New York Chabadniks tour Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan, Canada — Two rabbinical students from New York’s Chabad Lubavitch movement are in Saskatchewan to meet Jews across the province.

“The main purpose is to electrify Judaism a little, bring in a fresh burst,” Shmuli Raitman, 22, who is originally from Melbourne, Australia, said in a phone interview.

“The Jewish population of Regina is like [the population of] one building on the Upper West Side [of Manhattan],” said his travel mate, Rabbi Yisrael Kugel, 23, who is from New York.

The chassidic Chabad Lubavitch movement sends about 300 pairs of students across the globe each summer to complement their schooling. Rabbi Kugel recently received his rabbinical ordination and Raitman hopes to get his this fall.

While the pair’s combined travel resumé read like a United Nations program and includes Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Japan, Thailand and France, they admit that the prairie province was off their radar.

Rabbi Kugel joked that he needed to figure out how to spell “Saskatchewan” so he could look it up on Google and have an idea of where he was headed.

The two landed in Regina on June 25 and have already visited many places across the province, from larger cities such as Moose Jaw and Saskatoon to smaller places such as Estevan, where they met a woman who calls herself the “last Jew” in town.

“It’s been an unbelievable experience,” Raitman said.

“The Jewish people here are very warm and very receptive.”

As welcoming as the locals are, Rabbi Kugel said the pair’s traditional black suits, hats and beards are a novel sight on Saskatchewan’s streets.

“Everybody that sees us turns their heads when we walk down the street. It’s such an interesting sight for them to see us… but everybody is very nice and friendly and accommodating,” he said.

They were quoted in the Regina Leader-Post as being comparable to “missionaries,” but Rabbi Kugel called this a misinterpretation, noting that they’re not aiming to convert anyone.

“According to chassidic thought, every single Jewish person has a neshamah, a Jewish soul, that makes them equally Jewish… and which is powerfully connected with God,” he said.

“Some people make a misunderstanding that what makes a Jew is how he acts. We look at it that a Jew is a Jew no matter what.

“The message we are trying to bring out is that we are not trying to impose anything new on anyone else, we are just trying to bring out what he has within.”

Rabbi Kugel admits that there is a fine line between encouraging religious action from that soul and imposing values.

“It is a difficult thing to explain. We want everyone to grow according to their own level,” he said.

They have already had many interesting experiences with the small Jewish population in Saskatchewan.

Raitman shared an anecdote about being caught in Estevan visiting an old Jewish cemetery later than expected on a Friday afternoon. The duo had planned to spend Shabbat in Winnipeg, six hours away, but they couldn’t reach the Manitoba capital in time, so they pulled off the road in the town of Weyburn to spend Shabbat there.

They looked through some old notes and found a 1993 phone number for a Holocaust survivor in the town.

Unsure of whether the man would still be alive, the pair reached him, and he was delighted to speak with them.

Rabbi Kugel also enjoyed a chance encounter with a Vancouver Jew in their Regina hotel. He was visiting old family grave sites and needed someone to translate the Hebrew on the tombstone.

“Meeting a Jew randomly in Regina is like finding a cow on the moon… I almost fainted on the spot,” Rabbi Kugel said, only partly in jest.

He translated the tombstone from pictures on the man’s digital camera. While speaking, he and Raitman learned that he had never put on tfillin.

The next morning at 6 a.m., they met the man in the hotel lobby, put on tfillin together, prayed and sang mazal tov.

“It was an absolutely amazing experience,” Rabbi Kugel recalled.

The duo said they gained an appreciation for Saskatchewan Jews.

“One thing that we noticed is that in New York you can put yourself on cruise [control] and be Jewish… but in terms of commitment, you could learn a lot from these smaller Jewish places. Whatever level that they are committed is very inspiring,” Rabbi Kugel said.

The pair heads back to New York on July 17.