 MARCH 19 • 2020 | 25

A 

family tradition that 
started more than 60 
years ago has come full 
circle for the Shemtov family. 
 Bassie and Rabbi Levi 
Shemtov are the founders and 
co-directors of Friendship Circle 
in West Bloomfield. The non-
profit organization they started 
in 1994 provides assistance and 
life-changing support to 3,000 
individuals with special needs 
and their families through rec-
reational, social, educational 
and vocational programming.
The couple dedicated their 
lives to making the world a bet-
ter place after growing up under 
the teachings of the Lubavitcher 
Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem 
Mendel Schneerson. Their fam-
ily history with the Rebbe goes 
back even further. 
In 1958, Rabbi Schneerson 
himself dispatched Bassie’
s 
parents, Rabbi Berel and 
Batsheva Shemtov, to Michigan 
as his first U.S. emissaries with 
the mission to spread Judaism 
to every corner of the world. 
Today, Chabad centers can be 
found in thousands of locations 
worldwide.
Now, a new generation is 
carrying on the family tradition. 
Three of Rabbi Berel and 
Batsheva’
s granddaughters 
have moved home and opened 
Chabad Centers in Bloomfield 
Hills, Troy and Royal Oak: 
Bassie and Levi’
s daughters, 
Mushky Dubov, 24, and Chana 

Caytak, 21, and their cousin, 
Mushky Glitsenstein, 21.
“When you choose to open 
a Chabad house somewhere, 
it usually means you’
re not 
near family. I get to do what I 
always wanted to do, and I get 
to live near family,
” Mushky 
Dubov said. “I look at my 
grandmother; she came from 
Russia to New York, married 
my grandfather, and they took a 
train to Detroit, barely knowing 
how to speak English. They 
came here believing in what 
they could accomplish — and 
we’
re continuing that legacy.
”
Mushky and her husband, 
Rabbi Levi Dubov, moved 
home from Brooklyn in 2016 
to open the Chabad Jewish 
Center of Bloomfield Hills. 
Her sister, Chana, moved 
from Brooklyn back to Metro 
Detroit last year and opened 
the Chabad Jewish Center of 
Troy with her husband, Rabbi 
Menachem Caytak. Mushky 
and her husband, Rabbi Moishie 
Glitenstein, came home to run 
the Royal Oak Jewish Center.
“Levi and I never separated 
our family and our Friendship 
Circle life,
” Bassie says. “Our 
children grew up with our work 
as part of their lives. It gives 
us a lot of naches to see them 
embrace the mission of being 
an emissary of the Rebbe, and 
it’
s an extra bonus that they 
chose to come back to our 
community.
” 

ROBIN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Full Circle
Third generation of the Shemtov 
family carries on traditions of 
friendship and community.

SHEMTOV FAMILY

Mushky Dubov, 
Chana Caytak 
and Mushky 
Glitsenstein

Jews in the D

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