The Rebbe’s Army Conquers the Bay Area
Dan Pine, a writer for the San Francisco area newspaper J Weekly, wrote the following feature article on the family of Chabad Shluchim in the Bay Area, which we share with our readers in honor of Gimmel Tammuz:
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When Chabad Rabbi Chaim Zaklos and his wife, Aidel, moved to Vacaville in 2009, they didn’t know if their mission to reach out to Jews in the area would succeed.
Despite their concerns, one of the first things they did was buy burial plots at a nearby Jewish cemetery. They had not come to test the waters. The couple was all in. For life.
As shluchim (emissaries) of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, their mission was to follow the directive of their rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson: Reach out to all Jews and reconnect them to their roots. Even in Vacaville, and nearby burgs like Fairfield, Suisin City and Cordelia.
“It was hard to find any demographics,” Zaklos recalls. “We were kind of nervous. We had to rely on our gut feeling that there must be Jewish people everywhere.”
Today, Chabad of Solano County offers Torah study groups, camps, Shabbat dinners and holiday celebrations. High Holy Day services and Passover seders pack the banquet hall at the nearby Hampton Inn.
Chabad of Solano County is one of 48 Chabad centers in the Bay Area, from Castro Valley to Novato to “Chabad by the Sea” in Santa Cruz. In Northern California, Chabad centers are more abundant than minor league ballparks, dotting the landscape in outposts such as Chico, Folsom, Roseville, Pacific Grove and South Lake Tahoe.
Chaim and Aidel Zaklos are two among more than 8,000 shluchim working in 70 countries around the world — that works out to 4,000 couples, as Chabad shluchim work in husband-wife teams.
Twenty years after the death of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the man who built Chabad into the empire it is today, the movement shows little signs of slowing down. It continues to open new centers, expand old ones and send new emissary couples out into the world wherever there are Jews to reach.
Chabad centers are not built on the typical synagogue model. Most charge no dues. None in the Bay Area do. The doors are always open. Chabad rabbis and rebbetzins see themselves as community clergy, available to all, seemingly 24/7.
