‘Roving Rabbis’ Touch Down in Durham

DURHAM, Ontario — Malls and coffee shops may not be spiritual places, but if you ask Rabbi Shloime Greene and Rabbi Chaim Rubashkin they’re a great place to chat about faith.

The two rabbinical students are visiting Durham Region this month as part of a unique initiative called Roving Rabbis.

Based in Brooklin, N.Y. the program sees hundreds of young rabbis and rabbinical students fan out across the globe every summer, reaching out to communities that are lacking rabbis or Jewish cultural activities.

Participants will hit 1,000 cities this summer hauling suitcases stuffed with kosher food, shabbat candles, DVDs, brochures and mezuzahs — a religious scroll placed on doorways.

Rabbis Greene and Rubashkin arrived in Durham on June 6 and are staying until this Sunday.

Word of mouth has spread quickly and the visiting rabbis have been busy having coffee with local residents, chatting with passersby at the Oshawa Centre — even cold calling people with Jewish last names listed in the phone book.

This weekend they will be on hand for services at Chabad Durham, a Jewish community centre based in Whitby.

“We just help in any way we can, it’s a good learning experience for us,” says Rabbi Greene, 20, who hails from Minnesota and whose father is a rabbi. “We can’t believe how nice the people in Durham Region are.”

Rabbi Rubashkin, 21, says many people they encounter don’t consider themselves religious and might not feel comfortable taking part in worship services — but they are up for a casual chat over coffee.

“When we offer to meet them in a cafe or at a public place it isn’t so intimidating. It’s a way for us to reach out,” he explains.

The pair of visiting rabbis say their most memorable encounter so far was with a Jewish man they met at the Oshawa Centre.

He was in crisis after accidentally eating pork in a fast food meal — a major misstep for Jewish people who keep kosher.

“We were able to talk to him and help him see how something good can come from a step backward,” Rabbi Greene says.

The Roving Rabbis program started more than 60 years ago and is run by Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

Young rabbis also travel the globe during Passover, one of the most widely observed Jewish holidays.

This past spring hundreds of Roving Rabbis hosted communal seder dinners in 58 countries including Iceland, China, India, Rwanda, New Zealand, Poland and Russia.

“In some places people wait an entire year for a rabbi to come so they connect and talk one-on-one,” says Rabbi Tzali Borenstein, who started Chabad Durham with his wife last summer. “These rabbis are like a beacon, they change people’s lives.