Posted to Chabad News on

Bochurim Trek 15 Miles to Lead a Shul – in a Mosque

NY Daily News

Three young Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Meir Kavabow, Rabbi Shmuel Notik and Levi Kabakow walk all the way from Crown Heights to the Bronx to conduct Sabbath services.

It could be New York’s longest schlep: Every Saturday, young rabbis trudge 15 miles from Brooklyn to worship with some of the last Jews left in one Bronx neighborhood.

The ultra-Orthodox rabbis lead a small Parkchester synagogue housed in the same ramshackle building as an Islamic school and a mosque.

“It takes them four hours and sometimes the weather is terrible,” said synagogue member Harvey Weiner, 82. “But without them, we’d be lost.”

The rabbis and rabbinical students make the grueling journey – rain, snow or shine – because Parkchester’s Jewish population has dwindled and the synagogue has no rabbi of its own.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews don’t drive, bicycle or ride the subway on the Sabbath.

“We come to help the old Jewish people here,” said Rabbi Meir Kabakow, 25. “We take care of them and help them pray.”

On a recent Saturday, Rabbi Shmuel Notik woke at 5 a.m. Dressed in a black suit and a wide-brimmed hat, he left the world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect in Crown Heights and walked briskly in the dark through Williamsburg.

Notik, 25, crossed the Williamsburg Bridge to Manhattan with the sun rising behind him and hiked up First Ave., all the way to East Harlem, pausing to drink at playground water fountains.

The slim, bearded rabbi crossed the Willis Ave. Bridge to the Bronx and strode past bodegas and auto shops on Westchester Ave., waving to curious passersby. “I don’t get tired,” he said. “Well, maybe in the snow.”

Notik has trekked to the Bronx about 50 times since Jan. 1, 2008, when the Young Israel of Parkchester synagogue ran out of money and closed.

That day, he and a group of rabbinical students showed up unannounced at the synagogue’s storefront on White Plains Road.

“It was our last service,” said Leon Bleckman, 78. “We had no rabbi. They walked in and it was like the messiah coming down from heaven. It was a miracle.”

Then Notik and his friends founded a new house of worship. Beis Menachem of Parkchester holds services in a scruffy Pugsley Ave. building that belongs to the Al-Iman Mosque and Islamic Leadership School.

During the week, Muslim students use the space to study the Koran. But on Saturdays, elderly Jews arrange battered folding chairs behind a lectern and sway as Notik reads from the Torah.

In the 1940s, there were seven synagogues in Parkchester alone and hundreds in the Bronx. But many of the borough’s Jews have moved to Long Island and Westchester County.

Not Bleckman. The retired coat salesman is determined to stay.

“There are still Jews in Parkchester, but they don’t know we have a synagogue,” he said. “We need to get the word out. We need every soul we can get.”

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30 Comments

  • Dovid

    Nice article, and kudos to the trekking Rabbis!
    Its really nice to see Crownheights.info posting the good side, without badmouthing the Tzfatim etc. Please keep the comments that way too.

  • just wondering

    very nobel…but why cant they stay w jews (shluchim, YU at albert einstien etc) in the bronx for shabbos and not have to walk so far?

  • lubav

    ITS OFFICIAL!!! the tzfatim have FINALLY formed their alliance with their muslim counterparts

  • see postive

    #5, are u from williamsburg?
    The Rebbe tells us to see the positive in everything EVEN in a fellow chossid.

  • KOL HAKAVOD!

    you guys are pathetic analyzing every nick and cranny! who cars why they don stay somewhere close by. they are doing a huge mitzvah that i dont think anyone of us are doing….and thats all that matters! all we gotta say is KOL HAKAVOD!!!

  • backpacker

    People who bad mouth anyone who does good have to wake out of their bubbly world… There are many chabad tzvatim that I have bumped into during my travels that were not officially part chabad aka payroll.. I was in middle of bumble humble in central America when I came across a moshiach flag.. that Sabbath there was about 80 Israelis at the services and meal.. stop hating… Chabad is not about techie or not… Sad

  • antimeshichist = antimesira

    Not all Meshichistim are Mossrim, but all Mossrim are Meshichistim!

