Young Lubavitchers bolster staffs of Torah Learning Center in Kansas

In the fall of 2004, Rabbi Elchanan “Chonie” Friedman, 30-year-old son of TLC founders Rabbi Ben Zion and Esther Friedman, returned to the Kansas City area to become its director of development. He and his wife, Frumi, have four children.

This past fall, two more young (25-year-old) rabbis and their wives – Berel and Chanie Sosover and Eliezer and Devorah Leah Simmonds – moved to town to augment the staff of TLC and, simultaneously, that of the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy.

Rabbi Berel Sosover’s primary, full-time job is as an instructor at HBHA, where he teaches Torah and Talmud to students ranging from third grade to high school. Chanie Sosover teaches middle-school students part-time, even as she raises the couple’s infant daughter, Etty.

Rabbi Eliezer Simmonds’ full-time job is at TLC, while his wife, Devorah Leah Simmonds, teaches kindergarten part-time at HBHA.

Rabbi Chonie Friedman said that former HBHA Associate Head of School Avi Marcovitz started the ball rolling last year, in the wake of the dissolution of the local kollel. “He needed teachers to fill up a lot of classes … and he was looking for people to be here long term, with good backgrounds in Judaic studies,” Rabbi Chonie Friedman said. “And this is what we got.”

Rabbi Chonie Friedman said he used his contacts at the Central Lubavitcher Yeshiva (Ohr Tmimim) in Brooklyn to find Rabbis Sosover and Simmonds. Each of them is a graduate of the yeshiva, and each completed a two-year emissary stint in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where, they said, they gained teaching experience.

Rabbi Sosover said that, while life in Kansas is “very different” from his previous experience, he is enjoying his work here.

“It gives me a real opportunity to teach kids who don’t have much of a Jewish background and give them as much as I can,” said Rabbi Sosover. “Other than that, all of us try to connect with the parents, besides just giving the children education.”

In that way, he said, this work is like a continuation of his shaliach duties – spreading Yiddishkeit.

Between teaching at HBHA, TLC, the Melton Mini-School and JCC’s Heritage Center, Rabbi Chonie Friedman said, the Torah Learning Center crew has contact with more than 350 people a week, teaching 100 classes between them. And they aim to do more. Rabbi Simmonds is leading an effort to teach more than 100 one-on-one classes each month. The subject matter is up to the individual, Rabbi Chonie Friedman said: parashah of the week, ethics, rituals, holidays – you name it.

“We will make it easy,” Rabbi Simmonds said. “You don’t have to come to class. They can choose what and when they want, and we’ll come to do it.”

New building

Rabbi Ben Zion Friedman, who was formerly associated with the Chabad House of Greater Kansas City, and a group of supporters established TLC in 1998. TLC bought a former farmhouse on 1.5 acres of land on 103rd Street just west of Antioch Road in 1999. TLC has been using the house as a combination administrative center, shul and school.

It now plans to build a new building with a multi-purpose room for davening, a kitchen, library/classroom and office/gift shop. Rabbi Ben Zion Friedman said TLC had received the necessary zoning variance from the city of Overland Park, and that architect Vince Latona had drawn up a plan that contains about 3,500 square feet of space. It would cost around $1 million to build, he said.

Rabbi Ben Zion Friedman said TLC’s growing staff and potential additions were “very exciting.”

“To have two new, religious families moving into town who are young and dedicated to stay and building a community helps all around,” he said.