London’s Lubavitch Library Lends Millionth Book
by Tzemach Feller – Lubavitch.com
On December 15, 2025, in the Stamford Hill neighborhood of London, England, a customer with the last name Warhaftik, from Portland Avenue, checked out the British-printed Bilingual Edition of the Tanya at the Lubavitch Lending Library.
It was an entirely unremarkable transaction save for one detail: that Tanya was the one millionth book lent out by the Lubavitch Lending Library. In the 53 years since its founding, the Lending Library has become a beloved community institution, and its librarians have become treasured — and honored — community fixtures.
In the fall of 1972, the Lubavitcher Rebbe led a farbrengen, a Chassidic gathering, on the occasion of the yahrtzeit of his mother, Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson. The gathering began at 9:30 p.m. in New York, and it was broadcast live at Lubavitch House in London — where the local time was 2:30 a.m.
While awakening in the wee hours of the night to hear the Rebbe speak was an experience cherished by many London Chabad Chassidim, Zvi Rabin hadn’t planned to join this gathering that Thursday evening. He had work the next day — the newly-married twenty-something-year-old was a professional librarian working at the storied Goldsmiths Library at the University of London — and he would have to be up early the next morning. But his mentor, Rabbi Yitzchok Sufrin, prevailed upon him to sacrifice some hours of sleep to come to Lubavitch House and listen to the Rebbe’s words.
That night, the Rebbe gave a landmark address, describing the importance of creating lending libraries and urging listeners to open libraries in their own communities. “I didn’t understand Yiddish at the time, and there wasn’t a simultaneous translation, but I understood enough to realize that the Rebbe was speaking about libraries; that every Jewish community should have one,” Rabin recalled. The Rebbe’s talk concluded, and Rabbi Nachman Sudak, the regional director of Lubavitch in the United Kingdom, got up and said, “This is not an easy task that the Rebbe is asking of us.” Sudak called for volunteers, and Rabbi Yitzchok Sufrin, who’d persuaded Rabin to join the talk, piped up: “Zvi Rabin is a professional librarian — he’ll do it!”
In the 53 years since that day, Zvi Sufrin and his wife Faigie have dedicated countless hours to the formation, expansion, and upkeep of the Lubavitch Lending Library. The library began with the books that Lubavitch House had on hand, and was expanded as time went on. The very first book lent out, Rabin recalls, was a set of the Toras Moshe, written by the Alshich, a 16th-century Jewish sage who lived in the Ottoman city of Adrianople and then the holy city of Tzfat, Israel.
The Rebbe had called for each lending library to reflect the needs of the community it served, and as time went on, the Rabins brought in a wide variety of English and Yiddish books for their clientele–members from local Chassidic communities, Jews from across London, and borrowers from further afield — to whom Rabin has been known to mail books on loan. Today, the Lubavitch Lending Library says it is the largest Jewish lending and information center in the U.K. It contains more than 30,000 volumes: everything from children’s books, self-help, Jewish law and tradition, books of the Talmud, and much more. The books are purchased using the proceeds from membership fees and late fees — “of which there are too many” — and donations. Volunteers — high school girls and local retirees — spend time reshelving books so that the Rabins, who are pushing 80, can focus on managing the library.
The library has hosted story hours for children; evenings with novelists, lectures and events. Most notably, hundreds gathered in 2013 to celebrate Zvi Rabin as he was awarded Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) as founder and librarian of Lubavitch Lending Library. The award was presented to Rabin by then-Prince Charles in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, and was followed by a reception at Lubavitch House, where hundreds came to express their appreciation to the couple whose dedication has kept the library going.
Zvi Rabin’s work has been completely on a volunteer basis. “Some people go on the Mitzvah Tanks, some people give Torah classes — this is what I do,” he explained simply. Throughout his decades-long career as a librarian in various London libraries, Rabin would dedicate nights and weekends to the Lubavitch Lending Library, and since his retirement some 20 years ago, he has expanded the time he spends caring for it.
The library was first housed in a small classroom in the Lubavitch House before moving to a larger space as the building was renovated. In 2010, the Library moved to a purpose-built space in a brand-new building next door. And while the space is two-and-a-half times as large as the Library’s previous home, it quickly became overcrowded, and the search is on for a new, larger space for the Library.
“Of the many initiatives the Rebbe instituted, the lending library hasn’t been one of the better-known ones,” Rabin said. For the London Jewish community, however, the Library has brought more than a million opportunities to learn and grow.
