When Chabad at Flamingo, named for the obscure little road it sits on in Northern Thornhill, opened the doors of the Ernest Manson Lubavitch Center, a 22,000 square foot facility, in time for Rosh Hashana of 1999, it was an act of fantastically high expectations and no small measure of faith. Chabad’s presence in the neighborhood had been established just one year earlier, with the arrival of Rabbi Mendel and Faygie Kaplan, and “here we were,” recalls Sherry Kushner, a founding board member of Chabad at Flamingo, “with this enormous facility, and perhaps a total of 50 Chabad members expected to fill it!”

It was a gamble that paid off, with over 200 Jews from the area joining Chabad for an inspiring holiday that first Rosh Hashana, and has continued to pay off in the years since. This year, Sherry notes proudly, synagogue attendance on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur swelled upwards of 800, “filling the main sanctuary, the social hall, and all available standing room to well beyond capacity.”

Situated some thirty minutes distance from Chabad of Thornhill, Chabad at Flamingo has seen a very rapid, almost exponential growth in five years of reaching out to the Jewish community of Thornhill, a suburb of Toronto. Now home to “more Jews per square mile than any other neighborhood in Canada and most others anywhere in the world,” according to Rabbi Kaplan’s estimate, Thornhill experienced a massive population boom in the mid 90’s when thousands of yuppies and their families-many of them Jewish-established themselves in Toronto and set up house in the nearby suburbs. In Northern Thornhill, huge sub-divisions sprung up, seemingly out of nowhere and almost overnight, the area had become a thriving residential neighborhood.

Chabad’s roots in Northern Thornhill actually go back over thirteen years, when the area was nothing but miles of abandoned farmland some thirty minutes from central Thornhill, the base of Chabad operations in Ontario. In 1990, Ernest Manson, a local businessman and Chabad supporter, pledged a 2 Å“ acre lot north of Thornhill to Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum, director of Chabad of Ontario. The property, literally in the middle of nowhere at the time, sat empty for years and most people doubted anything would ever come of it. But when Northern Thornhill exploded several years later with unexpected growth, Ernest Manson’s property was suddenly a prime location in the center of a brand new neighborhood, and the perfect site for a Chabad center in the area. Mr. Manson himself had unfortunately passed on by then, but his children honored their father’s pledge and gifted the property to Chabad.

Today, the Ernest Manson Lubavitch Center is a hectic hub of activity and the center of Jewish life for what is likely one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in North America. Home to the Rose Schwartz nursery school, with over 100 children enrolled, the Robinson Family Institute for Jewish Learning, an adult education center, the Joey and Toby Tannenbaum Family Shul, and the Chabad Flamingo Youth Center under the direction of Rabbi Shmuel Nachlas, Chabad Flamingo is a veritable whirlwind of activity that starts with the first early morning minyan and Torah class and goes on till the last late night lecture or teen party ends. It is an enormous operation, almost single-handedly responsible for the creation of a warm, vibrant Jewish community, drawing hundreds of local families to learn, pray and celebrate together.

Sherry Kushner, who prides herself on being, in fact, the very first member of Chabad at Flamingo, was drawn to Chabad in 1998 when a friend who had recently met the Kaplan’s introduced her to the young Rabbi and his wife. “For the first time,” she recalls, “I had the feeling that I had found something to fill the spiritual void that had always been present in my life.” It’s been a whole new world since then, she says. “You can stop fifty people at the entrance to the Lubavitch Center and ask them what Chabad has done for them, and you’ll get fifty different answers,” she says. “But in all of their lives, without exception, Chabad will have brought more joy and meaning, as it has brought to mine.” Last year, Sherry, an artist by profession, and a friend, Gary Smith, completed a twenty by twelve foot mural of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and presented it as a gift to the Chabad center. It is, by all accounts, the largest painting of the Rebbe and perhaps the largest piece of Judaica in the world, now on display in the foyer of the building. “The greatest privilege of my life,” she says of her work on the mural. “For everything that Chabad here has accomplished in my life and the lives of so many others-it is a wonderful feeling to give something back.”

Millions of television viewers nationally watched last Friday’s public Menorah lighting ceremony in Lenin Square. Kherson’s Jewish mayor, Vladmir Vasilevitch Saldah, officiated at the ceremony that drew some 2,000 people for an event that left a former member of the Russian KGB overwhelmed: “How did you manage to obtain a permit for the Menorah?” he asked Kherson’s Chief Rabbi Yitzchok Wolff, incredulously.

Saldah’s opening address expressed amazement at the resurgence of Jewish life in the Ukraine. “The lighting of the Menorah here in Kherson is yet another phase in the progress of our town towards modernity,” he said, noting that for the first time, “Kherson, like all other cities of the Western world, is recognizing the importance of freedom through observing a holiday that epitomizes the ideals of independence.” The lighting of the gigantic menorah at Lenin Square says Rabbi Wolff, “illuminated the souls of thousands of Ukrainian Jews, and gave them a strong sense of Jewish pride.”

