Tag Archives: Chabad

Jew of the Week: Zelda Mishkovsky

Israel’s Hasidic National Poet

Shaina Zelda Schneersohn (1914-1984) was born in what is now Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, to a religious family of Chabad Hasidim. She was a first cousin of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. An only child, she made aliyah with her parents when she was 12. The family settled in Jerusalem, where Zelda went on to study at the city’s Bezalel Academy of Arts in the hopes of being a professional painter. She ultimately became a teacher and taught at school in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem. (One of her students was renowned writer Amos Oz). Meanwhile, she wrote poems and essays for local newspapers, and slowly gained a large following of fans. After marrying Hayim Mishkovsky, Zelda became a full-time writer and poet. She published her first collections of poems in 1967, blending themes from both Israel and Russia, infused with religious symbols and mystical concepts from Kabbalah and Hasidism, often mixing Modern Hebrew with Biblical Hebrew and Yiddish. The poems were hugely popular across Israel’s social, political, and religious spectrum. She went on to publish five more collections of poetry over the next two decades, each reaching bestseller status. She became affectionately known in Israel simply as “Zelda”, going on to win the Brenner Prize in 1971, and the Bialik Prize in 1978. Her poem “Each Person Has a Name” is publicly recited in Israel on Holocaust Remembrance Day (which also happens to be her yahrzeit). Like her cousin the Lubavitcher Rebbe (with whom she kept a regular correspondence), Zelda never had children, but had many devoted students and foster daughters that she took into her home. She is recognized today as one of Israel’s greatest poets.

Purim Begins This Saturday Night – Chag Sameach!

Secrets of Purim

3 Quran Verses Every Jew Must Know

Words of the Week

We are immersed in an evolving, ongoing conflict: an Information World War in which state actors, terrorists, and ideological extremists leverage the social infrastructure underpinning everyday life to sow discord and erode shared reality.
– Renée DiResta

Jew of the Week: Chaya Mushka Schneerson

The Rebbetzin

Chaya Mushka “Moussia” Schneerson (1901-1988) was born near Lubavitch, Russia, the granddaughter of the fifth Hasidic rebbe of Chabad. During World War I, the family fled to Rostov, where Chaya Mushka would help to smuggle food and supplies to the city’s underground yeshivas. In 1924, the family was forced to flee again due to antisemitic persecution by the Soviet Communists, this time to Leningrad (St. Petersburg). In 1927, her father Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (who was by then the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe) was imprisoned for spreading Judaism in the USSR. Chaya Mushka herself had played a central role in the “Hasidic underground” of the Soviet Union, making sure that Jews still had access to Jewish services and rituals. Her father even appointed her as his agent, responsible for all matters, while he was imprisoned. She campaigned for his release and helped to get him freed. The family then moved to Riga, Latvia. The following year, Chaya Mushka married her distant cousin Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who would go on to become the seventh and final Lubavitcher Rebbe. After living in Warsaw, Berlin, and Paris, the childless couple fled to New York during World War II. They settled in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, which would soon become the “capital” of Chabad. (Her younger sister and brother-in-law were unable to escape and tragically perished in the Holocaust.) While her husband transformed modern-day Judaism in his role as the Rebbe, Chaya Mushka worked behind the scenes to support him in every endeavour. She was affectionately known simply as “the Rebbetzin”, though she never referred to herself this way. The Rebbetzin was famous for her humility, modesty, and deep concern for all of God’s creations. In fact, there was a stray dog near her house on President Street that she always made sure to feed. One winter day in 1972, the Rebbetzin stepped out to get the mail and slipped on ice, breaking both of her wrists in the fall. She was unable to put any pressure on her hands, and could not get up. Incredibly, that same stray dog soon found her and dragged her back into her house, all the way to the phone so that she could call for help! Many other stories are told of her compassion, dedication, and strong resolve. After she passed away, the Rebbe founded a women’s charity in her honour, called Keren HaChomesh (the initials of her name), and there are also many girls’ schools today named after her. The Rebbetzin’s yahrzeit was earlier this week, on the 22nd of Shevat.

18 Myths and Facts About Jews

Words of the Week

No matter how engrossed one may be in the loftiest occupation, one must never remain insensitive to the cry of a child.
– Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe (1745-1812)

Jew of the Week: Eytan Stibbe

Second Israeli in Space

Eytan Meir Stibbe (b. 1958) was born in Haifa to Jewish parents who had made aliyah from the Netherlands. He grew up partly in the United States. Stibbe joined the Israeli Air Force and became an F-16 fighter pilot. He served under the command of Ilan Ramon, who would go on to become Israel’s first astronaut. Stibbe served with distinction, and once tied a record by shooting down four enemy aircraft in a single battle over Lebanon in 1982. In another mission, he downed a total of five Syrian aircraft! Stibbe was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, and went on to teach at the IAF Flight Academy. Altogether, he served with the Israeli Air Force for some 43 years. Meanwhile, in 1984 he joined Israel Aircraft Industries to help modify and improve Israel’s own Lavi fighter jet. The following year, he co-founded Elar, a new Israeli military tech developer. When he left the company in 2011 and sold all of his shares, he had become a millionaire. Stibbe then turned his attention to his new Vital Capital Fund, which invests specifically in projects designed to alleviate poverty and clean up the environment. The Fund has helped bring sanitation, electricity, and healthcare to millions of people around the world, and has won numerous awards for its philanthropic work. Stibbe has always dreamed of following his mentor Ilan Ramon to space. He purchased a $55 million ticket on board a SpaceX craft, in collaboration with Axiom Space, which took off on April 8th for a ten-day mission. This is the first ever privately-funded human mission to space, and Stibbe is now only the second Israeli ever to go to space. He is not only a passenger, but also doing important scientific work, carrying out a total of 35 experiments, including on space radiation, optics, and quantum communications. Because of several delays, the Rakia mission (from the Biblical Hebrew word for outer space) ended up overlapping with Passover. And so, Stibbe took with him a Pesach seder kit prepared by Chabad, with shmurah matzah and four mini-cartons of grape juice (wine is prohibited on the ISS!) The return trip has also been delayed due to poor weather, and is expected to finally return to Earth this Sunday.

Passover: Fighting for Freedom

Words of the Week

Moses spoke not about freedom but about education. He fixed his vision not on the immediate but on the distant future, and not on adults but children. In so doing he was making a fundamental point: It may be hard to escape from tyranny but it is harder still to build and sustain a free society. In the long run there is only one way of doing so – to defend a country you need an army, but to defend a civilization you need education.
– Rabbi Jonathan Sacks