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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