(lubavitch.com) Mayor Sheila Dixon of Baltimore presented local Chabad representatives with a key to the city last Monday.
The key was presented belatedly—in fact 80 years late—but it was received happily at a well attended ceremony at the Baltimore City Hall. Initially intended to be presented by Mayor William Frederick Broening to the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the key had been misplaced by the Mayor shortly before meeting the Rebbe on Jan. 16, 1930, and was missing since then.
Looking at the bright side of things, Director of Chabad Lubavitch of Maryland Rabbi Shmuel Kaplan said that had the key in fact been the Rebbe’s possession, it might well have been lost in the turmoil of WWII.
The recovered key will be now be sent to the Chabad Library in New York, where many other such keys and gifts bestowed upon the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn are kept.
Rabbi Zev Gopin, director of Chabad of Johns Hopkins and Central Baltimore was also present at the ceremony, as well as three other local Chabad Rabbis. At a subsequent City Council meeting, the proceedings began with Rabbi Kaplan offering the opening benediction.
The event also served to mark the sixtieth year since the late Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson assumed leadership of the Chabad movement. Accordingly, Ms. Dixon declared the next two months “60 days of goodness and kindness” in Baltimore.
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