Mendy and I were both born and raised in Crown Heights, but our families moved during our elementary school years. Eventually, we both made it back to Crown Heights for High School and Yeshiva. In 1994, the first Chai Elul after Gimmel Tammuz, we got married. A year later, we decided to move to Florida. I wanted to be closer to my family - plus, we thought shlichus there would be an amazing opportunity. At the time, all the big cities had shluchim, but the small towns didn’t. We were offered a shlichus in North Miami Beach, where I spe
The first time I came to Montana, I was still a bochur. It was the summer of 2004, and my friend Yitzchak Feldman (today a Shliach in Bend, Oregon) and I spent a month here visiting Jewish homes across the state. At the time, I never saw this becoming my permanent home. But still, the Jews I had met remained close to me and when Pesach rolled around I sent Shmura Matza to each of their homes. The feedback I received was amazing. When summer 2005 rolled around, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky asked me what my plans were and I told him I wasn’t sure.
Doing shlichus was always a given for me. My wife and I both come from Chabad backgrounds - my wife was born while her parents were on shlichus in Manchester, and I went to Yeshiva in Kfar Chabad, where I was very close to the Mashpia Reb Mendel Futerfas. He always encouraged shlichus, so we barely had to discuss it when we decided to take on this mitzva. I remember receiving a call from Rabbi Hershel Rader, who was the shliach in Solihull before me. “I need someone to replace me,” he said. “I’m spending more time driving my children
It's funny they say you can find Chabad anywhere that has coca-cola. This week Chabad managed to keep a presence with the famous soda removing its brand. I’m from Canada originally, and never had any connection to Russia growing up. When I look back at what brought me here, it’s almost amusing. I was in yeshiva in Israel, and my roommate was planning on spending his summer volunteering at a camp in Russia. At first, I had no interest in going - I already had my plans in place to spend my summer in California. But after much cajoling on my roomma
Being a shliach in Minnesota is all I know. This is home to me. My father’s been a shliach here for 60 years, and I, 28. I grew up here, serving the Jewish community alongside my father, and returned after marriage to continue the shlichus that started before birth.My first role was in chinuch as a teacher and principal of the Lubavitch Cheder. Spending my days teaching the joys of Torah to young minds was quite meaningful and allowed me to share Yiddishkeit with the community. I eventually passed the reins of the principal hood to my successor and bec
When someone moves to a city where the closest frum family is 180 miles away, they’ve got to have a good reason for it. For Rabbi Greenberg and his wife, they know exactly why they did it. Having both grown up on shlichus, they learned from a very young age that the greatest joy in life is giving to others. And that’s precisely why they parked themselves in Wichita, Kansas. It’s so far from frum Jewish life, but so close to Yidden - Jews who could use a caring friend and some warm, chicken soup.I grew up on shlichus in El Paso, Texas, and my wife g
I was trying to get comfortable in my plane seat, which is not an easy task for a woman eight months into her first pregnancy. I took stock of the events that led up to this cross-country trip, which would take my husband Choni and me to our new shlichus location in California. We were eagerly anticipating our new venture. Nervous? Well, yes, a bit - especially since we hadn’t given the moving company a delivery address for our belongings. No, it wasn’t that we weren’t prepared - simply put, we didn’t have an address yet. But we had three weeks t
Being a Shaliach runs in my blood! My father moved to Australia in 1979 to start Kollel Menachem. A few years later, he began helping the Tasmanian Jews with Yamim Noraim and eventually founded a makeshift Chabad there. So it was only natural to me that when I got married and started my own family, I would move to Tasmania and become the first full-time Rabbi living on the 200-mile long “island.” Today, my family and I have lived in Tasmania for about 11 years. We moved in 2011. While the island is (comparatively speaking) small, reaching
We’ve always known the importance of this shlichus. This move would take us and our three children somewhere with no school, no Mikvah, and 100 miles away from the nearest kosher store. The list of unknowns was immense, but we were prepared to take on the challenge. When we began reaching out to the students, our first idea was to invite them all for a Friday night meal. The timing wasn’t ideal. It was the dead of summer, and the campus would be populated by a mere fraction of its students; only those taking summer courses. In spite of th
As a shliach to the exclusive community of Golden Beach, Rabbi Chay Amar has more than enough wisdom to share. His shlichus was hardly smooth sailing, but his simcha and strong principles made him come out ahead. In this issue, Rabbi Amar shares financial advice, how to stay firm under pressure, and what wealthy people really want from you. When my wife and I first came to Miami, the Jewish presence there was very different from today. Just to give you an idea, there was only one Kosher pizza store and one kosher Chinese restaurant in the entire are
