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Finding the Hidden Jews of Brazil

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Several summers ago, on the 7,000-mile “Southern Route,” a group of Chabad yeshiva students visited the city of Pelotas, Brazil, planning to spend Shabbat at the city’s historic old synagogue. While there, they met an elderly man named Roberto, who introduced the students to two of his siblings — a brother and a sister, who were overjoyed to see them. The siblings had drifted from their Jewish roots as the local community dwindled, they said. The following day was the anniversary of their mother’s passing. The students accompanied them to the old Jewish cemetery, helping them recite prayers by her grave.

A year later, the students returned and were introduced to the siblings’ 92-year-old brother. When they offered him the chance to put on tefillin, he agreed. As he recited Shema, tears streamed down his face. He cried, “G-d, I’m sorry. I’m a Jew, I’m part of Your people. I had no chance to practice Judaism, so I joined the Church. Please accept me back!”

“There wasn’t a dry eye in the room,” shared Shaya Begun, one of the students who was there that day. He adds: “But occurrences like this one are not uncommon. With each visit, another Jewish spark is ignited.”

Each summer, several pickup trucks carrying a group of young rabbinical students embark on a long journey. Some travel through the heart of the Amazon rainforest; others along the sunny South American coasts. All of them are on a search for the hidden Jews of Brazil.

The pickup trucks are part of “Mitzvah Tank Brazil,” a unique Jewish outreach program in the fifth-largest country in the world. What began as a grassroots effort by a handful of rabbinical students has transformed into a highly organized operation that reaches Jewish people across the vast country.

In 1973, a group of Brazilian Chabad rabbinical students decided they were going to do something concrete to reach Jews in the furthest corners of their home country. That summer (Brazilian winter) they made their way across the country, meeting unaffiliated Jews scattered in villages and towns across the country’s lush jungles and expansive coastlines.

They repeated this trip over the next few subsequent summers each time meeting new faces.

In 2017, this project, now led by Shaya Begun, was expanded and formalized. That summer, a group of yeshiva students journeyed through the country, visiting 20 cities and towns. The program grew every year since, and in 2024, five groups of students covered over 120 cities, towns, and villages reaching 570 Jewish families. Equipped with tefillin, mezuzahs, and Shabbat candles, they are ready to connect with Jews wherever they may be.

“The [rabbinical] students are like the children I never had,” says Renato from Paraná. “The feelings of happiness and positivity that these visits bring to my home and city linger long after they leave.”

How do they locate Jews in the most remote corners of the country? Social media is a valuable tool. When the students arrive in an area, they make their presence known on local Facebook or WhatsApp groups and other platforms, inviting Jews to reach out and connect. News of their visits also spreads quickly by word of mouth.

The students stay connected with their new friends year round, sending them holiday necessities that may be hard to come by in those areas, like the lulav and etrog for Sukkot and matzah for Passover. Many people also pursue Torah study sessions  over the phone with the rabbinical students.

The stories of renewed connection and spiritual growth could fill a book. “I had always thought Judaism only consisted of the Chumash and the Siddur,” says Fabio from Rio Grande do Sul. “When the students came, I realized how much more there was for me to learn and gain. Today, I put on Tefillin daily, attend Torah classes, and have a completely kosher kitchen.”

Book Notes

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Letters for Life

Guidance for Emotional Wellness

From the Lubavitcher Rebbe

Levi Y. Shmotkin

Ezra Press

As a teenager, Levi Shmotkin lost his oomph for life. Apathy, cynicism, and indifference became his default disposition. But then, as he writes in his introduction, he discovered the Rebbe’s letters: “An alternative world opened up before me. New perspectives on life and its complexities, new methods of thought, new strategies to approach internal struggles.”

Letters for Life explores the private correspondence of the Rebbe with ordinary individuals in the midst of heartbreak, loss, fear, and confusion. In these letters, the author found the tools that would teach him to “walk through life with confidence and serenity.”

The book is divided largely into two sections—“Essentials for Healthy Living” and “Overcoming Darkness.” Each letter is accompanied by the author’s commentary and a takeaway for direct application. A final section traces the Rebbe’s guidance to biblical and Talmudic sources, and provides the reader with a more expansive discussion of the themes addressed in the letters. 

Make Peace

A Strategic Guide for Achieving Lasting Peace in Israel

Elisha Pearl 

Yonah Press

Making peace with its hostile neighbors has been the clarion call of Israel’s allies ever since its establishment. But to the tiny nation fighting for its life while destruction looms at every border, the call often rings hollow and absurdly naive. 

October 7 magnified the threat to Israel, while the demands that she make peace with enemies who don’t want peace just grew louder. What is the answer to this perennial conundrum? 