In fact, its impact was felt well beyond the Jewish community, and one viewer—the mayor of the neighboring city, Nikolaev, felt his own city got short shrift. So the following night mayor Nikolai Petrovitch contacted the local Rabbi Sholom Gottleib and requested to meet with him immediately. To Rabbi Gottleib, who had worked unsuccessfully to get municipal permission for a public menorah lighting ceremony, this seemed to provide an opportune time to raise the subject. Much to his delight, it was Petrovich who raised the subject saying, “Why don’t we have a Chanukah celebration here like they have in Kherson?” He had watched it on television and thought it a spectacular event. With Petrovich on the case, Chanukah 2003 will give Nikolaev its due, along with Kherson and hundreds of cities worldwide hosting grand public Menorah lighting ceremonies.

The irony of 100 Jews braving icy streets of a remote Russian backwater in 20 degrees below zero, to participate at a public menorah lighting ceremony is nothing short of exquisite. Established as a Jewish Autonomous Region more than sixty years ago, Birobidjan would be Stalin’s solution to the “Jewish problem.” This province in the Russian Far East bordering the People’s Republic of China—some five thousand miles east of Moscow, was his idea of a “Soviet Zion” where Russia’s purged Jewish population would be resettled.

It was the first public menorah lighting ever in Birobidjan. And while only three thousand of the region’s 200,000 residents are Jewish, the event is remarkable coming as does in a place marked by seventy years of communist persecution and bloodletting campaigns including harsh labor sentences and mass executions. At its peak, Stalin’s failed plan drew only 35,000 Jews, but the province retains vestiges of a Jewish past that is now largely expressed in a reemergence of the Yiddish language, Jewish-oriented concerts and festivals, and kosher-style foods. Jewish culture, in fact, appears to be the latest fad in this region marked by a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit and a stable economy. Also unusual here is an absence of anti-semitism, so that even gentiles enjoy the benefits of local Jewish cultural activity.

In the few weeks since Chabad-trained Rabbi Mordechai Scheiner, his wife Esther, and their four children arrived, he’s met up with many elderly people who vividly recall childhood memories of religious observances and the familiar smells of Shabbat and Jewish holidays. “I’ve met people who can recite by heart the prayer liturgy,” says Rabbi Scheiner. Fond and cherished though they are, memories are all that remain of Jewish religious observance in the province, and the Scheiners want to revive these memories through real, day-to-day Jewish living.

A newly constructed synagogue, with the support of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, is to be completed within the next few weeks; plans for the building of a mikvah, and the opening of an Or Avner Chabad Day School are the first steps to rebuilding a Jewish infrastructure. In the meantime, Rabbi Scheiner conducts minyans in his own home–the meeting ground for dozens of Jews, young and old. There, over Shabbat dinners Rabbi Scheiner and his wife introduce the locals to Torah, to mitzvot and to Judaism as it is lived in the here and now. There is some scant knowledge of the laws of kosher, says Rabbi Scheiner, and he hopes to boost that via a central kosher kitchen that will cater to communal functions and individual needs. It is a complex project and a huge undertaking in a place where the acquisition of modern amenities like e-mail access and telephone lines are a long process. But with Jewish pride and cultural awareness at an all-time high here, Rabbi Scheiner is determined to “lay a foundation within the framework of Torah, that will ensure the endurance of a vibrant Jewish presence in the Russian Far East.”

When you live in a remote country in central Africa, foreign residents will tell you, it’s not hard to feel isolated from the rest of the civilized world. If you’re a Jew living in Central Africa, the isolation is only intensified. Living in tiny communities where the closest sign of Jewish life can be hundreds of miles away, the Jews of central Africa give new definition to being Jewishly isolated.

But Chabad’s presence in the region in recent years has created a link with these communities, bringing Judaism right to their doorstep, via post, email, or like this week, a personal visitor. Chabad of Central Africa, based in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire, together with the United Jewish Communities of Central Africa, sponsored a unique Chanukah mission this week, bringing the light and spirit of Chanukah to Jews in ten African countries.

Most of the Jews in this part of the world are here for business, says Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila, who moved out here with his wife Miriam and their children 12 years ago. “In some countries, like the DRC, Kenya and others, you’ll find some third-generation local Jews whose grandparents arrived after the Second World War, but everyone else is transplanted.” Entire Jewish communities in some countries are “imported”—made up entirely of businessmen and their families from Israel, Europe and beyond. Because the concentration of Jews in each place is so small, expressions of Jewish life and community are almost non-existent. For 12 years, Chabad of Central Africa has worked to bring Judaism to the Jews in these remote areas, sending holiday packages, weekly emails, visiting occasionally, and coordinating visits from Chabad’s Traveling Yeshiva students each summer. But this Chanukah, Rabbi Bentolila wanted to take it further. So four pairs of Yeshiva students and a young couple, Rabbi Mendel and Esther Miriam Lifshitz, arrived in central Africa last week, each visiting two or three cities in that time, meeting the community and hosting a Chanukah party at a local venue. In Nigeria, Ghana, Gabon, the Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Zambia and Namibia, local Jews greeted the Chabad emissaries with pride and gratitude. “It means so much to these people to feel connected to the rest of the Jewish world,” says Rabbi Bentolila, “And most of them would not have celebrated Chanukah at all if not for the Chabad event in their town.”

