NEW YORK — Coming alongside a New York City push to license pedicab operators, the initiative of a Jewish teenager in Brooklyn has given pedestrians and motorists an interesting site: a mobile bamboo-topped latticework hut affixed to a rickshaw.
Teenager Pedaling Holiday Celebration Throughout New York
NEW YORK — Coming alongside a New York City push to license pedicab operators, the initiative of a Jewish teenager in Brooklyn has given pedestrians and motorists an interesting site: a mobile bamboo-topped latticework hut affixed to a rickshaw.
Levi Duchman, a 16-year-old Chabad-Lubavitch yeshiva student from Crown Heights, was out pedaling the contraption Monday around Grand Army Plaza, publicizing the Jewish holiday of Sukkot like never before. According to Duchman, the handmade booth has been getting quite a reaction from New Yorkers, who have likely never seen a sukkah – the walled temporary huts that Jews eat in during the seven-day holiday – transported in such a way.
“People are really getting excited,” said Duchman, whose father directs Colel Chabad, a social-services organization founded in 1788 by the first Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, and whose brother runs the Chabad House on Roosevelt Island. “Everybody is taking out their phone and taking pictures.”
For decades now, Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidim, emissaries and rabbinical students have taken mobile sukkahs – usually converted pickup trucks – through the streets of cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Rome and Paris. Duchman believes, however, that his contraption is unique.
“I woke up Friday morning with this idea,” he said Tuesday before taking his younger brother and heading out for Manhattan. “I asked all the pedicab drivers where I could get one, and then went to the store and told them what I wanted to do.”
As he makes the rounds, Duchman invites Jewish men, women and children to make a special blessing on the Four Species – a combination of palm branch, willow twigs, myrtle branches and citron that are held together each day of Sukkot – and to eat a snack inside the sukkah. The hard part, he revealed, is the driving.
ylt
not the first and not the last
Levi Fan
WOW,
shkoiach to Levi Duchman!
Chaim Hillel
Perfect to work off the wight;)
friend
that’s levi always in action with good attractive ideas!!!!
keep it up!!!
To Chaim Hillel
Please spell right…
It should say “Perfect to work off the weight”
To To Chaim Hillel
It was a typo, Mr. English professor…
btw… you meant “please spell correctly,” not please spell right
ha
to YTL
did you ever hear of the saying “if you nothing nice to say, don’t say it?” yeah, it’s becoming really popular now
dovid
duchmanim!!
Levi-s former roomatte
Levi, ur the best trust!!
A former roomate
GO LEVI
Title spelling
On the topic of spelling, the title on <a href=”http://www.Chabad.org/news“>Chabad.org/news</a> says Peddling, not Pedaling. I thought that was a cute pun that was lost in this title…
rock on
daaaaaaaaachman!!!!
A Jew
awesome I’m inspired (how do you do it?)keep up the good work