Since the 1950s, Israeli military and political leaders have sought the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Distilling thousands of pages of his commentary into a systematic guide, Make Peace represents the Rebbe’s timeless vision for Israel’s security and an enduring peace. 

Mendy of Australia

Ella Verzov, Chana Oirechman

Menucha Publishers

Mendy from Australia was born with Angelman syndrome. He cannot speak or walk, but the nine-year-old son of Chabad shluchim in Melbourne invites readers to follow him as he goes about his daily routine and his vibrant life. 

With beautiful photography accompanying loads of interesting facts about Australia’s geographical, natural, and local features, readers get an inside view of life Down Under, as seen through Mendy’s eyes.  

We learn how he navigates his disabilities, communicating with classmates using his eyes and a computer. We follow him as he joins his siblings and his parents in their Chabad outreach activities, and how he enjoys the natural wonders of the Australian landscape.  
A winning addition to the Young Lamplighters series that has taken readers into the homes and lives of young shluchim from Venice to Nigeria, Mendy of Australia will inform and inspire readers of all backgrounds, while demonstrating the art of giving and caring for others.

Art as Avodah: A Visual Conversation with Tobi Kahn

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Tobi Kahn’s art lives in two worlds. His paintings of expansive oceanic horizons, akin to the color field works of Mark Rothko, hang in the collections of major museums. His large body of sculpture and ceremonial Judaica, on the other hand, exists in the lived experience of people who visit the sacred spaces he has created around the country, and in private homes where they are used in ritual practice.

Kahn, who was raised in an Orthodox family and attended Jewish day school and yeshiva in Israel, has used his unique position to build bridges. As co-founder of the Avoda Project, he taught thousands of university students of all races and religions to make their own ceremonial objects; he also co-founded the Artists’ Beit Midrash in New York City, a program that encourages fine artists to engage with sacred Jewish texts. His current exhibit, “Memory and Inheritance,” the culmination of four decades of work, combines his paintings and his Judaica. On view through November 10, 2024, it is housed in the Museum at Eldridge Street, a historic Manhattan synagogue.

You often use the Hebrew word avodah to describe your work. Why?

Sometimes a Hebrew word can carry a range of meanings that have no equivalent in English.

Avodah was the service of the priests in the Holy Temple; then there’s avodah in its meaning of work; and the word is also used for prayer or worship. My avodah is through art, but everyone does avodah.

You’re most famous for your “Sky & Water” paintings, which have no obvious connection to Judaism. You’ve also made mezuzah cases, Omer counters, and memorial lights. How do you define Jewish art? 

I’m Jewish, so my work is Jewish. But if you say you’re a Jewish artist, it could mean there’s a Jewish artistic style, and I don’t believe that. My work is me—everything that I encompass. I don’t call myself a “husband artist” or an American artist. Is my work deeply imbued with my belief in the Creator? It is. For me, the color blue is inseparable from [the biblical blue dye] techelet.

I want to make art that brings the viewer to a higher place. I have created a great deal of ceremonial Jewish art, but my abstract paintings are no less Jewish than the Judaica.

Beyond creating beautiful ritual objects, what can visual art add to Jewish life?

It’s like the difference between taste and smell—it adds a totally different dimension. A visual component does something to your heart, through your eyes. It makes you think differently because of what you’re seeing. People can experience Judaism that way. I don’t have words in my art, because I really like a purely visual experience. 

I work for months on each painting or sculpture, and sometimes years. I want people to feel differently about a work of art every time they look at it, to be in conversation with the image. You can get a lot out of art if you give it the time.

The titles of your artwork are neologisms that sound like Hebrew words. Why not use actual words? 

I don’t like giving too much information, because it closes down the viewer. People can experience the work in different ways depending on their knowledge. If you know color theory, you’ll experience my art one way; if you know Judaism well, you’ll understand it another. The names are allusive. They’re not meant to be literal.

In my current show, I have a painting, TSELA, which is a close-up of the inside of an orchid. Many people have said it looks like a shofar, which is fine. I also have a sculpture, HYYLAH, which uses an actual shofar as part of the piece. To make it, I looked at the contours of a shofar and created a setting to match. The dark shapes underneath remind me of the binding of Isaac on Mount Moriah, and the Jewish people beseeching G-d to forgive our iniquities, but it’s fine if you see something else.

I believe making art is a religious act. And a work of art is complete only when viewers bring their eyes to it.

Thousands of Shluchim Gather for Annual Convention, Days After Colleague was Murdered

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Rabbi Bentzion Butman was on a long, long flight. 

He was on his way from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to New York City, where this week some 6,500 Chabad-Lubavitch shluchim (emissaries) and their guests will convene for the Kinus, the annual International Conference of Shluchim.