The double terrorist attacks on the Paradise Hotel in Mombassa and the Israeli passenger plane happened just an hour before the Rabbi Mendel and Esther Miriam Lifshitz’s plane landed in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city. The Lifshitzs had planned on spending several days in Nairobi and then moving on to Mombassa where a Chanukah party had been arranged for Israeli residents and vacationers. All the Jews having left Mombassa following the attacks, they spent the week in Nairobi, reaching out to the 200 member Jewish community. Jews from across the spectrum attended a Chanukah event in the main synagogue in Nairobi, an event was held in the Israeli embassy, and the couple visited with community members and formed strong ties with them that week. “It meant so much to the Jews here to see that there are people in the rest of the Jewish world who care about them,” says Esther Miriam Lifshitz, “They were so grateful for our visit.”

In Nigeria, a predominantly Muslim country, recently witness to violent rioting over the international Miss World contest, these feelings were echoed by local Jews, 200 of whom attended a Chanukah party at the Canadian embassy in Abuja earlier this week. “Jews here are surrounded by Christians and Muslims,” says Rabbi Chananya Rogalsky, who visited the community with Rabbi Mendy Zirkind. “It gives them a very strong sense of Jewish pride to participate in an event like this.”

The two are currently spending the last days of Chanukah with the small Jewish community in Accra, Ghana.

In an email received this week by Rabbi and Mrs. Bentolila from the Jewish community in Gabon, one of the wealthier African countries and home to a relatively large population of close to 1000, the community thanked Chabad for bringing Rabbis Mendel Goldberg and Mendy Narboni to celebrate Chanukah with them. “You have brought so much joy and spirit to our holiday,” the email read, “Thank you for lifting our spirits and making us proud to be part of the Jewish people.”

Jason, a 24 year old Australian ski enthusiast was heading down the slopes one day in the winter of ’95 during a season-long ski stint, when he saw something that made him stop in his tracks and stare. Standing 9-feet tall in the center of Whistler Village, Canada’s world famous ski resort was an illuminated menorah. A small crowd was gathered around the menorah, and, as Rabbi Yitzchak Wineberg recalls, “Jason’s first words to us were, ‘Oh my G-d, how did you find me here?’

Jason had grown up in a traditional home in Melbourne and even attended a Jewish day school as a child. But he had since drifted so far that it took the menorah lights in the village square to remind him that it was Chanukah.

Rated in recent years as the top ski destination in North America, Whistler, on the Western edge of Canada, is a two-hour drive from the small Jewish community in Vancouver, and very remote from anything Jewish. It ranks up there with some of the places you’d least expect to find a menorah, but in fact, Chabad has been putting up a menorah and hosting Chanukah celebrations in local hotels for twenty years now. The menorah stands in the center square of Whistler village, at the foot of the mountain, where, for skiers coming off the slopes in the early evening, it is “literally impossible to miss,” says Rabbi Wineberg, director of Chabad of British Columbia.

Over the years, countless Jewish visitors to Whistler have been warmed and inspired by the sight of a Jewish symbol displayed so proudly in the square. Jewish locals—15 Jewish families live here year round–coordinate the lighting of the menorah throughout the holiday, and Chabad Rabbis drive up from Vancouver one night each year for a menorah lighting ceremony.

For Jason, Whistler’s menorah brought back memories of a Jewish tradition that he had all but left behind. Several weeks later, he ended his stay in Whistler and headed back to Australia, fully equipped, says Rabbi Wineberg, with the numbers of local Chabad Rabbis and the determination to reconnect.

Against a snowy backdrop, the lights of the Menorah seem the perfect way to add warmth and brightness to the long winter nights. But in the Sunshine State of Florida, where temperatures seldom fall short of the 70 degree mark, and sailing and surfing are year-round activities, Chabad puts a uniquely tropical spin on its Chanukah celebration.

Illuminating the night sky each of the eight nights of Chanukah is a seashell menorah designed by artist Roger Abrahamson. For an entire year Abrahamson, also a professional diver and a long time friend and supporter of Rabbi Zev Katz, director of Chabad House on Wheels, dived the seas surrounding Florida fishing for seashells of every shape, color and size. And after several weeks of single-handedly crafting a Menorah out of 10,000 seashells, Abrahamson’s work of art stands 10 feet tall.

Set in a sand dune created by Abrahamson, the Menorah graces the famed Euclid Circle in South Beach, Florida’s favorite party spot, a magnet for the young, hip and heady. With Chanukah only a day away hundreds of passers-by are learning about the Festival of Lights, some for the very first time, and Abrahmson’s goal “to publicize the message of Chanukah and of Chabad,” is fast being realized. The menorah has also attracted the attention of reporters from several local television stations and the Miami Herald.

On Sunday, December 1st, a grand Menorah lighting ceremony is expected to draw close to one thousand people, as Miami’s mayor David Dermer officiates at the kindling of this distinctively Floridian Menorah, followed by a celebration which will feature live musical entertainment as well as the traditional Chanukah fare: latkes and doughnuts.

Some two thousands tourists traipse through this area each week, and while Chabad House on Wheels, a project designed to reach Jewish pedestrians, is not new to the streets of Miami, its seashell Menorah will be a traffic stopper. In the three years since its founding, Chabad House on Wheels has reached Jewish tourists from across the spectrum and the globe. Rabbi Katz keeps up with many of the people he meets, and connects them with Chabad in their respective areas.

