Two Island Communities Celebrate First-Ever Rosh Hashanah with Resident Rabbis

by Karen Schwartz – chabad.org

Dr. Gabor Kovacs, of Fernandina Beach, Fla., is looking forward to spending the High Holidays with his new Chabad center on the northeastern tip of Florida. He got involved a year ago after seeing information about the brand new Chabad of Amelia Island and Nassau County on Facebook, just after the arrival of a charismatic young rabbi and his family. Rabbi Levi and Mindy Katz, together with their infant son, Sholom, came over to Kovacs’s house soon thereafter just to say hi. Kovacs has been involved ever since.

The Katzes’ new Chabad center is one of the nearly 100 new locations Chabad has opened since last Rosh Hashanah.

“Before that I had to go to Jacksonville—about 40 minutes away—and it’s really nice to have a Chabad House so close by,” he says.

Kovacs, who says he is planning on going to the Chabad for both days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, also takes part in Shabbat gatherings and the “BLT” (bagel, lox and tefillin) program on Sunday mornings. “I think [the Chabad House] draws the interest of a lot of the people,” he says.

“It’s nice to be a part of the community as well as to watch Judaism in the area expand,” he adds. “It’s a good feeling for me to be there, to do the prayers and the holiday in an authentic and traditional setting. I’m hoping it will grow.”

“We’re connecting with new Jews almost daily,” Katz says. “With Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur coming up, more people are reaching out than ever.”

Though there have been Jews in the area for hundreds of years, Chabad of Amelia Island—which held a ribbon-cutting ceremony in August for its new storefront, drawing some 100 people—is the island’s first known Jewish gathering place in history.

“It was a very big deal for our community to see it happen,” adds Katz, who is also believed to be the island’s first rabbi. “People approached us in tears at the grand opening.”

The Katzes have a full slate of activities planned for Rosh Hashanah, including services, a brisket dinner the first night and an afternoon shofar-blowing at the ocean for those who might miss services.

A New Synagogue On Its Way

Rabbi Daniel Silco, co-director of Chabad Dominican North Coast in Puerto Plata, the Dominican Republic, will host his community’s first Rosh Hashanah with his wife, Esti, and their two boys.

The Silcos arrived from Israel late last year to start the Dominican Republic’s second Chabad center, and are based out of the town of Puerto Plata. They’ll be offering meals, kids programs and prayer services. The rabbi says they hosted 80 people on Passover, and expects at least as many people for the High Holidays.

The couple has a new Chabad center in the works, but are currently operating out of their home. “It’s nice that people could actually make Rosh Hashanah and all the [holidays] together as a community,” he says.

The Jewish community is made up primarily of Israelis, expats from the United States and Canada, joining Jews whose families arrived on the Caribbean island during the Holocaust, when the country opened its doors to them.

For her part, Esti Silco points out that everything is new and exciting as their first Rosh Hashanah approaches. “We have a really special community, we’re all really spread out, made up of a few different communities in a few different areas, so that’s a challenge,” she says. “But also really amazing to see all the people [who want to be] together for Rosh Hashanah.”

They’re looking forward to meeting new people and also to see who’s coming back, she says, adding that having signed a lease on a new Chabad House separate from their home, this could be a last hurrah for their current location. The other week, they hosted a bar mitzvah. “It’s really important that the community knows that they have each other,” she says. “Besides for all the mitzvot, we get to know we have a community here and that we get to reach out to each other when we need.”

Brisket and chicken are on the menu for Rosh Hashanah dinner, along with pomegranate tabbouli and tahini-glazed roasted carrots, apple fennel slaw and honey cake, she says. There will also be fish heads on the table—one of the symbolic items for the season. “They’re easy to come by on the coast,” she says. “We have them on our table, that we should be like a head and not like a tail, that this year should be one that we greet head-on with success.”

Ohad Harari, who moved to Puerto Plata with his wife a decade ago and has a store in the port, says he’s looking forward to an amazing Rosh Hashanah. “We have a great community,” he says, adding that he expects the new location to bring more tourists because it is in a commercial area, near a lot of hotels, a lake and a golf course. “We’re looking forward to extending it.”

He spent Passover with the Chabad, and says it’s amazing to see the work the young couple is doing to make sure every Jewish person’s needs are attended to, from kosher food to Shabbat candles. “You can literally see the strength the Rebbe [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory] gave to them. They’re doing an amazing job with a lot of inspiration and motivation.”

Bryn Toledano is ready for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with the Silco family as well. Living in the Dominican Republic for a dozen years, the youngest of her four sons just had a bar mitzvah facilitated by the rabbi. “Rabbi Silco was absolutely integral,” she says.

A horticulturist who works in the tourism industry, she says she loves spending holidays at Chabad, until now with Rabbi Shimon and Michal Pelman in Santa Domingo. She lives in Sosúa, where Jewish refugees settled in the late 1930s, and will be attending the High Holidays with her husband and two of her boys with the Silcos this year.

Toledano says she admires how Rabbi Silco is able to welcome guests in Spanish, English and Hebrew. Additionally, she says she values Esti Silco’s sincerity and authenticity. “When Esti talks,” she says, ”she speaks so beautifully, but she wants to hear other people’s stories as well.”

The Rabbi Coming to Town

Back in northeastern Florida, Roberta Steinberg saw in a local paper that Rabbi Katz was coming to town. One of her neighbors also told her about the couple when they arrived. He came by to say hello to her and her husband, Eugene, and she says she immediately felt very comfortable. “He was extremely welcoming, no pressure to join, no pressure to do anything, just go at my own pace,” she says.

She started lighting Shabbat candles on Friday nights, and had the rabbi come to hang a mezuzah on their door. Roberta has been taking part in women’s club events, including a challah bake and an art class, and brings her friends too. She’s planning on going to meals and services over the High Holidays with Chabad, and says she’s very much looking forward to it.

“It just brings me back to my younger years—getting involved and loving my religion, loving and being involved in everything I possibly can, doing mitzvahs, whether it’s food drives or just anything to help anybody out,” says Steinberg. “They’ve just brought me so much closer to G‑d than I ever thought I could be.”