Rabbi Butman is the Chabad emissary to Cambodia, He left Phnom Penh for the Kinus Wednesday morning, one of thousands of rabbis taking flights that vary from an hour or two to Butman’s — a multi-stop, twenty-plus-hour trek long enough that he recited Shacharit multiple times en route — to join a conference that is annually a time to reconnect, grow and be inspired. This year, however, the Kinus is taking on a solemn and urgent tone, as it begins some 48 hours after Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Zvi Kogan, who was abducted and murdered by terrorists in the United Arab Emirates, was laid to rest in Israel.

The convention will include workshops and training sessions, with unique daylong seminar tracks covering topics including adult education, Chabad on Campus, educators, Chabad Young Professionals, mental health and wellness, youth leadership, fundraising, and technology. 

Throughout it all, they will gather to draw strength from one another, to grieve the loss of their colleague, and to honor the mission he gave his life for.

Rabbi Mendel Ehrenreich is the youth director at Chabad of Forsyth County, Georgia. For Ehrenreich, Kogan’s murder hit especially hard. As yeshiva students, the two of them —Ehrenreich and Kogan — volunteered together at Chabad of the UAE in the months following the Abraham Accords in 2020, as more than 60,000 Israeli tourists visited the country, and Chabad stepped up its services to provide for their Jewish needs. 

“I really got to see what it means to be dedicated,” Ehrenreich recalled. “He didn’t stop for a second. When someone called the Chabad House and asked to join us for Shabbat dinner, and we were already sold out, with 400 guests filling the hotel ballroom to capacity, found a way.”

“He called the hotel and got them to squeeze another table, another two tables in. He’d call the caterer and ask them to prepare another few trays of food,”  Ehrenreich said. “If there was a Jew in a foreign land who needed something, Kogan’s answer was always yes.”

The Kinus will include a memorial gathering in Rabbi Kogan’s honor, and the gala banquet — the closing event of the Kinus — will open with a tribute to his life. Emissaries will gather at the Ohel, the Rebbe’s resting place, to pray for their communities and for the Jews of Israel. There will be time to grieve and time to find support, time to cry and time to heal. But most importantly, Ehrenreich says, there will be a call to action.

“This was someone who committed his life to Judaism; to helping Jews in a far-flung place. As shluchim, as we head to the Kinus, we need to know that there’s a soldier missing,” Ehrenreich said. “Everyone else needs to fill the shoes of that missing soldier; everyone has to do their part to fill that void.”

STATEMENT BY CHABAD-LUBAVITCH WORLD HEADQUARTERS

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We are deeply concerned about Rabbi Zvi Kogan, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary who went missing in the Emirati city of Dubai on Thursday. 

Our emissaries are working closely with authorities as they investigate his disappearance. 

We pray, along with the worldwide Jewish community for his safe return, and we ask everyone to keep Zvi haCohen ben Ettel in your prayers. 

Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky

Chairman

Lubbock, Texas Welcomes Chabad Presence

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It was a Friday afternoon, and the hot, northwest Texas sun was beating down on students as they walked to and from classes along the broad Engineering Key at Texas Tech University. A small folding table stood along the way, a lone figure standing near it. A smiling rabbi, black fedora perched on his head, sleeves rolled up in the Texas heat, asked student after student, “Excuse me, are you Jewish?” 

Of the more than 40,000 students at Texas Tech this year, some 400 are Jewish. That Friday on the Key, they found a welcome sight. 

Chabad had come to Lubbock, Texas. 

Rabbi Zalman and Chana Liba Braun moved to Lubbock earlier this year, to serve the needs of Jewish students at Texas Tech as well as the local Jewish community. With a population of 250,000, Lubbock was the largest remaining U.S. city without a Chabad presence.

Lubbock’s Jewish community traces its roots to the early 1900s, when a Jewish couple opened a dry goods store in the then-tiny town along the Santa Fe Railroad. Today, several hundred Jewish people call the city home. Andrea Herrera is one of them. 

When the Brauns first visited Lubbock, Herrera and her husband Alex met them for coffee. “We spent an hour and a half kibitzing,” Herrera recalled. “They were trying to decide whether to move here.”

It wasn’t an easy decision. Lubbock is five hours away from the nearest Chabad house, hundreds of miles from the closest kosher supermarket or mikvah. But here was a community excited to welcome a new rabbi and rebbetzin. Here was a college — the sixth-largest in the state — that had never had Jewish infrastructure in its nearly century-long history.

The Brauns visited again, this time on Chanukah. They held a public menorah lighting on campus at Red Raider Plaza, and another at South Plains Mall, where the nascent Chabad center was greeted by Mayor Tray Payne and other public officials.

“It was very well attended, very public—it was wonderful,” Herrera said. “It was then that I began to realize that they were considering moving here.”

The Brauns hit the ground running, with a Purim party, Passover Seders, High Holiday services and Shabbat dinners. Jewish students welcomed the new Jewish presence on campus—eight of whom even joined the annual Chabad on Campus  Shabbaton in New York, last week. 