What happens with a 10-foot tall Chanukah menorah made of seashells? It’s not the kind of thing you can take apart and rebuild next year. But, says the artist, there is talk about the Menorah becoming part of Miami’s Jewish Museum’s permanent collection. Now if they could only figure out a way to get the menorah through its doors.

Collectors of Jewish artifacts will be amused by this menorah, too large to take home, yet unlike any of the giant menorahs that will grace public squares next week.

Made entirely of cans—food cans—the menorah will stand 15 feet tall, and will be disassembled by the holiday’s end for a very noble cause.

“You can light up a life!” Chanukah campaign by Chabad of Binghamton University, creatively combines a worthy humanitarian aid project with a joyous Chanukah celebration. Hundreds of students have committed their time, effort, and donations to a project aimed at collecting as many, maybe even thousands, of cans of non-perishable foods to form a fabulous menorah on the center of campus.

The novel menorah will be kindled at the culminating menorah lighting ceremony and Chanukah bash, after which the cans will be donated to CHOW, an organization that provides food for the destitute.

Inspired by the wide appeal and success of Chabad’s Mitzvah Marathon—a September 11th commemorative event (see Lubavitch.com archives), Rabbi Aaron and Rivky Slonim, directors of the Chabad Student Center here hit on this idea as a way to get students to put their energy toward an important cause in the spirit of the Chanukah holiday. Alpha Sigma Phi frat members lit up when they heard the idea, and invited two campus sororities –Sigma Delta Tau and Phi Sigma Sigma, to join.

“When we first heard about the project, the plans were vague and some students were skeptical about it ever coming through,” says Gil Efrati, a fraternity member and chairman of the project. But a table in the student union manned by members of the fraternity and sororities has attracted the attention of hundreds of students, and dorm-to-dorm publicity and fundraising has generated widespread enthusiasm for the project, bringing an outlandish idea to fruition.

According to fraternity member Jordan Gherson, “this year’s Chanukah celebration is going to be really big.” The reason, he says, is the “support and involvement of a wide range of students.” And with poverty in the Binghamton area on a 40% increase, the project couldn’t have been more appropriate.

“You Can Light Up A Life!” addresses many concerns, says Gil. Not only are students participating in the mitzvah of tzedaka, but the project is making everyone aware of the Chanukah holiday. “Everyone will know about Chanukah this year,” says Gil. “If they haven’t heard about it, then they’re sure to see it,” he says.

Ultimately, says Gil, the project will boost student morale and convey the importance of coming together for a positive cause. “It will show students the power of the collective student body, and what great things can be accomplished when we unite.”

Commuters passing through the Holland Tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey every day will soon be noticing a new sign of the season at the tunnel’s New Jersey entrance, on the outskirts of Hoboken: A twelve-foot electric menorah, brightly lit, with a large sign wishing drivers a Happy Chanukah from Chabad of Hoboken. Erected in a parking lot alongside the entrance to the tunnel, the menorah is expected to attract the attention of some one-million viewers daily.

The menorah’s highly visible location was the brainchild of Rabbi and Mrs. Moshe Shapiro of Hoboken, conceived last year while the couple was living in New York, before their move to Hoboken. Feverish efforts before the onset of the holiday last year saw rewarding results: reactions to the menorah were overwhelmingly enthusiastic, so much so that despite initial reservations, the Port Authority of New Jersey granted Chabad full permission to erect the menorah once again this year and will even be supplying the electricity to keep it lit.

The Shapiros had come to Hoboken to conduct Rosh Hashana services in September 2001. Several days later, this town, all of only one square mile on the Hudson River, facing lower Manhattan, and nearly all the town’s residents were in one way or another, personally affected by the 9/11 attacks. Nearly all of the town’s residents commute to Manhattan each day and so the tragedy hit really close to home. “People were looking for spirituality that Rosh Hashanah, to make some sense of their world that had just been turned upside down,” says Rabbi Shapiro. More than 150 people joined Chabad for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, many of whom have come back often to attend Chabad’s ever-increasing range of programs for the community.

A busy industrial zone until about 1970, Hoboken has since become a residential hub for affluent yuppies and students looking for a little distance from the city and lower housing costs. Urban and hip, but with a small town feel, Hoboken has over 50,000 residents, an estimated 4500 of whom are Jewish. In their months here, the Shapiro’s have been making efforts to meet up with many of the town’s Jewish residents and often have them over for Shabbat dinners. “There is strong potential for a vibrant Jewish community in Hoboken,” says Mrs. Shaindel Schapiro. Currently, Jews from Hoboken traveled to nearby Newport or Jersey City to attend services or Jewish programs. Since Chabad’s arrival here last March, the level of Jewish activity in the town itself has risen considerably. Community programs for every holiday, Shabbat services and dinners, and individual and group learning sessions are slowly creating a Jewish reality in the area.

And now, in the Chabad tradition of placing menorahs in the most visible spot possible for Chanukah, Jewish awareness for Hoboken residents, or those just passing through on their daily commute, reaches an all-time high. “Next to all the other symbols of the season, Chabad’s Chanukah menorah is a source of Jewish pride for so many who see it each day,” says Rabbi Shapiro.

