Charlie “Buttons” Nassofer, 80, Brought Joy to the Rebbe, and Generations of Children and Adults

by Motti Wilhelm – chabad.org

For decades, at nearly every engagement party in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., children would gather near the door, waiting with anticipation. At some point during the celebration, the door would swing open, and the children would shout with glee, “He’s here! He’s here!”

The man who inspired such excitement was Charlie Nassofer—better known as “Charlie Buttons” due to the dozens of colorful pins bearing Jewish messages adorning his cap and overalls. Where he lived remained a mystery to most, with few even knowing his real last name. But one thing was certain: He could always be counted on to show up carrying a stack of uninflated balloons. Charlie would blow up and shape the balloons, handing them out to the children. His signature gesture at engagement parties was crafting a red balloon heart for the bride and groom.

A colorful figure who brought joy wherever he went, he became a fixture at countless simchas. He was also famously present at every shalom zachar—the traditional Friday-night celebration after a baby boy is born. With thousands of Jewish families in Crown Heights, there were often several such gatherings each week, yet Charlie would make his rounds, trudging along in his untied work boots.

At the time of his passing on Thursday, May 8—the eve of 11 Iyar—Charlie had been in poor health for well over a decade, spending most of his time in a nearby Brooklyn Jewish nursing home. Yet his passing was still met with a sense of visceral sadness. Charlie was a fixture—an icon, really—and his death felt like the end of an era.

Social media quickly filled with photos of Charlie at engagement parties, bar mitzvahs and other community events. Even more poignant were his dozens of memorable moments with the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—to whom he often brought a smile.

For someone so unconventional, Charlie left behind a surprisingly large paper trail, documenting many facets of his life and escapades.1 But most of these details only surfaced in the days following his passing. Because for so many in Crown Heights and around the world, their affection for Charlie wasn’t rooted in his past. They loved him simply because he was the irreplaceable Charlie Buttons.

Growing Up Charlie

Charles Nassofer was born on July 9, 1944, to Irving and Marcia Nassofer in Kearney, Neb., where his father was stationed at the U.S. Air Force Base, working as an airplane repairman.2 Eight days later, his brit milah—the ritual circumcision—was officiated by a rabbi from Omaha. A small headline in the local newspaper the following day reported: “Rabbi Katz Officiates at Christening [sic] Ceremony.”3

The sages of Kabbalah teach that when parents give their child a Jewish name, it’s not just coincidence or personal preference—G‑d inspires them to choose the name that aligns with the child’s soul.4 Charlie’s parents gave him the name “Tzadik”—a familiar word but a rare name. In hindsight, it seems like a Divinely-inspired glimpse into the future.

Sometime over the following years, the family moved to Brooklyn, settling in the East Flatbush neighborhood. The 1950 U.S. Federal Census lists them as living on E. 48th St. Charlie attended the local public school and Hebrew school at nearby Congregation Beth Judah. According to Charlie’s recollection in several interviews, his father once brought him to see the Rebbe at 770 when he was a young child.

In 1954, Irving Nassofer passed away at the age of 40, leaving behind his wife, son and two daughters. Charlie’s mother, who worked as a bookkeeper at Beth Judah, continued in her position while raising the family. For high school, Charlie attended Brooklyn Technical High School, then began college studies but eventually dropped out. His sister Elaine remembers him as “very good-looking and very smart.”

In 1964, while on a visit to Florida, Charlie and his sister Lottie were involved in a serious car accident, in which Charlie sustained brain damage.5

In the years that followed, the series of events that shaped him into the much-beloved “Charlie Buttons” began to unfold. By the mid-1970s, Charlie was attending Jewish singles events in Manhattan. At one such event, a woman from the Chabad-Lubavitch community arrived with Shabbat candle-holders to encourage the young women to light Shabbat candles. Charlie thought it was a great idea to hand them out regularly at these events, and he asked her where he could get more. She directed him to Crown Heights.

Charlie took the subway and ended up meeting Rabbi Kasriel Kastel, program director at the Lubavitch Youth Organization. Rabbi Kastel offered him the opportunity to don tefillin and invited him to attend programs the organization was running. “And that’s how I ended up in Crown Heights,” Charlie recalled decades later.

The Court Jester

In his overalls and large, distinctive yarmulke, Charlie quickly became an icon in Crown Heights, especially in the synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway, Lubavitch World Headquarters. He became deeply enamored with the Rebbe, who in turn showed him special warmth and affection. Almost every time Charlie passed by the Rebbe, he was greeted with a broad smile and an encouraging wave of the hand.

Charlie’s unique relationship with the Rebbe played out both in public and in private. When receiving kos shel brachah—the traditional wine of blessing from havdallah marking the end of Shabbat or a holiday—Charlie would approach the Rebbe holding three cups instead of the one cup everyone else had. He later explained that the cups represented chochmah, binah and daat—the acronym of Chabad. The Rebbe would patiently pour wine into each of Charlie’s cups, and then swing his hand in encouragement, which would usually send Charlie into an euphoria. He’d dance his way down from the platform where the Rebbe was standing.

There were also private moments. Charlie would sometimes stop the Rebbe on the street for a conversation, though he never revealed what they discussed. On one occasion, after losing his signature yarmulke while swimming in the ocean, he wrote to the Rebbe to share what had happened. According to Charlie, the Rebbe responded by sending him a new one.

That yarmulke played a key role in transforming him into the beloved “Charlie Buttons.” Charlie had a hobby of collecting buttons, which he proudly pinned to his large yarmulke. Many featured logos of Jewish organizations or carried messages encouraging mitzvot like Shabbos or tefillin. Others were rank badges from Tzivos Hashem, Chabad’s children’s organization. It’s no surprise, then, that he earned the nickname Charlie “Buttons”—so much so that most people knew him only by that name.

