obituaries

50,000 Pilgrims

Rebbe's grave visited on his yahrtzeit.

I

Hannah Dreyfus
Times of Israel

W

ayne Abrahami, a middle-aged
real estate developer from Las
Vegas, pays the same visit every
time he's in New York. Though bound for
an international flight, he was found Sunday
morning rushing to say a quick prayer at
the "Ohel," the burial site of the Lubavitcher
Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
"This is where I reconnect:' said
Abrahami, dressed in a black T-shirt,
jeans and baseball cap, white hair showing
beneath. The child of Holocaust survivors
and a father of three, he said Schneersoris
memory gives him strength. "It's not that
easy to find inspiration:' he said. "I find it
here'
Abrahami was among the more than
50,000 visitors who flocked to the Ohel
("tent" in Hebrew) in the Old Montefiore
Cemetery in Queens, N.Y., to mark the 21st
anniversary of the death of the Chasidic
leader largely considered one of the most
influential Jews of the 20th century

Schneerson (1902-1994), known to many
as simply "the Rebbe," was the seventh and
final leader in the Chabad-Lubavitch dynas-
ty. A pioneer of Jewish outreach, he revital-
ized the then-insular Chasidic group that had
nearly been destroyed during the Holocaust
and turned the movement into one of the
most powerful forces in world Jewry.
Today, there are 4,200 Chabad-Lubavitch
emissary families, or shluchim, who oper-
ate 3,500 education and social centers in 85
countries.
Schneerson's grave is now a pilgrimage
spot, attracting hundreds of thousands every
year from around the world. While graves
of famous rabbis and righteous personalities
crowd Eastern Europe, North Africa and
Israel, this modern-day shrine is unique in
America.
His yahrtzeit always attracts an especially
robust crowd, and this year's turnout was
one of the largest ever, according to a Chabad
spokesperson.
Beginning in the middle of last week and
continuing through the weekend, a steady
flow of visitors waited to pray and deliver

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62 June 25 • 2015

Obituaries

Ar -

Women offer verbal and written prayers at the grave of Lubavitcher Rebbe
Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

handwritten requests for blessings at the
rabbi's graveside. Separate entrances for men
and women divided the crowd, and groups
of about 50 people were permitted to enter
the stone tomb enclosure, one group at a
time.
Inside the enclosure, visitors were given
two minutes on the clock to recite Psalms,
pray and deliver pre-written notes. A buzzer
marked the end of the allotted time.
Rhanita, a single mother of four originally
from Kazakhstan, said the Ohel represents
her connection to Judaism and to her com-
munity. With a group of 55 others, she trav-
eled from Toronto on a 10-hour bus ride to
visit for the day. After spending about an
hour at the site, the group was preparing to
board the buses back
In stilted English, she described how she
had been afraid to admit her religion after

leaving the former Soviet Union in the 1990s.
"We were scared for people to know we
were Jewish:' Rhanita said. "We did not talk
about our past."
After becoming involved with the Chabad
house in Toronto, she began sending her
children to Hebrew school. Today, two of her
children attend a Jewish elementary school.
"I came here to say thank you:' she said,
describing the visit as "overwhelming."
"The spirit here takes hold of you:'
Rhanita said, gesturing widely toward the
crowd of women writing notes in an air-
conditioned room next to the graveyard. "Six
years ago, I came here in jeans and a tank-
top:' she said, pointing to her updated garb.
Though it was sweltering hot, she wore a hat
and a colorful shawl on top of a long skirt
and long-sleeved shirt. "Today I feel like a
different person."

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