“If it’s an event in L.A., it’s happening on CityWalk!” proclaims Universal Studios CityWalk website. Chanukah 2002, then, must be an event in Los Angeles, because this year Chabad of the Valley, Chabad of Conejo, and Chabad of Studio City are taking Chanukah to the busiest place in southern California: Universal CityWalk on the busiest day of the year, December 1st , expecting to draw some 25,000 people in all.

What began as Chabad of Studio City’s plans for a small Chanukah ice-skating event at the CityWalk’s rink, soon drew the attention and interest of CityWalk staff, who agreed to host a massive Chanukah celebration for six hours on Thanksgiving weekend. “People are very excited about this event,” says Rabbi Yossi Baitelman, Chabad representative to Studio City. “This marks the first time Chabad has come to Universal Studios, and people are thrilled to have such an event happening here,” he says.

From noon until 6 p.m., famous Jewish music bands and Jewish DJ’s flown in especially for the event will grace the main stage. The 18×22 foot Astrovision movie screen will feature footage of Chanukah with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and Chanukah celebrations worldwide. Kosher food, children’s crafts and various forms of Chanukah entertainment including clowns, jugglers and face painters, will transform this central meeting ground for Californians and visitors alike into a hub of Chanukah activity and light. Some six large Menorahs will adorn the Walk in addition to a fifteen-foot tall menorah off the main stage where the lighting ceremony will take place.

Dignitaries and celebrities, among them Gabe Kapler, an outfielder for the Colorado Rockies, and baseball player Adam Kennedy will officiate at a menorah lighting event to top all others. The celebration will recognize the American armed forces for their dedication to life and liberty, and will as well, pay tribute to the Israeli people who persevere in the face of so much horror and tragedy.

“Universal CityWalk is honored to serve as the location for Chabad’s
annual Chanukah celebration,” says Ron Herman, General Manager of Universal CityWalk. “We look forward to honoring the traditional Jewish holiday with a free afternoon of non-stop entertainment and the
ceremonial lighting of Los Angeles’ largest Menorah.”

Ever since Chabad put down roots here some 30 years ago, Chanukah has been a highly popular event for people of the Valley. Still, this year’s event is expected to raise Jewish awareness in an unparalleled way. As Rabbi Mordechai Einbinder, associate director of Chabad of the Valley, said: “Chanukah represents the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil. Judaism enjoins us to share this positive and enlightening message with the world at large and what better venue to do that than at the famed Universal CityWalk.”

Chabad-Lubavitch of Ontario was the proud recipient of a major government grant by the Trillium Foundation, last Thursday, November 14th, to help launch the Friendship Circle program in Toronto. The Friendship Circle, initially founded by Chabad of Michigan, caters to children with special needs through a unique chain of goodness that involves teenage volunteer mentors forging close friendships with these children, encouraging inner growth and feelings of self-worth in both parties.

It is a costly program, notes Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum, Chabad representative to Ontario, one that “would not be possible without the generous seed money we received from the Trillium Foundation of Ontario.” The Trillium Foundation is a government organization responsible for distributing surplus lottery money in the form of grants to qualified applicants. Presented to Rabbi and Mrs. Grossbaum and Chaya Perman, by Tina Molinari, a member of the Provinicial Parliament, the five year gift will provide $310,000 in funding for Friendship Circle programming and activities.
The grant expresses the Foundation’s recognition of this project as one that will not only serve those involved, but one that will serve as a model for other areas of concern across the province. The launching of the project here couldn’t have come at a better time. With Chanukah just around the corner, this Festival of Lights will illuminate the lives of the entire Jewish community here as a program that has brightened the homes and hearts of hundreds of special needs children and their teenage volunteers across the U.S. comes to Toronto. The first in a series of holiday programs scheduled for this year, the Chanukah celebration will bring together seventy-five high school and college student volunteers from across the Jewish spectrum and some thirty special needs children and their families for an afternoon of Chanukah crafts, fun, and entertainment. “Plans for the Friendship Circle have been in the making since May,” says Mrs. Esther Grossbaum who, together with Mrs. Chaya Perman, directs Toronto’s Friendship Circle. But the program demands meticulous planning and involves many delicate issues, from pairing up volunteers and their charges, to administering proper training for volunteers and creating a loving, relaxed environment for the special needs children. And next week, after attending several training sessions, volunteers will be making home visits to scores of children to become acquainted and build an easy, warm rapport that will set the tone for months and possibly years of mutual friendship and growth. The Friendship Circle, says Rabbi Grossbaum, “provides an excellent opportunity to reach teens of all backgrounds by involving them with special needs children. As the teens interact with these children and see them deal in a constructive, positive way with challenges that often appear overwhelming, the teens learn to appreciate their own good fortune.” Being of help to these children, says Rabbi Grossbaum “builds up a healthy sense self-esteem and maturity in the volunteers.”

