‘Roving rabbis’ reach out to save small Jewish communities

TINY Jewish communities in northern parts of England are being saved – with the help of a dozen yeshiva teenagers.

The boys – from Yeshivas Lubavitch Manchester – have spent their summer holidays bringing Yiddishkeit to outlying areas.

“It’s all part of the ‘Roving Rabbis’ programme, founded by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson,” explained one of the volunteer students, 18-year-old Eli Nochum Block.

Eli, whose home is in San Antonio, Texas, said: “Twelve of us have been spending Shabbos in ‘the sticks’ for the past three weeks.

“We have been going wherever we have heard there are a few Jews. We have visited the smallest of communities – and sometimes where there is no community at all.”

The No 1 objective for Eli and his colleagues is to locate people isolated from Judaism.

“We have no pre-conceived plan on how to find them,” he said. “Sometimes we just go to a town and ask people in the street if they know of any Jews living in the area.

“Other times we go armed with lists from previous visits – which very often are old and out of date and of no real use to us.”

Eli told of an emotional visit the previous day to York, scene of the infamous massacre in 1190 when 150 Jews were killed in a pogrom in Clifford’s Tower – part of the city’s Norman castle.

On March 16 that year, the small Jewish community was gathered together for protection in the keep of the castle while a violent mob taunted them from outside. Rather than perish at the hands of the antisemites, many of the Jews took their own lives; others died in the flames they had lit and those who finally surrendered were massacred and murdered.

For hundreds of years afterwards, it is believed that no Jews lived in York. But slowly some have drifted back. And Eli and his “Roving Rabbi” partner Mendy Bresinger, 18, managed to find some.

Mendy, whose home is in Montreal, Canada, said: “A non-Jewish man who is kindly disposed towards Jewish people offered to help us.

“He drove us around to where he knew Jewish people lived. In all, we went to 25 homes which had a Jewish person living there.

“Many of those people have intermarried or lost contact with Judaism, but we helped to rekindle the spark.

“We explained to them that every single Jew is important and counts – and the reaction we got was very encouraging.

“Only one of their homes had a mezuzah so we affixed mezuzahs to many of the others.”

Mendy and Eli showed these “re-discovered” Jews how to do various mitzvot, including putting on tefillin, lighting Shabbos candles and helping a fellow Jew.”

Eli said: “One Jewish man we came across – he was aged about 60 – had never put on tefillin.

“We made him a barmitzvah at which he put on tefillin for the first time. It was extremely moving.”

The two yeshiva students also visited Southport, where they brought further joy.

Eli explained: “There is a beautiful shul in the resort with a rabbi who commutes from Manchester.

“But we managed to locate Jews who have no affiliation to the synagogue and went to visit them in their homes.

“And there was a greatly appreciated moment when we went to the Jewish home for the aged. We brought smiles to the faces of residents when we arranged minyanim on Shabbos – and we ended with a Seudat Shlishit, which was probably the first one to be held there for many years.”

Visits to the small Jewish community in Blackpool also brought amazing events.

“There is a beautiful shul there, but at present no rabbi explained Mendy. “They barely manage a minyan on Shabbos morning.

“But we aimed to show them they were not forgotten and that we wanted to breathe new life into the tiny, dying community.

“They had Torah scrolls but they hadn’t been read for many months because there hadn’t been a minyan.

“But we were able to arrange for 10 men to be present last Shabbos . . . and the Torah was able to be read at last.”

Contact with the Blackpool community also produced an extraordinary incident.

“We received a phone call that, sadly, one of its members had just died,” said Mendy. “But unfortunately there were very few relatives and, without a minyan, it looked as though Kaddish would not be able to be said at the funeral.

“Due to the last minute notice there was no vehicle available for us to drive at that time, none of us at Lubavitch in Manchester would be able to get there in time.

“Then, out of the blue, we got a call from an Australian visitor who was about to drive to Blackpool to pray at his father’s grave.

“We explained our predicament and, yes, he had room in his car.

“So five of us went, and with five who the Blackpool community were able to provide, managed to make a minyan for the funeral and to recite Kaddish.

“Wow! Few incidents could be as amazing as that.”