Blog: Howard Kissel’s Encounter with Chabad
Howard Kissel, longtime theater critic for The New York Daily News, passed away on Friday in his Manhattan home. He was 69. During his long career, he served as chairman of both the New York Film Critics’ Circle and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle. Even after leaving the Daily News, he continued to blog regularly for both that site and The Huffington Post. His last post was only three days before his passing.
Born in Milwaukee, Kissel would ultimately call New York his true home. Immersed in the culture and pathos of his beloved New York, Kissel once recalled a unique encounter with another of the city’s cultural highlights—the Chabad movement. Though not Orthodox in his observance, he wrote about an encounter he had with Chabad during his trip to Rome in April, 2010, reconstructed here through his correspondence and conversations with Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries.
All Roads Lead to Rome:
While preparing for a trip to Rome in April 2010, Kissel realized that his stay in the “eternal city” would overlap with the first night of Passover. Turning to Rabbi Menachem Lazar of Chabad of Rome, under the auspices of Rabbi Yitzchok Hazan, Kissel found a seder.
As fate would have it, during his flight to Rome, Kissel sat next to Zev Kugel, a rabbinical student traveling to Chabad in Athens for the holiday. The two Jews, the youthful Kugel with his snap-brim black fedora, and Kissel, with his iconic over-sized glasses perched on a prominent nose and a head crowned with silver curls, most have made for an interesting couple. Yet the two of them, both residents of New York’s Upper West side, struck up conversation.
“Kissel was fascinated with our last names,” Kugel recalls. “He pointed out that we were both named after traditional Jewish foods.” Kissel, Kugel says, was apparently anglicized from kichel, a sweet cookie made of egg and sugar.
“There was something immensely engaging about him,” Kugel says. “His mannerisms, the way he spoke, left an indelible impression.”
The Seder:
Despite his admitted fear of spending the evening at an “Orthodox” event, the “cultural tourist” took a seat – front and center – at the Seder table. Rabbi Mendy Wilansky, today a Chabad emissary to Moscow, led the Seder.
“From the outset,” Wilansky says, “Kissel told us that he wouldn’t be able to stay for the entire Seder.”
Kissel did stay until the last of the four cups of wine had been consumed.
As he would later write for the Daily News in his “Cultural Tourist” blog:
“I was there was the first night of Passover — I had not taken this into account when I made my plans several months earlier. But a friend in New York tipped me off to Chabad Roma, which sponsored a seder for visitors. The Chabad is part of the Lubavicher movement…
The seder in Rome was in the grand apartment of a woman named Mrs. Labi, who was able to set a table for 34. Most of us were from the States but I sat next to an English couple who had emigrated to Israel in 1965. Like Kugel, our rabbi, Mendel, was a young man from Brooklyn. It was a seder where various of the guests had great insights into this holiday of liberation.
My favorite was Mendel’s. He asked why the hard-boiled egg was on the Seder plate. The answer is that most things, when you boil them, are diminished. The egg becomes harder. As a statement about the Jewish experience, it seems especially rich.”
After returning home, Kissel sent a final email to Rabbi Menachem Lazar:
Dear Menahem,
I thought the seder was extraordinary. When Rabbi Gerald Meister told me about the Rome Chabad I expressed fear that, being run by orthodox Jews, I might feel uncomfortable. He assured me that would not be the case and he was, of course, completely correct.
I thought Mendel conducted a seder that made everyone feel welcome, a true part of the learning experience. Mrs. Labi’s hospitality is indeed unbelievable. I can only express profound gratitude to her — and you — for making this possible…
thanks for sharing!!
so proud of our youth, we can all be shluchim, as lord sacks said, the rebbe made leaders, lets all do our part!!