Nowadays, Chabad’s table on campus at Texas Tech is becoming a familiar sight, as Jewish pride takes off in northwest Texas.

What Israel Means To Them Now: Shehekhiyonu

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Following the events of October 7, I reached back to a poem I committed to memory when I first read it—a poem written when we Jews thought that the worst was already behind us. I was born in East Central Europe in 1936, and raised in Canada as a fortunate immigrant in the 1940s, and I consider it the greatest privilege of my life to have seen the establishment of the state of Israel. 

But our post-Shoah enemies never stopped trying to destroy our monumental achievement, and because they fail, they try to desecrate its glory. I will never let them. In its quiet, private way this Yiddish poem by Avrom (Abraham) Sutzkever, reaffirms how much is at stake in the Jewish return to the Land of Israel.

First published in November 1948 in the weekly of the Displaced Persons camp in Munich, the poem later appeared in the author’s collected works under the title Shehekhiyonu. Many Jews recite this prayer when first arriving in the land of Israel: Blessed art thou, Lord our G-d, King of the Universe, who has kept us in life (shehekhiyonu), and preserved us (vekiymonu), and enabled us to reach this season (vehigiyonu lazman hazeh). The poet maintains the triple structure of the prayer’s three parallel verbs, but in the conditional form, through the negative possibility that he might not have made it to the Land of Israel. 

By the time Sutzkever arrived in Palestine in November 1947, he was renowned in the Yiddish literary world as one of its greatest poets and bravest of survivors. Forced into the ghetto of Vilna with the rest of the Jewish population after the German invasion of June 1941, he continued to write poems and to inspire cultural resistance. He and his wife also joined the Jewish underground resistance and escaped in September 1943 to fight as partisans in the surrounding forests. He said that his subsequent life story reads like a maysele fun Tanakh—a legend of biblical proportions. 

Coming to Israel months before the declaration of statehood, he experienced himself as part of both the dead left behind and the Jewish people in their resurrected homeland. This lyric blends the two. Every word in the description of Israel’s birth pangs reverberates with echoes of liturgical and traditional sources. The rhyme of akeyde with zeyde, blending biblical Hebrew with homiest Yiddish, reassures us that not only did Isaac survive G-d’s test of Abraham, but generations of Jewish sons lived to become beloved grandfathers. Every pebble of the Land of Israel is our familiar ancestry.  

Speaking in his own voice, the poet expresses thankfulness for his great good fortune, haunted by the knowledge that most of his community failed to reach this destination. The word “not” appears six times in eleven lines, carrying the weight of those others. Had he not arrived, he would have expired, fargoyt—a deliberately untranslatable neologism, a word that Sutzkever creates to define a certain kind of dying, turned into a goy, dying as a member of the Jewish people. The Yiddish prefix far, which can mean “turned into,” joined to the term for gentile makes assimilation explicit. This is less a political rejection of galut than a post-war craving to be fully Jewishly at home.

Yet, this is not yet the end. An added line that requires a new rhyming scheme tells us that even had the poet not made it, his yearning would have come on its own. So powerful and sustained is the Jewish longing for Israel that even without any physical presence, the longing would have remained a metaphysical force. Supernatural power is here ascribed to the civilization that the people of Israel have forged. And the power of this longing speaks for those who have not lived to pronounce the Shehekhiyonu blessing.

By Abraham Sutzkever

If I were not at one with you, 

Not breathing air of joy and pain here, 

Were I not burning with the Land 

Volcanic Land in throes of labor; 

After my Trial, if I were not 

Being resurrected with the Land 

Whose ever pebble is my ancestor—

No bread would sate my hunger, 

No water cool my gums, 

Till Gentiled I’d expire, 

And on its own my yearning would come. 

This poem first appeared in the weekly of the Displaced Persons Camps, Af der vakh (On Guard), Munich, November 25, 1948. Dated 1947, the year of the poet’s arrival in Eretz Israel,,it was placed as the opening lyric of the section Shehekhiyonu in Abraham Sutzkever’s collection of poems,In fayer-vogn (In the Chariot of Fire) Tel Aviv: Di Goldene Keyt, 1952.

This article appears in the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of Lubavitch International, to subscribe to the magazine, click here.

Thousands of Jewish College Students Meet Up at International Shabbaton

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After the year Jewish students have had, Rabbi Ariel Stern knew he had to do something special for them.

Rabbi Stern and his wife Mushky have been serving the Jewish student community at Dawson College, in Westmount, Quebec, for nearly a decade. Overall, the school has been a positive space for Jewish students. This year, however, rising antisemitism brought immense challenges for Jewish college students around the world. 

