New Grants Announced At Annual Chabad on Call Kinus
Most mornings, a coffee cart winds through the halls of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, stopping at patient rooms with a hot drink and a few minutes of conversation. Rabbi Shimon Partouche and his wife, Rivka, run it with a team of volunteers, alongside a café, a shul, and an apartment where Jewish patients and their families can sleep steps from the hospital.
This week, Partouche stepped away from those corridors and traveled to Houston. He was one of dozens of shluchim who came for the second annual Chabad on Call Kinus, a two-day gathering of shluchim who serve patients, families, and staff in hospitals and medical centers around the world.
The Kinus was hosted by Rabbi Lazer and Rochel Lazaroff at Aishel House, their residential center at the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical complex in the world. The program, organized by Chabad on Call at Merkos 302, ran June 8 and 9 and included workshops, lectures, roundtable discussions, and hands-on volunteer work.
“The Rebbe wanted us to be there for every Yid, in every place and every situation,” said Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, Executive Director of Merkos 302. “These shluchim bring families hope and comfort when they need it most, and the Kinus gives them the tools to do even more.”
The gathering brought together shluchim already established in medical shlichus alongside those looking to expand into hospitals in their own communities. For most, it was a rare and valuable setting, a room full of people who dedicate their lives to the same shlichus.
Rabbi Yosef Shusterman, a posek in Los Angeles, led two sessions on issues that surface constantly in hospital work: Shabbos and Yom Tov in hospital settings, and kashrus in a medical environment. Other sessions covered building a Jewish medical professional community and a physician’s perspective on caring for observant patients, followed by roundtables where shluchim compared approaches.
“This Kinus is not like any other,” Partouche said. “The shluchim are all dedicated to doing chessed, but here we learned how to do it the right way, how to work with hospitals, run a hospitality center, and handle the halachic questions, all from the best in the field.”
On the second day, participants joined Aishel House volunteers to see the operation up close, from its hospitality suites to the systems that keep patients supported from check-in to discharge.
“Being there for people in their most vulnerable moments takes tremendous strength,” said Mrs. Chani Goldberg, Director of Chabad on Call at Merkos 302. “At Aishel House, the shluchim saw that work up close, the building, the systems, and the heart behind all of it. The Kinus gave them a place to learn from one another, build real connections, and go home with renewed strength for the families counting on them.”
At the closing luncheon, Chabad on Call awarded its first Hospitality Suite Grants through Keren Hashluchim, the fund led by Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, which helps shluchim with needs ranging from simcha grants to emergency support and mikvah construction.
Rabbi Shimon and Rivka Partouche received $36,000 toward their hospitality center at the MUHC in Montreal. Rabbi Mendy and Dina Hecht, who serve the downtown New Haven community near Yale New Haven Health, received $25,000.
The hospitality suite grants are the first in a continuing series for shluchim in medical shlichus. They will help the two centers expand the suites where Jewish patients and their families can find kosher food, a place to daven, and a place to rest during a hospital stay.
For now, the work continues at hundreds of hospitals around the world, one patient room at a time. The Kinus is how Chabad on Call makes sure no shliach does it alone. “This is a must for any shliach who visits patients in the hospital,” said Partouche. “I’ll be there next year without a doubt.”
