities in Birmingham, Warwick, Woverhampton, Derby, Coventry, Loughborough, Leicester and Nottingham. She, barely 20 years old, faced her own challenges in building a home and Jewish center far from her family in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Among the roadblocks was confronting a dearth of kosher facilities; running out of staples such as milk or bread was not an option.

“I was determined to make it work,” said Esther Cohen, who with her husband directs campus activities. “I learned how to plan in advance, and the community was very welcoming.”

Ask locals, and they’ll tell you that over the last 25 years, the Cohens have done more than “make it work.” Together, they’ve touched the lives of thousands of students, many of whom still regard the couple as friends.

More than 200 students, alumni, colleagues, friends and family members came out to show their support at a dinner held earlier this year. Sponsored by the Midlands Region Chaplaincy Board, the event honored the Cohens’ quarter-century of service.

Speaking after the dinner, Esther Cohen said that from day one, they focused on finding ways to help Jewish students, many of whom were away from home for the first time, cope with the various challenges of university life. They sought to establish innovative programs and activities with the goal of building a sense of community.

“We were always arranging events,” she related. “Our goal was to create a home away from home. Students would come to us when they were panicking about exams. Sometimes they would knock on our door at midnight to borrow some milk.”

Mendy Cohen, one of the couple’s four sons, compared the constant bustle of his childhood home in England to Grand Central Station in New York City, where he now resides.

“There were always students around,” he said. “It was like a second home to many of them.”

It wasn’t uncommon for the Cohens to prepare enough food for a Shabbat dinner for 20 guests when, without warning, 40 would show up.

“My mother would just make more salads and put up more tables,” said Cohen.

Esther Cohen started teaching and later earned a degree in counseling. In addition to assisting Fishel Cohen with his chaplaincy duties, she also serves as head of religious education at the King David School and runs her own clinic, Kadimah Counseling Service. She said that the research she conducted as part of her course work on the psychological needs of Jewish students was invaluable.

“It gave us both a very strong awareness of what students need,” she said. “There is a skill in working with them and not telling them what to do.”

Over the years, the Cohens’ programs ran the gamut of themes. In addition to their weekly Shabbat dinners and holiday events, they continue to host open houses during exam season, inviting students to drop in between study sessions for a home-cooked meal. Among their new projects is “Esther’s Café,” a group of 50 students who gather at a local Hillel House for a regular address by an educational speaker.

“We aim to create a new event every term,” said Cohen. “We’ve had camping trips. Fishel drove a mini bus filled with students to Scotland. It was a lot of fun.”

Article continued at Chabad.org – Change for the Better