So Rabbi Stern reserved 70 spots at Pegisha, the largest annual Jewish student gathering arranged by Chabad on Campus International. Pegisha brings students to the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York for a weekend filled with warm Shabbat meals, workshops and speakers, joyous celebrations, and a grand havdalah ceremony.

Joyous dancing at Pegisha (File photo courtesy of Chabad on Campus International)

The 70 spots Rabbi Stern had reserved weren’t refundable, so Chabad Dawson got to work filling them. Jewish Dawson students created a hosting committee, inviting their friends to join them for the weekend. Interest in the weekend quickly grew, and this weekend, Chabad Dawson will be joining Pegisha for the first time filling every one of the 70 reservations with students.

“One reason students were excited was obviously for the trip — to get to go to New York City,” said Dean Fleming, a sophomore at Dawson College. “But it’s also because Chabad is such a happening place, and everyone comes together — they wanted to take it to the next level, and Pegisha allows us to do that, and to connect with students from other Chabads.”

They’re not the only Chabad center seeing increased interest in Pegisha this year. Not long after registration opened earlier in the academic year, it sold out. A waiting list quickly grew, with hundreds vying for a reservation. Typically, about 1,200 students attend Pegisha. This year, Chabad on Campus International realized that that simply wouldn’t cut it.

“In this critical moment, we could not turn away a single student,” Chabad on Campus International COO Rabbi Avi Weinstein said. So they booked a second venue, and this year will see the largest-ever gathering of Jewish college students: 2,000 of them, hailing from 176 colleges.

2,000 Jewish students will join Pegisha this weekend (File photo courtesy of Chabad on Campus International)

When two of his students were attacked on the way to a Shabbat dinner at the University of Pittsburgh, Rabbi Shmuli Rothstein rushed to their side, after which they joined Chabad at its safe, welcoming Shabbat dinner. Less than a month later, Rothstein, director of Chabad at Pitt, rushed to help another student who’d been attacked on campus while wearing a Star of David necklace. This weekend, Rabbi Rothstein will travel to Crown Heights with a group of students to participate in Pegisha, and he says they are determined to continue to be there for Jewish students. 

“It’s unfortunate that this is the reality for Jewish students, but their resilience continues to inspire us, and we will continue supporting them in every way we can.”

Pegisha is an annual celebration of Jewish pride (File photo courtesy of Chabad on Campus International)

What Israel Means To Them Now: The Gift

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In the days following October 7, when the scope and horror of the Shemini Atzeret massacre became clear, I felt my mother’s experiences during the Holocaust come to life before my eyes. I felt overcome with grief and fear. 

Yet, in the days that followed, something else became abundantly clear, and I was overwhelmed by its power. 

I saw and heard how, on that terrible day, people put their lives on the line—and indeed many gave their lives—for fellow Jews they had never met before; how a divided Israel and a fragmented Diaspora Jewry came together in love and unity. I saw a new Jewish consciousness emerge, a realization that Jews share an essential bond with Israel and with each other that transcends all our differences.

To quote the Tanya, “It is on account of this common root, shared by all the Jewish people in the One G-d, that all of Israel are called siblings—in the full sense of the word.” Like siblings, we can disagree but the unbreakable bond is always there.

But this new consciousness has come at a terrible price. A passage from tractate Brachot has come to mind more than once these last months: “Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai says: The Holy One, Blessed be He, gave Israel three precious gifts, all of which are obtained through suffering [yisurim]: Torah, the Land of  Israel, and the World to Come.”

The Jewish presence in and allegiance to the Land of Israel tests our faith daily

The Talmud then brings a proof text: “As a man rebukes his son, so the Lord your G-d rebukes you” (Deuteronomy 8:5), and it is written thereafter: “For the Lord your G-d will bring you to a good land.” The Hebrew word yas-er, here translated “rebukes,” comes from the same root as the Talmud’s word for suffering. In this context, it is better translated as “challenges,” or “tests.” 

The Jewish presence in and allegiance to the Land of Israel tests our faith daily. We are a “sheep surrounded by seventy wolves.” Israel is threatened and attacked at every turn while the world condemns it, questions its right to exist, and, as we’ve seen in recent months, has made the Jewish people and our ties to Israel the object of horrible hatred and violence. After centuries of enduring such ignominy, it would make sense that we finally just give up—on our identity and our claim and connection to the Land of Israel, which we’ve held on to at such a great cost.  

Yet the Jewish people remain steadfast. There has been no mass emigration from Israel after October 7. Rather, Jews who left Israel have returned to serve in this war, and Jews continue to make aliyah. Every time during the last eighty years when things looked bleak, “G-d Blessed the work of our hands,” and we survived and thrived in the “Land G-d is giving you.” It seems impossible that our bond to the Land has become stronger yet. It seems impossible that the events that transpired in the Land of Israel, meant to destroy us, actually brought us together. 

