Handwritten Memoirs of Rebbetzin Chana Found

A notebook filled with handwritten memories by the Rebbe’s mother, Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, of righteous memory, has been found.

The notebook the second of two penned by Rebbetzin Chana written in Yiddish between her arrival in the United States in 1948 and 1963, are sprinkled with Russian phrases and references, in Rebbetzin Chana’s beautiful round script. The Rebbetzin was an eloquent writer. As a teenager, in her hometown of Nikolayev, she would transcribe the discourses of her father’s Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom Dovber of Lubavitch.

While the existence of written memoirs by Rebbetzin Chana has been known, and bit and pieces of them published in a number of locations, the discovery of a second notebook is a stunning development. While the first notebook records memoirs of the 1939 arrest, incarceration, government-imposed exile – and ultimately, the passing – of her esteemed husband, Rabbi Levi Yitchok Schneerson, the second notebook is somewhat different: It includes her retelling of a number of events in her household, and in the childhood of her son, the Rebbe.

Since the notebooks discovery several months ago by Rabbi Chaim Shaul Brook, preparations have been underway for their publication. Brook, who heads Vaad Hanochos B’Lahak – the group of scholars dedicated to publishing the Rebbe’s addresses and discourses – has arranged for a serialized publication.

Recognizing the tremendous historical value of these original documents, and the need to publish them properly and in a format accessible to the non-scholar, he approached a number of donors with a history of giving toward the preservation and publishing of the Rebbe’s scholarship, life story, and recordings with a unique proposition. The result: Starting from the Rebbetzin’s 47th Yahrzeit on Vov Tishrei (October 4, 2011) and lasting about eight to ten months, the memoirs will be published weekly by Kehot Publication Society.

A team of scholars has been working to study, translate, and footnote the memoirs. In a remarkable arrangement with Chabad-Lubavitch publishers around the world, they will be released in the original Yiddish, alongside translations in Hebrew, English, French, Spanish and Russian. At the conclusion of the serialized publication, they will be published in a full volume by Kehot.