Twice a year, a hunched, old man would make his way over to the Chabad school at 141 Lacplesa Street in Riga, Latvia, and offer Rabbi Mordechai Glazman a small donation. Yitzchok Drizin, a native of Riga, was well into his 90’s and in poor health, and yet he continued to do this each year. Why, Rabbi Glazman would ask him repeatedly, did he have to make the trip? The Rabbi was certainly willing to come by and collect the donation. But the old man stood firm in his practice. “If G-d has kept me alive long enough to see this building go from a place where Jews were slaughtered to a place where Jewish children learn Torah, I must come myself and personally support it,” he insisted. Mr. Drizin, who died last year in Riga, recalled attending the wedding of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Warsaw in 1928. His life spanned nearly a century of war and destruction, and ultimately, in his last years, the triumph of Jewish survival in Riga, his native city.

Rabbi Mordechai Glazman, Chabad’s representative to Riga, Latvia, arrived in the city with his wife Rivka in the summer of ‘92, shortly after the fall of communism. Latvia, like all of the member states of the collapsed Soviet Union, was in the midst of a tumultuous transition. Finally having gained its independence after decades of communist rule, the government was just beginning to organize, municipal services were incredibly unreliable, if they existed at all, and basic staples such as baby needs for the Glazman’s infant son, Mendel, were unattainable.

Undeterred, the Glazmans set out building a Jewish infrastructure in a city where absolutely none existed, and where, only several months earlier, talk of it could possibly land you in jail.

Chanukah of ’93, several months after their arrival, the Glazman’s put up a large menorah in the city’s square and waited for the response. “People were just beginning to understand that being Jewish was no longer a federal offense,” recalls the Rabbi. “We weren’t sure how they would take this.”

Over 2000 people showed up at the Menorah lighting–the elderly weeping unabashedly at the sight of Judaism finally out in the open; the younger people staring wide-eyed at the phenomenon of a proud display of their own heritage that they knew nothing about. It was, as they say, an auspicious beginning.

In the ten years since, Chabad of Riga has grown into a city-wide network of institutions providing physical and spiritual nurturing for Riga’s 15,000 Jewish residents. A day center and soup kitchen for the elderly, a kindergarten and day school, summer camps, holiday programs, a recently opened kosher café and Judaica shop, all attest to Riga’s thriving traditional Jewish community. But none, perhaps, proclaim the fact as eloquently as the building at 141 Lacplesa Street, which houses the Chabad School, offices and social hall.

An unassuming four-story brick structure, the building was erected 130 years ago by the Haskalah, the movement for the “enlightenment” and secularization of traditional Judaism, to house a school for young children. The school’s founder, Max Lilienthal, was known to have engaged in fierce debate with the Tzemach Tzedek, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe, over issues of Jewish survival. The Rebbe fought long and hard to stop efforts by the Haskalah and Lilienthal to rid traditional Jews of their Judaism.

The school remained in the building for many years, until the Second World War, when the Nazis arrived in Riga. Ghetto walls were drawn up and 141 Lacplesa Street found itself right inside, the last house within the Ghetto limits. The Jewish police, working in cooperation with the Nazis, took over the building. It was here that Yitzchok Drizin and other survivors clearly remember Jews being shot and murdered, or deported to concentration camps from which most would never return.

After the war, the building was home to a communist school, and, finally, in the summer of 1995, the Latvian government returned the school to the Jewish community, who voted to hand it over to Chabad of Riga’s recently founded day school. “This building has come full circle,” says Mrs. Rivka Glazman, principal of the school. “For those who know its history, this is a poignant testament of the survival of traditional Judaism in Riga.”

Now settled in the building for nearly eight years, Chabad of Riga has just celebrated another milestone in the history of the city’s Jewish development: the completion of a beautiful, modern mikvah in a residential area in the city’s center. Previously, the only mikvah in the city was one built secretly in the basement of a shul run by Lubavitch Chasidim in the 1950’s. Now, with the generous support of the Rohr Family foundation, Mr. Yingy Bistritzky, and Rabbi Yitzchok Raitport, Chabad’s beautiful mikvah is open, and enjoys enough traffic to confirm that traditional Jewish life is flourishing once again in Riga.

In a diary entry written only days before her death, M., a 40-year old woman from New York battling cancer, listed several things she was grateful for in her life; at the top of the list she wrote: “Spending time with Dad before I go, and, Meeting the Lazaroffs and Yiddishkeit in Houston.”

In his work with patients at Houston’s renowned medical centers, many of which specialize in the treatment of cancer and other terminal diseases, Rabbi Eliezer Lazaroff Director of Chabad at Texas Medical Center in Houston works with patients who face the terrifying space between life and death. In the past 12 years, the Lazaroffs have been holding out hope and light for people at a time when the darkness that surrounds them can be overwhelming.

M. arrived in Houston last year for a final, desperate attempt in her 10-year struggle against cancer. Divorced, with no children, and struggling financially, M. met up with Rabbi Lazaroff on his regular rounds visiting Jewish patients in the local hospitals. For one month, M. stayed in the hospitality suite of the Chabad House, several blocks from the medical center where she was receiving treatment. M. knew that her battle was almost over, but in those few short weeks with the Lazaroffs, her life was enriched and enlightened by Jewish tradition. “M. was so far removed from tradition that she didn’t know what to do with the candle I handed her before her first Shabbos here,” recalls Mrs. Rochel Lazaroff, “By the time she went back to New York a month later, she was a different person. Physically, she was failing. But spiritually, she had never been so alive.” M. passed away several weeks after leaving Houston, surrounded by family and friends in New York, but the long conversations with the Rabbi on the meaning of life, and life after death, and warm family time with the Lazaroff’s eight children, who immediately treated her as an adopted aunt, gave M. insight into a Jewish experience she had never encountered.