What mysterious power does this Divine gift, the Land of Israel, hold! How awesome is Israel, the nexus—as the Kabbalah teaches—of spiritual and physical, of Creator and Creation, of G-d and G-d’s People.

Shlomo Yaffe is the Rabbi of the Alliance of Orthodox Congregations (Springfield/ Longmeadow, MA) and Dean of the Institute for American and Talmudic Law (Chabad of Midtown, New York, NY).

This article appears in the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of Lubavitch International, to subscribe to the magazine, click here.

The Story of Private First Class Ray J. Kaufmann

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As war raged in 1943, Ray J. Kaufmann knew what he had to do, and he wouldn’t let a little thing like his age get in the way.

“He felt it was his duty to do so, like everyone else at that time, and he was proud to do so,” recalled his son Lenny. Kaufmann’s brothers were already in the army, and his father an auxilliary policeman.

At age 17, Ray J. enlisted in the U.S. Army, lying about his age to get in. After basic training, he was shipped off to Europe. Accompanying him was a mezuzah his mom had given him. Although mezuzahs are installed on doorways, people often carry a mezuzah with them, or keep it near their bed as a protective measure. Private First Class Kaufmann carried the mezuzah in a small metal case hanging from a chain around his neck.

His unit was deployed to man a fort on the Maginot Line near Metz, France, as the Allies pushed towards Germany. At 1 a.m. one night, PFC Kaufmann was awakened by his buddies. Climbing out of his foxhole, he was asked to escort a sick soldier to the aid station in the rear. 

“After we were about 10 minutes en route, I heard a tingling, as if bracelets or ringlets were banging together,” Kufmann recalled in his memoir. “I opened my jacket to see if my dog tag chain and mezuzah were the source of the noise. They were. As I touched them, I could feel where they had been damaged.”

“Then I passed out.”

Kaufmann had been hit in the chest by shrapnel from a German 88-millimeter artillery round. When he came to, he was on a stretcher being put into an ambulance.

“After the repair surgery was finished, and I was in the ward, I was told that a piece of shrapnel from an 88 had pierced my chest a fraction of an inch from my heart, proceeded through my left lung, pierced my diaphragm, and lodged somewhere in my bowels,” he wrote. 

“I believe that the shrapnel had been deflected away from my heart by my mezuzah, and I was lucky to be alive.”

Kaufmann came home a decorated veteran, with the Bronze Star for carrying his buddy to the aid station under fire, the Purple Heart for his wounds, and the Combat Infantryman Badge for engaging in ground combat with the enemy. 

But his greatest pride was his family, and he passed on the love for Judaism which had saved his life to his children and grandchildren.

“Dad and Mom made sure all six of us children were brought up in a very Jewish home and had a strong connection to Yiddishkeit,” said Ray J’s son, Bruce. “We got up every morning to make sure there was a minyan. They provided a strong Jewish foundation that was carried out to the next generation of children.”

Ray J. discouraged his children from following his footsteps and joining the Army. When his son Avrum was considering enlisting, Ray told him, “The military is no place for a Jewish boy.” 

“But Dad, you enlisted!” Avrum wondered. “It was different then,” Ray responded. “There was something that had to get done, so I got up and did it.”

Sixty years after Ray took off his uniform, something again had to get done, and another Kaufmann put the uniform on. Chaim Baruch Kaufmann, Ray J.’s grandson, is a captain in one of the IDF Paratroopers reservist divisions. What he does is classified, but he continues in the family tradition: proud of their Yiddishkeit, not eager and gung-ho, but ready to serve and risk life and limb for their country and the Jewish People.

CPT Chaim Kaufmann, IDF

Hundreds turn to Chabad for Rescue in Amsterdam

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On Thursday afternoon, as thousands of Israeli soccer fans gathered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to watch Maccabi Tel Aviv take on Ajax in a much-anticipated soccer game, Chabad reps were on hand at the city’s Dam Square, offering fans the chance to put on Tefillin and bringing Jewish joy to the streets of the city.

Hours later, those fans would turn to Chabad to save their lives.

As Jewish fans headed home, they were attacked by hundreds of antisemitic assailants. Many were injured, and many more were forced to hide as Jews were hunted in the streets.

As the violence unfolded Thursday night, Rabbi Akiva Camissar, who heads Chabad Amsterdam Tourists and Israeli Center, started getting requests for help. By the time the sun rose, hundreds of people had turned to Chabad for rescue. 

“We organized a fleet of volunteer-driven cars giving people rides to the airport,” Rabbi Dovi Pinkovitch, of Chabad Amsterdam Tourists and Israeli Center, told Lubavitch.com. 

On Friday morning, local Jewish doctors visited the city’s hospitals to get a sense of the aftermath of the attacks. A small number of individuals suffered minor injuries, which were treated in local hospitals.

