merchant put on tefillin.
They drew their inspiration for such a bold task from Rabbi Mendel Futerfas, the one-time-businessman from Russia who led the farbrengen ñ or gathering where sharing words of Torah, meaningful stories and Chasidic melodies plays an integral part ñ in Kfar Chabad, Israel.
Known as Reb Mendel and born in 1887, Futerfas had, in his home country, invested all of his money to assist the underground network of Jewish day schools supported by Chabad-Lubavitch and was sent to jail for the subversion of Soviet edicts against religious observance. He made it to London in 1962, where five years later he took up the call of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, for Jewish men everywhere to encourage other Jewish men to don tefillin.
Generations Follow in Footsteps of Door-to-Door Jewish Trailblazers
merchant put on tefillin.
TEL AVIV, Israel — One Thursday night in 1975, a group of Chasidic Jews who were crowded around a table in a small village outside of Tel Aviv decided to go out the next morning to help Jews whom they had never met put on tefillin.
They drew their inspiration for such a bold task from Rabbi Mendel Futerfas, the one-time-businessman from Russia who led the farbrengen ñ or gathering where sharing words of Torah, meaningful stories and Chasidic melodies plays an integral part ñ in Kfar Chabad, Israel.
Known as Reb Mendel and born in 1887, Futerfas had, in his home country, invested all of his money to assist the underground network of Jewish day schools supported by Chabad-Lubavitch and was sent to jail for the subversion of Soviet edicts against religious observance. He made it to London in 1962, where five years later he took up the call of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, for Jewish men everywhere to encourage other Jewish men to don tefillin.
In his broken English, he would approach Jews on the street and tell them, “You Jew, I Jew. You tefillin, I tefillin.” The tactic work, as many a soul was so taken aback at his eagerness, that they would respond to the request.