When Eliezer and Rochel Lazaroff arrived in Houston in August of ’92, the need for the vital service they provide was quickly becoming apparent. Houston’s medical treatment centers were gaining worldwide renown and attracting patients from across the globe. For Jewish patients in desperate need of physical, spiritual and emotional nurturing, there had to be a full time Rabbi nearby to address their needs. For Shabbat-and-kosher observant patients, staying in Houston for the extended period of time often required for treatment posed serious problems. Chabad in Houston, an established presence since the early seventies, was located miles away, in the suburbs. So under the direction of Rabbi Lazaroff’s father, Rabbi Shimon Lazaroff, director of Chabad in Texas, the couple set up house and Chabad center in the Texas Medical Center area near downtown Houston, a neighborhood populated by numerous hospitals, treatment centers, and schools of medicine and nursing, and the doctors and professors who work there.

“To fully provide for a person or family suffering from a serious illness, you have to approach their condition from all angles,” Rabbi Lazaroff says. In his daily rounds of Jewish patients in the local hospitals, the Rabbi takes the opportunity to meet each one and see what he can do for them. “Sometimes a person is there surrounded by family and able to afford the cost of staying in a nearby hotel and all they need is a measure of spiritual comfort and inspiration from a rabbi,” he says. But some people need more than that. “The Christian organizations are all there, and they are willing to help,” says the Rabbi, “But when you can provide physical assistance together with Jewish warmth and spirituality, you’re really enriching people’s lives in a tremendous way.” For those who cannot afford the cost of a hotel, the Chabad House has a private, fully equipped apartment available for short or long term stays, at whatever cost the occupant can afford. Kosher meals are prepared by Mrs. Lazaroff and delivered to the hospital daily. Families and patients staying over extended periods of time quickly become a part of the small Chabad community in the Texas Medical Center area and benefit from the nurturing Lazaroff family—an experience that is as necessary as any medical treatment they seek at this time.

For hundreds of Jewish patients and their families—be they unafilliated, fervently religious, and everything in between, from countries and cities that span the globe—the warmth they encounter with Chabad remains with them long after their stay in Houston. “We’ve had people who return home and enroll their kids in a Jewish school, or become active supporters of Chabad in their city, as a result of their experiences here,” says Rochel Lazaroff. In cases like M.’s, where patients discover a meaning and spirituality that gives their final days such peace, family members and friends take great comfort and often begin to seek out spirituality in their own lives. And kindness has a ripple effect. People whose lives were touched by Chabad in Houston go on to touch and inspire and give more to the people around them.

“When you can be there for someone physically, emotionally, and also spiritually, at a time when they need it most,” says Rabbi Lazaroff, “You are nurturing them in a very deep way, and the effects of that just go on and on.”

Nine hundred and fifty dinner guests turned up on October 1 at the Westin Hotel, one of Sydney, Australia’s most prestigious venues, in a broad show of support for Chabad of Sydney’s “Jewish House Crisis Center”, a unique and very successful project celebrating its 18th anniversary.

“The Jewish House is simply a place for people to turn to,” says founder and director Rabbi Pinchas Woolstone. “We provide a complete, all-encompassing measure of care for individuals, couples and families in any sort of emotional distress.” A full-time staff of seven mental-health professionals serves two branches of the Jewish House, one in the eastern suburbs of Sydney and one on the North Shore. A third center, in Perth, is scheduled to open later this year.

Though officially classified as a day therapy center, the Jewish House is much more than that to the hundreds of people—from all sectors of the Jewish community, and beyond—who have made use of its services in close to two decades of operation. The center deals with problems ranging from substance abuse to emotional stress, designing a treatment path tailored to the person’s specific needs and directing them to the proper channels once they have finished their treatment at the Jewish House. In recent years, the addition of a crisis accommodation unit with 14 private rooms means the care can be extended even further to those who need it.

Judging by the sheer number of people who avail themselves of the Jewish House’s services, the center fills an important need. “Not everyone experiencing difficulty in their lives can make that phone call and see a therapist on their own,” explains Rabbi Woolstone. “Many people need the sort of complete care that we provide.” And the genuine warmth that typically characterizes a Chabad center is a major boost in the healing process, he says.

In recognition of the Jewish House’s extraordinary contributions, hundreds of dinner guests representing a cross section of the Sydney community, both Jewish and non-Jewish, helped raise funds to cover the center’s enormous yearly budget at the annual fundraising dinner last month. The dinner honored the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. John Howard, for his enthusiastic support of the Jewish House over the last several years. “It is only because of individuals like Mr. Howard that the center has been able to successful make a difference in so many people’s lives,” said Rabbi Woolstone.