At some point, Charlie began attending weddings, engagement parties and other celebrations throughout the community, becoming a beloved and unmistakable presence at nearly every simcha in Crown Heights.

“At first, I only went to weddings,” he once told an interviewer. “It’s the mitzvah of bringing joy to the bride and groom. Then I thought—why not go to the engagement parties too? That’s also a chance to make them happy. From there, it grew to include brises, shalom zachars, melaveh malkahs—everything.”

And wherever Charlie went, his balloons came with. He’d blow them up and twist into animals and creative shapes that delighted children and, yes, even the adults.

At the same time, Charlie was an active member—in his own unique way—of the Lincoln Square Synagogue.

“Everyone at Lincoln Street loved Charlie,” recalls Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, who served as the synagogue’s Director of Education in the 1970s and ‘80s and later founded the National Jewish Outreach Program. “That included the rabbis and even the most prominent congregants. He was always eager to help with various tasks, like preparing mailings, and he played a meaningful role in the Beginner’s Service, especially during events before the holidays.”

For many years, Charlie participated in the synagogue’s Purim plays. Some years the play was even about Charlie himself—with another actor portraying him—much to his delight and the joy of the entire congregation.

At one point Charlie worked at the United States Postal Service, but that job quickly ran into complications. According to Rabbi Buchwald, Charlie—who was “exceptionally brilliant” and showed signs of being a savant—figured out how to work with remarkable efficiency, which didn’t sit well with the union.

“Reputedly, he lost his job because he figured out how to service one of the large sorting machines in just two hours instead of the usual 18,” said Rabbi Buchwald. “The union accused him of causing other postal workers to lose work.”

Another point of contention was Charlie’s observance of Shabbat, which the USPS was unwilling to accommodate. Over the years, he was hired and fired by the Postal Service four times and spent decades trying to be reinstated.

As an alternative occupation, Rabbi Buchwald taught Charlie how to kosher kitchens. Charlie would carry out this work for anyone who requested Rabbi Buchwald’s help, including in some of Manhattan’s most luxurious homes.

“Charlie would show up in his overalls, with his koshering pot and his oversized oven mitts,” Rabbi Buchwald recalls. “He went that way to the homes of those who couldn’t afford to pay, and even billionaires. And no matter who they were, they all grew fond of him.”

‘I Couldn’t Be Elijah’

As time went on, Charlie began spending more and more time in Brooklyn—first a few weekends each month, then more frequently, until he eventually moved into the basement of a kind and especially hospitable Crown Heights woman who’d opened her home to many of the neighborhood’s most colorful characters. His move to Crown Heights, along with his near-constant presence at virtually every joyous occasion across the neighborhood, cemented his status as a beloved fixture of the community.

“Charlie was the epitome of the Talmud’s description of those ‘Who are insulted and do not insult, who hear their shame and do not respond, who act out of love and are joyful in suffering,’”6 says Nechama Dina Cohen of Beitar, Israel, who spent many a Shabbat meal with him at the home of her grandparents, Rabbi Eliezer and Raizel Zirkind. “Regardless of what anyone would say to him, he always stayed positive, was always happy and smiling, and only saw the positive in everything and everyone.”

Charlie had a sharp, wry sense of humor and often answered questions with quick quips. When asked, “Charlie, how are you doing?” his usual reply was, “Decomposing.” And when an interviewer jokingly asked if the rumors were true—that he was actually Elijah the Prophet—Charlie shot back: “Absolutely not. It’s way too hard of a job to be Elijah the Prophet. Besides, I’m a chronic latecomer, so I couldn’t be Elijah.”7 (The interviewer noted that the Jewish people have been waiting nearly 2,000 years for Elijah to announce the final redemption, so Charlie’s excuse didn’t entirely let him off the hook.)

He also came up with his own set of lines and slogans, often based on his personal take on a teaching from the Rebbe. One of his better-known sayings was to refer to dates late in the Jewish month of Tevet as “the 23rd day of Chanukah”—or whatever number it was—a nod to the Rebbe’s teaching that since Tevet begins during Chanukah, the month carries the holiday’s spirit throughout. And if the secular new year began during Tevet, Charlie would take it even further, declaring the whole year “a Chanukah year.” Ever heard of the 227th day of Chanukah? If you spent time around Charlie, you may have.

Another one of his unique calendrical constructs was chol hamoed Charlie, which referred to the days between the day his birthday appeared on the Jewish calendar and its occurence on the Gregorian calendar. On those days, he’d call out as he walked from one event to the next, “Chol hamoed Charlie, chol hamoed Charlie, born twice, how nice!”

“People whispered Charlie was a hidden tzadik—one of the 36 righteous people upon whom the world stands,” writes Rabbi Mordechai Lighstone, Chabad.org’s social-media editor. “I’m not an expert in hidden tzadikim … but in a way, the joy he brought to others, he was already revealed.”

Footnotes

1. Special thanks to scholar, historian, and internet researcher Rabbi Shraga Dovid Homnick for uncovering and sharing many of the newspaper clippings that helped make this article possible.

2. Interview with Rabbi Yaakov Dovid Cohen, One People One World under G‑d, ‘Charlie and his Sister from Ca,’ June 15, 2011, accessed on May 12, 2025.

3. Kearney Hub, July 18, 1944.

4. Rabbi Chaim Vital, Sha’ar HaGilgulim, Hakdama 23.

5. ‘New York Man Seriously Hurt in Auto Wreck,’ Fort Myers News-Press, June 15, 1964.

6. Shabbat 88b.

7. Tami Hutzman, Ha-ish Im HaBalonim: Charlie BeMitavo, col.org.il, March 3, 2007.