    …For NOT ONLY ONE has risen up against us to annihilate us, but in every generation THEY rise up against us to annihilate us,

    Mishichistim: A Movement of Mosrim

    At a recent trip to Israel I had the opportunity to meet up with my extended family at a family Simcha (Uncles, Ants, Cousins and second cousins). We had all come to spend a Shabbos together to celebrate my niece’s Bat-Mitzva.

    It turns out I have a cousin who was “learning” in Tzfat “Yeshiva” (a.k.a the Mishichist Yeshiva). This year was his second year at this institution.

    He was aware that I was one of the Shomrim Six and related the following to me.

    He said that while we sat on trial, the Mishichist Bochrim were all excited, he said that for six weeks (the course of the trial), the Yeshiva was alive. Everyday the Bochrim would get an update as to the proceedings of that day in court. The discussions in the study hall, dining room and dorm rooms were all about the trial.

    For six weeks everyday “his friends” would tell him with a smile from ear to ear, “your cousins are going to jail”, “your cousins are screwed” etc…

    I asked my cousin if this was just a few guys or the Yeshiva at large and to this the reply was the Yeshiva at large.

    I then asked how was the reaction after the not guilty verdict?

    “They were all down and depressed, they couldn’t look me in the eyes, and this was a big hit for them” my cousin said.

    I have a brother in-law who is in Tzfat “Yeshiva” as well. I wanted to confirm that the above was indeed true and so Motzi Shabbos when I returned to my in-laws I asked my brother in-law about how it was when we sat on trial, he said the same exact thing as my cousin, only they told him that “his brother in-law is going to jail”, his brother in-law was screwed”.

    The Shomrim Six Mesira was not a Mesira of a few Mishichistim, the whole Mishichist movement was involved, and they were all excited, praying that the Shomrim Six be found guilty and imprisoned for 15 plus years.

    When we came aware that we are actually going to go to trial, we did everything we possibly can to stop it.

    We reached out to Meshichitim “Mashpiyim”, Meshichistim Supporters (those doing money laundering business with Mendel Hendel), to no avail. We even offered one meshichist “Shliach” a brand new Safor Torah if he would get involed to stop the Mesira. The Meshichist “Shliach” not only refused to help, he justified Six Jews going to jail for 15 plus years. Six Jews he never met, six Jews with families and jobs, plain and and simple six Jews.

    Jewish blood is not cheap!

  • hocheach tochiach es amisecha

    they should tuck in their shirts before they left. a halacha in shulchan aruch for a jew to look kempt.

  • just curious

    why don’t we see “normal” Americans without MOSHIACH pins with such mesiras nefesh?1

    we see that in order to do what the Rebbe wants you can’t be a “normal American without a MOSHIACH pin”!

  • to #5 #8 #9 & #17

    maybe you should think before you make fun of the people actually doing what the rebbe wants?

    who starts all the fights? american bored antis!

    & the ones making fun of the rebbes soldiers should think before calling others muslims & talibans

    regarding the pin, Rabbi Marlow said it is permmisble on shabbos
    did the rebbe ever call even the yidden doing things wrong with names such as muslims & talibans?1

  • You guys are awesome

    Enough with all the hate between yidden, meshichisim or not, we all need ahavas yisrael and we all love each other. These guys are really something, they should keep growing till 120 :)

  • to #23

    To #23
    Rabbi Marlow said the pins are ok on shabbos if…… and here is the key word they are sown with thread so that even if the pin opens it could not fall off.

    Only woman can wear pins or jewelry on shabbos with out it being sown in.
    please reread the shulchon aruch,asap!!!!

  • Aaron Sofer

    I asked Rabbi Marlow and he told me that no one asked him the halacha pertaining to the PIN.

  • Just asking

    You know….The sarcasm is quite offensive to me. Why is it that some people seem to thrive on using sites like this for some sort of venue for venting negativity and sarcasm? Don’t like sarcasm. Never have. And CERTAINLY don’t like it when targeted at fellow Jews who are trying to do good as they see fit for their own situation. Have some of us lost our hearts and found our negative attitudes toward fellow Jews? Just asking.

  • DAWN

    WRITE THE ARTICLE AGAIN SO THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN PARKCHESTER NEW YORK ARE AWARE OF SERVICES IN THE SYNAGOGUE AND A LOCAL RABBI WILL PERFORM THE SERVIES AND LIVE IN PARKCHESTER