“The idea of a Lubavitch center springing up here on the island was just surreal,” perhaps as surreal as the island itself, says Kim Barkan, a businessman and father who’s lived here for the last decade. Only minutes away from the busy city streets of downtown Miami, this incredibly beautiful oasis—one of the wealthiest towns in the States—provides an almost other-worldly escape from life on the other side of the Rickenbacker Causeway, where many of the city’s 12,000 residents work.

Once an exclusively waspy community, the island is now home to some 1,000 Jews. But without a single synagogue, JCC, or Jewish school, the drive over the causeway was, wittingly or not, a departure from all things Jewish. What with a paradise-like lifestyle reflected in this island’s perpetual sunshine, some of the country’s most breathtaking beaches, and a never-ending supply of recreational activities on sea and on land, it is little wonder that few people here were actively searching for more.

That didn’t stop a young Chabad-Lubavitch couple living on the other side of the bridge, in Miami from testing the waters of this paradise island. Three years ago, Rabbi Yoel and Rivka Caroline began introducing various Jewish activities to Key Biscayne’s Jewish residents. At first, few people participated in the educational programs they established, but soon enough Chabad’s rented facilities were filling up. Then, on Lag B’Omer, Chabad hosted its first wedding ceremony for Chuck Alter and his wife Andrea who met at a function here. According to Chuck, a previously unaffiliated restaurateur who’s lived on the island for the past 20 years, having a Rabbi on the Key “is a real novelty.” Chabad, says Chuck, provides a “focal point for the Jews living in this small luxury bedroom community, and helps it grow by being so accessible, just next door.”

Slowly but surely activities expanded, attendance grew, and the need for a permanent Chabad residence on the Key was realized. With the generous support of Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein, to whom the Carolines and the local Jewish community are eternally grateful, Chabad of Key Biscayne moved into a home of its own just in time Rosh Hashana 5763.

In the weeks since, 211 Greenwood Drive has made Jewish life a lively reality on the Key. The Alters participate at the Shabbat minyans and dinners, which draw some twenty people regularly and more than 15 women participate at a monthly Jewish Women’s Circle meeting for evenings of discussion and creative activities centered around Jewish themes. The adult education program now includes several weekly group classes and one-on-one learning sessions, as well as a lecture series.

The island’s uniqueness, says Kim Barkan, presents significant challenges to Chabad here. “The age and socioeconomics of the people living here—many are retirees—lends itself to a certain level of contentment,” and is not particularly conducive to religious awakening. But for parents of young children like himself, the need for religious affiliation increases as the children grow, and through its many programs Chabad succeeds to fill the gap, imbuing young children with a love and understanding of Jewish tradition. Andrea’s son Pedro, is one of twenty others who have joined the Torah Kids In Action club, which meets monthly for an afternoon of fun and creativity in a Jewish atmosphere. Other resources for children include a Hebrew school and a Jewish Children’s Library, a project undertaken in memory of the Caroline’s son Sholom Dov Ber, which will soon be open to the public.

The Carolines anticipate at least 200 people at the grand Chanukah menorah lighting, and express confidence that much like Kim, who feels he has embarked on a “steady, positive move upwards,” Key Biscayne’s Jewish community will discover that even in paradise, the Jewish soul yearns to be nurtured.

Once a capital crime in this region, Jewish outreach and spiritual leadership were recently awarded the highest government recognition.

Rabbi Pinchas Vishedski, Chabad representative to the Donbass region of the Ukraine, realized history was being made when he received news of his award from the representative of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, several weeks ago. “Government awards are very sought after here,” said Rabbi Vishedski, “even high officials work hard, pulling strings, all with the hope of receiving this prestigious decoration.” The medal is awarded annually to recognize outstanding achievements in various fields including business, law, and community leadership, and while Jewish professionals have have earned the medal, it was never in recognition of anything Jewishly-related.

Presenting Rabbi Rabbi Vishedski with the medal at the Academy’s building in the capital city of Kiev, Professor Dmitri Akimov, chairman of the Awards committee, said, “the Government of Ukraine is proud to grant the Gold Medal to one of the most important rabbis in the Ukraine, and one of the main leaders of the Jewish community in the country—for his contribution to good relationships, mutual understanding and dialogue between different nations, and for his major contribution to the renewal of Jewish life in the Donbass region in the realms of education, culture and welfare.”

When the Vishedskis settled here back in 1994 they found a Jewish population of 35,000 Jews but no Jewish infrastructure in place. Since then, Chabad has established a vast network of Jewish educational facilities, including a kindergarten, elementary and high school, and post high school educational insititutions. Once inaccessible, kosher food is now readily available here, and a soup kitchen feeds 500 people daily. And next door the Chabad shul–a hub of Jewish activity–a new Jewish Community Center is under construction, to be completed by next September.

Accepting the award, Rabbi Vishedski expressed his appreciation and thanks to the Ukrainian government for a democracy that grants full equal rights to all national minorities in the country. Rabbi Vishedski went on to say that he was accepting the award as representative of the entire Chabad-Lubavitch movement to the Donbass region of Ukraine, and as an emmissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Rebbe, he noted, was born and educated in Ukraine, and “it is thanks to his great vision, his prayers and his advice, that we have been able to bring about the renewal of Jewish life in Ukraine and in the entire CIS.”