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Caribbean Connection
For a handful of rabbis, tropical warmth reveals Detroit spirit.
CANCUN CHABAD
In 2006, a group of Jewish locals in Cancun
sent a message to Chabad-Lubavitch request-
ing a representative to help lead the com-
munity of locals and cater to the thousands
38 February 18 • 2016
Chabad Jewish Center of Cancun
S
itting in his Palm Springs study in
2005, Herman Wouk listened as a
young Rabbi Asher Federman pre-
sented his rather original plan to open a
Jewish center on St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.
Wouk — the great Jewish American novel-
ist and author — lived on St. Thomas from
1958 until 1964.
“Wouk was very interested in our future
and what we hoped to accomplish here,”
recalls Federman, who, together with his
wife, Henya, has been directing Chabad
Lubavitch of the Virgin Islands for the last
decade. “He knew what the day-to-day island
life here is like. It’s not all rosy paradise.”
Born in California, but educated in
Detroit, Federman points to his formative
years of schooling at the Lubavitch Yeshiva-
International School for Chabad Leadership
in Oak Park that gave him the passion to
answer the call of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe,
Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, and build
an outpost of Judaism in a location so far
from home.
“The Detroit yeshivah certainly had a
tremendous impact on me,” he says. “It
shaped my commitment to living my life as
a Chabad emissary, and instilled within me
a sense of dedication to creating a genuine
and inviting Jewish home wherever we were
needed.”
Depending on the season, the Friday night
Shabbat dinner draws between 25 and 75
people. Last Chanukah, they hosted a Jewish
concert that drew an audience of close to
1,000.
Federman is one of three leaders of the
burgeoning Caribbean Jewish community
with ties to the Motor City. Rabbi Mendel
Druk, co-director of Chabad of Cancun,
Mexico, was born and raised in Oak Park,
while Rabbi Berel Pewzner of Chabad of the
Cayman Islands studied for rabbinical ordi-
nation at the Lubavitch yeshivah in Detroit
as well.
All three point to Detroit’s pioneering
spirit as a driving force behind their decision
to leave the ice and cold — and comfort-
able Jewish communal structure — of the
Midwest and head to the tropical isolation of
some of the world’s most beautiful vacation
spots, where kosher food and active Jewish
life often rests solely on their own shoulders.
Aisah-Zakiya Boyd
Dovid Margolin | Special to the Jewish News
Rabbi Mendel Druk, left, an Oak Park native, runs the Chabad
Jewish Center of Cancun with his wife, Rachel.
of yearly tourists. Rabbi Mendel and Rachel
Druk had recently married and were already
searching for a posting, so when Cancun was
suggested they planned a visit.
“We came here in January of 2007 and met
with some Jewish families, but it was very
hard to gauge the level of interest,” says Druk,
a native Detroiter. “When we came back two
months later and made a Purim party, it was
a great success. We moved to Cancun by the
beginning of that summer.”
The Druks acknowledge it is jarring to
see their four children growing up in such a
different environment as they did — Rachel
was born and raised in Brooklyn. Their chil-
dren do not even own winter coats.
“I feel energized doing the type of work
needed here,” says the rabbi. “You have to
make every interaction count because you
often don’t get a second chance.
“There’s a certain light here; people are
able to go out of their box. It’s easier for
everyone to look past their differences and
bond as Jews here. And, of course, there’s a
special connection that I often make with
people from my hometown.”
One Detroit connection made was with
Larry Shlom, a semi-retired schoolteacher
from Southfield. Walking through downtown
Cancun on vacation two years ago, Shlom
saw a sign for Chabad. Inside he met Druk.
“I had to fly 1,600 miles to meet someone
who grew up around the block from me,”
Shlom marvels. “Seeds were planted when I
met Rabbi Druk, and since then I’ve become
so much more connected with the Jewish
community and my heritage.”
Shlom attended Chabad Jewish Center of
Cancun’s seder and, despite 150 people from
Lag b’Omer with Chabad of the Virgin Islands
all over the world, the ambience felt like
home.
“The rabbi was my neighbor and the
Haggadah they used was the one I have
used my whole life,” he says. “It was quite
unbelievable how far away we were yet how
familiar it all was.”
The hometown link did not end there.
Druk put Shlom in touch with Rabbi Mendel
Stein, the Detroit Lubavitch yeshivah’s devel-
opment director, who was able to connect
Shlom with a rabbinical student at the yeshi-
vah to study advanced Jewish texts together.
“It’s really made me feel like I’m part of
this greater whole,” says Shlom, who remains
in close contact with Druk. “The experience
has been quite magical.”
For Barbara Kappy of Orchard Lake, the
Detroit connection began where it would
have made most sense: in Detroit.
“I was standing in line at a kosher bakery
here and got into a conversation with this
lovely young couple,” Kappy recalls. “The
rabbi gave me his card and told me if we’re
ever in Cancun, they would love to have us
over for Shabbos. And I thought, ‘Yeah, right,
when am I going to be in Cancun?’”
Six or seven years later, Kappy, together
with her husband, Irvin, and their children,
found themselves planning a trip to Cancun,
and Barbara remembered the young couple
from the bakery.
“I called Rabbi Druk and reminded
him about our meeting and we came for
Shabbos,” Kappy says. “There must have
been 50 people there, and the Druks were
just so hospitable. We fell in love with them
and their family.
“We tell people here all the time, if you’re
ever going to Cancun, you need to stop by
the Chabad there,” Kappy says.
GROWING COMMUNITY
Founded originally in 1965, today the
Lubavitch yeshivah educates close to 100
rabbinical students, aside from another 200
in their elementary and middle schools.
In 2012, the institution moved into a new
50,000-square-foot building on the 4-acre
Harry & Wanda Zekelman Campus, where a
new generation of leaders can now be com-
fortably educated and inspired.
Rabbi Berel Pewzner is a graduate. He
and his wife, Rikal, arrived on the Cayman
Islands in December of 2013, and since then
have quickly expanded their Chabad activi-
ties on the island.
Pewzner describes the Cayman Islands as
a growing community, as more Jewish snow-
birds and retirees see it as a viable option.
Many European Jews looking for a place to
retire and, at the same time, to avoid rising
anti-Semitism have also begun consider-
ing Grand Cayman and the surrounding
Caribbean islands.
He admits his posting on Grand Cayman
is not always as easy as it sounds.
“I wouldn’t want to call it a hard life, but
there’s no question it’s a unique and special
challenge to live here and create a Jewish
community from scratch here,” says Pewzner,
who studied in Detroit in 2009-2010.
“The yeshivah in Detroit instilled in all of
us that we can’t rest until we’ve reached every
Jew,” says Pewzner. “Even on a tiny island in
the Caribbean.”
*
Dovid Margolin is an associate editor at Chabad.org.