“We arranged food for more than 250 people, and Shabbat meals and a place to stay for another 200 people,” Pinkovitch said.

As the sun set, hundreds of shaken Jews gathered at Chabad to celebrate Shabbat together, in the company of their fellow Jews.

Above The Fray

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Judaism is neither liberal, nor progressive, nor conservative. It is Judaism. It precedes all of these categories, cuts through them, and floats above them. The wisdom of an eternal Torah, given by an infinite G-d, and articulated by 3,000 years of organic tradition can never be contained by any man-made ideology or party platform. This does not mean that the positions of traditional Judaism, those espoused by the Torah, will never coincide with a particular political position. Nor does it mean that we are supposed to remain detached from all temporal matters and from politics of the day. It only means that we can’t let ourselves be defined by them.

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Building Jewish Pride on the North Shore

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Every few weeks, as the sun dips below the horizon on Friday night, casting a glow over the historic streets of Salem, Massachusetts, you might find a group of people sitting at a bar. But before they raise their glasses, a rabbi standing among them raises his glass and recites the traditional Kiddush prayer, welcoming the holy day of Shabbat. Between lively conversation, sips of craft beer, and bites of homemade challah, something special happens. Amid the charm of colonial buildings and curious onlookers a centuries-old tradition is revived.

This is Shabbat at the Bar, one of the many unique ways Rabbi Mendel and Fraidy Barber have helped make Judaism come alive since they, along with their three children, moved to the North Shore in August 2023 to establish Chabad of Beverly-Salem, the third Chabad center serving the area under the aegis of Rabbi Yossi and Layah Lipsker, who founded Chabad of the North Shore in 1992.

While Salem might be best known for its infamous witch trials of 1692 and the throngs of tourists that pour in every October, Rabbi Mendel sees the city through a different lens. “For us, it’s a place of connection,” he says. “We have the opportunity to reach both the 1,600 Jewish residents here and the countless Jewish tourists who pass through.” Home to waterfronts, museums, and art galleries, Beverly’s and Salem’s historic charm are the backdrop of a vibrant Jewish revival.

Chabad’s impact extends beyond local outreach. Chabad collaborates with local universities like Salem State and Endicott, bringing down speakers such as Holocaust survivor Endre Sarkany and survivor of the Nova Festival attack Daniel Vaknin. Programs like these help offer support and pride for Jewish students and locals.

For Sara Pouladian, a lifelong resident of the area, Chabad’s arrival couldn’t have come at a more crucial moment. She remembers the day she sold the Barbers their new home, unaware that they would soon become central figures in her life. “After October 7th, something shifted,” Sara reflects. “We needed Chabad more than ever – it’s really brought our community together.”

One of the first programs Sara connected with was the Jewish Women’s Circle, led by Fraidy Barber. “There’s something so special about coming together with other women to cook, to learn, to create,” Sara says. The Barbers, she adds, “are some of the best people I’ve ever met.”

David Finger, who moved to the area a few years ago, shares a similar sentiment. “Chabad makes Judaism feel real,” he says. For someone who long felt that the idea of keeping Shabbat “was slightly antiquated, Rabbi Mendel helped me understand the freeing nature of ‘disconnecting’ once in a while.” David’s wife Michaella now lights Shabbat candles every week, as they sit back and appreciate life’s blessings for a little bit.

David says that he’s noticed a rising tide of Jewish pride since October 7. “People are searching for connection now more than ever, and Chabad makes it possible. Without them, we wouldn’t have such an accessible way to explore it.”

Once Again, from the Beginning

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How does an ancient book find its way to our soul in a world overloaded with information?

Hypertexted and AI-driven, the Internet provides an avalanche in response to our every query. But, like sailors stuck in the horse latitudes with water everywhere but nary a drop to drink, we often go thirsty for meaning.

One response is to go back to the beginning. As Jews around the world begin the yearly cycle of Torah readings this autumn, a new edition of the Book of Genesis, Sefer Bereishit, invites us to engage more deeply with this fundamental text—and the ongoing conversation it generates. 

The text, in a new translation by the compiler, Rabbi Yanki Tauber, is divided by the Torah portion. Each portion is prefaced with a synopsis, followed by a lengthier introduction and an overview that prime the reader for what follows. Among the strongest features of the work, the introductions go for the soul of the story, the layering of narrative and meaning that characterizes much of Genesis.

In the very first parashah, for instance, the introduction points out that although Genesis is indeed a story of beginnings, below the surface runs a narrative of false starts. The expulsion of Adam and Eve, the great flood, and the repeated pattern of familial strife in which elder sons are replaced by younger all seem to prove, Rabbi Tauber notes, that “the first fifteen centuries of human endeavor have been one colossal failure.” He then takes us deeper, pointing to the essential divine aspiration in Creation—-the turning of the self back to G-d that is called teshuvah—-which is capable not only of redeeming the false starts, but of realizing a perfection that could not be achieved any other way.

