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Jews throughout US find comfort and inspiration with Chabad
By: Moshe New
When Liat Oren-Wachs heard the news that her ex-husband and father of her 11-year-old son, Igal, was murdered together with his brother, Amit, in the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel perpetrated by Hamas, she headed straight to her local Chabad center in Lexington, Mass.
“I went to Chabad, as this is where my community is. This is the place that I trust to find help and support when needed,” Oren-Wachs told Chabad.org. “Everyone came out of the sukkah to hug and comfort me. Many of them cried and offered their support. It warmed my heart.”
Oren-Wachs is one of countless American Jews across the country who have turned to their local Chabad-Lubavitch center for guidance amid the terrible news from Israel. Chabad Houses have answered the call, mobilizing to become epicenters of unity, support and Jewish pride.
For many communities, the news arrived piecemeal over the course of Shemini Atzeret-Simchat Torah, with many congregants finding out about the war by word of mouth as they prayed in synagogues on the first day of the holiday.
“A group of young Israelis came in looking for support and answers, that’s how we found out,” says Rabbi Shneur Cadaner, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Quad Cities, Iowa. “The immediate thing we did was tell them that this wasn’t the time for question; it was the time for action, to increase the light we add to the world, to make up for the darkness.”
At the conclusion of the holiday, from coast to coast, as one time zone turned to nightfall after the next, the buzz of activity around Chabad centers intensified. There were phone calls to make sure everyone was coping, unity rallies organized, mitzvah campaigns launched, prayers said and tears wept.
In the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., the broad, multi-laned Eastern Parkway was closed on a few-hours notice for a community prayer rally in support of Israel on Monday. Chairs were rented and a stage set up, and that evening more than 20,000 men, women and children came out for the largest gathering of Jews outside of Israel since the start of the war. They came one and old—20,000 of them—packing the street to participate in an emotional program that included the joint recitation of the 12 Torah verses and Psalms for the safety of the people and the land of Israel.
On Tuesday afternoon, UJA Federation of New York hosted a rally near the United Nations in Manhattan, which saw thousands of supporters come and pray. Among the thousands were a steady stream of black-hat-clad yeshivah students making their way through the crowd and handing out Shabbat candles or offering attendees the opportunity to put on tefillin. On Thursday evening, an even larger crowd took to 14th Avenue in the neighborhood of Borough Park in Brooklyn, filling the street to say tehillim (“psalms”) and pray.
In a stirring statement of solidarity with the Jewish people and the Jews of New York, in particular, Mayor Eric Adams declared that “your fight is our fight.”
He noted that New York has the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. “This is the place that our voices must rise and cascade throughout the entire country. We will not be alright until every person responsible for this act is held accountable. And we don’t have to pretend.”
Prayer Rallies and Vigils Around America
On Monday, in Chicago, Ill., Rabbi Meir Hecht hosted an event in the merit of an active member of Chabad of Evanston, Judith Ra’anan, who along with her 19-year-old daughter, Natalie, were on a weeks-long trip to Israel to celebrate the High Holidays and Sukkot. They are believed to have been abducted by Hamas and taken hostage to the Gaza Strip.
“Judith is a really kind, giving, sharing, generous individual who always wants to be there for others,” says Hecht, co-director of Chabad of Evanston with his wife, Yehudis. “She comes to our house and brings gifts to our kids. She wants to be with our family and our community, attending our programs and helping out any way she can.”
The outpouring of grief in the Evanston Jewish community, Hecht says, has been overwhelming, and he knew he wanted to channel that towards a positive action: a tehillim gathering in the merit of Judith and Natalie’s safe return.
“Our community is devastated and pained by everything that is going on in Israel, and because of Judith and Natalie, it obviously hits very close to home,” Hecht said. “More than 1,000 people attended the rally and have been praying around the clock, trying to beseech G‑d any way we can through mitzvot and prayers. We are trying to be there for each other and support each other in this very painful time.”
College Students Show Their Support
At the Rohr Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Binghamton, N.Y., more than 600 Binghamton University students and local community members came together in the center of the campus on Monday to recite tehillim, sing and gain strength from each other while showing their support for Israel.
“A lot of students are very shaken up, and we are having a lot of group discussions and one-on-one discussion,” said Rabbi Levi Slonim, director of programming at the Chabad center. “As Chassidim of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, we take our cues from him,” he continued.
“Three days after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he spoke at a farbrengen and said that in Psalms 121, we say that G‑d watches us and is our shadow. The Rebbe explained that the way Jews here act causes G‑d to act that way to other Jews. The more we strengthen ourselves in good deeds and joy, that will bring strength to our brothers and sisters in Israel,” Slonim explains.
It was standing-room only at the Chabad Jewish Community Center of Jackson Hole, Wyo., on Monday as Jews from across the city and of all ages came together to pray, sing along to Jewish songs and do good deeds in solidarity with their brethren.
“Everybody is affected by this, and the Jews of Jackson want to express themselves and scream out to G‑d to bring this to a positive conclusion,” said Rabbi Zalman Mendelsohn, director of the Chabad Jewish Center and the event organizer.
Candles were lit at a Thursday evening solidarity vigil held in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood , each representing a murdered Jew. The 1,300 they ultimately kindled was far more than Rabbi Yossi Eliav, director of Chabad of Clinton Hill and Pratt, could have imagined.
“We told the candle company initially that we needed 900 candles for the event. Then I called back to say we needed 1,000. On the day of the event, I called them and said I need 1,300,” Eliav said. “I didn’t want to add the candles but every minute, every hour, it’s just more and more death.”
(As of Tuesday, the death toll had reached 1,400 and counting.)
Mitzvah Campaigns
During past conflicts in the Land of Israel and times of danger for the Jewish people, when things seemed bleak, the Rebbe made practical suggestions of mitzvahs to elicit G‑d’s protection.
Among them are coming together in unity for prayer, men putting on tefillin, women lighting Shabbat candles, putting a mezuzah on one’s doors, giving charity and doing acts of kindness, and studying Torah.
OneMitzvah, a program of Merkos 302 that creates programs and support for Chabad centers around the world, encourages people to “pledge” their mitzvot for Israel just as they would a monetary donation. Since the campaign began, there have been more than 100,000 mitzvot pledged out of a goal of 1 million mitzvahs.
Yoni Greenwald, a CTeen (Chabad Teen Network) leader from Coral Gables, Fla., took on the mitzvah of “praying a little more each day and being a little more kind to people.”
Nearby, in Boca Raton, Chabad played host to an evening of connection that united teens and the elderly in the recital of the Shema prayer, painting tzedakah boxes in support of the Land of Israel and engaging in dialogue about what being Jewish means to them.
“The teens are the ones who drive the campaign and initiate the conversations,” says Rabbi Yossi Denburg, director of CTeen of Boca Raton. “One elderly woman said that she hasn’t been comfortable saying the word ‘G‑d’ for many years. Sitting among our teens, talking with them, she is suddenly comfortable saying it again.”
Arman Saadat, a senior at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., and president of the Chabad Jewish Student Group, also signed the mitzvah pledge. “We’ve been working especially hard to make mitzvot available to as many Jews as possible at our university in order to help people in the land of Israel and Jews around the world,” he said.