From these introductions we are drawn into the text itself and the commentaries.

First, a word on the translation: The aim of most biblical translations has been to make the text as comfortably idiomatic in English as possible. This is true not only of the non-Jewish tradition—the King James Bible is one of the great works of English literature, even when we Jews object properly to the agenda-driven choices that it occasionally made. It is true of much of the Jewish tradition too, from Maimonides to the Jewish Publication Society. 

Rabbi Tauber’s translation, however, takes another approach. Using the text as a foundation, a jumping-off point in the ongoing search for meaning, it prioritizes the feel of Hebrew’s rhythm and syntax over fluency in English. This approach occasionally challenges the reader with coined words (“A fruitious son, Joseph” [49:22]), seemingly nonsensical phrases, and decidedly unidiomatic English, as when Abraham declares “I and the lad will go till like so” (22:5). While it may lack the accessibility and literary sensitivity of contemporary translations like those of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Robert Alter, Tauber’s Genesis evinces a deep respect for the text as it is, without adornment, as a source of profound and multifaceted meaning. And it achieves its aim: to pique the reader’s curiosity, sending us on a journey that will delve deep into the Jewish interpretive tradition.

As promised, Tauber gleans insight from more than five hundred commentaries, from biblical times through the twenty-first century, with no era lacking plentiful representation. The commentaries come from a range of perspectives, including the non-canonical Ben Sira in antiquity, diverse forms of rabbinic writing in the Talmudic period, Orthodox scholars using academic methods in Europe and America, and the renewed scholarship of the Land of Israel in all its richness. 

Among the strongest features of the work, the introductions go for the soul of the story, the layering of narrative and meaning that characterizes much of Genesis.

Tauber’s erudition gives us access to a varied menu of thinkers. The world of a medieval rabbi in Spain differs from that of a Polish rebbe in the eighteenth century; neither bears resemblance to the experience of a Talmudic sage living in Sasanian Persia. Of course the bulk of the commentators quoted lived in times that were much different from our own, and their tacit understandings may occasionally strike us as alien. Rather than apologizing for this, or soft-pedaling the differences, Rabbi Tauber has chosen to let us feel the partiality and the difference. 

Here, for instance, is a joined pair of commentaries spanning the centuries, illuminating the story of Abraham’s servant Eliezer, sent on a mission to find Isaac a wife. He prays to succeed (“G-d the G-d of my master Abraham please make happen before me today . . .”), and his prayer is answered. The core text (24:15) reads:

And it was that he had yet to finish speaking and here Rebecca was going out she who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah . . . 

The first commentary brought here is that of the second-century mystic Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who tells us, “Three people were answered by G-d as their words left their mouths: Eliezer the servant of Abraham, Moses, and King Solomon.” A fascinating context that prompts the question: what ties three people as diverse as these together?

The next commentary provides an answer. Spanning a 1,700-year gap, and giving a dizzying sense of the story’s perennial relevance, the Lubavitcher Rebbe asks, “What is the common denominator among the three petitioners? All three involved the fusion of opposites.” The Rebbe goes on to develop that idea, connecting these diverse figures and highlighting their fusion of multiplicity and oneness, a theme that underlies much of Genesis. 

Not all the commentaries follow such a coherent thread. If there was a method—some criteria—by which the compiler selected the commentaries, it is unclear. Indeed, some do not immediately provide a deeper understanding of the text. Consider for example, the verse, “And Isaac sent Jacob and he went to Padan-Aram; to Laban the son of Bethuel the Aramean the brother of Rebecca the mother of Jacob and Esau” (28:5). It seems rather straightforward, yet Tauber saw fit to include Rashi’s comment on the words “the mother of Jacob and Esau”: “I do not know what this teaches us.” In this case, commentary on the commentary would have been helpful.

In other places Rabbi Tauber extends his trust in the reader a little too far. Given the focus on its English translation, one assumes that the book is intended for those who may be new to the study of Torah. Yet, when confronted with midrashic commentaries that stretch the bounds of logic or abrade the sensibilities of a modern reader, he steps aside and allows us to swim, or sink, on our own. 

Some of these omissions are remedied at the end, however. The Book of Genesis concludes with a long section of appendices, which provide context and help to organize the story, and which serve as a first step toward future research, as surely many readers will be inspired to do.

For Genesis turns out not to be limited to its text alone. The organic and complete Bereishit lives rather in the minds of those who wrestle with its meaning and its Author. With its superb and intuitive design, this volume invites the reader to join in this creative, soul-deepening, thirst-quenching conversation. It will require time and thought to access it meaningfully. But the effort is worthwhile.