Rarely has a single day — one day less of Hebrew school instruction a week, to be exact — so polarized a Jewish community.
But in the desperate fight for Jewish souls playing out in the Long Island town of Oceanside, Chabad of Oceanside’s 1-day-a-week Hebrew school, now in its 10th year and drawing a big crowd of students, is tearing the community apart, some suggest.
Charges are flying.
Conservative and Reform rabbis say Chabad is undercutting educational standards and giving bar and bat mitzvahs to youngsters with precious little Jewish training.
Chabad’s Rabbi Levi Gurkov and wife Soshie counter that their school — which now has 170 students — is catering to the needs of unaffiliated families and is more attuned to the realities of the modern Jewish family than dues-heavy, building-fund-laden synagogues.
And, they argue, its kids are receiving a “positive Jewish experience,” one “infused with love.”
Even the head of the New York Board of Rabbis, Rabbi Charles Klein, a more-or-less neutral arbiter, has weighed in: Chabad’s appeal, he has found, is to Jews “who for the most part are looking for less, not more. …Chabad is creating a mindset that undermines the synagogue Hebrew school.”
Chabad’s presence, and success, in Oceanside is taking place as demographics are shifting on Long Island’s South Shore.
Jews have left the area in droves, so the fight for those who remain — many of them unaffiliated and often not ready for an intense Jewish commitment — is a high-stakes one.
Reform turns people away from Yiddishkeit and allows intermarriage and asimalation in their “shuls”. If they are worried you know the shluchim are doing a good job.
It means you’re doing really good work when the other “shuls” try to blame their failure on you. They are jeaous of your success!
Very impressive! Go Gurkovs!
this is so beautiful, may all the shluchim have so much success
This is a good sign it shows the Shluchim in Oceanside are having a strong impact and those who oppose the derech of Torah and Mitzvos are dissapointed
When the guardians of classical Judaisim are being branded by the hellinists as watering down Judasim and standards- you know its time to laugh
dear Rabbi
hold your head up High
we know you do amazing work
Their jealous of your success! When you work hard you succeed with the Rebbe’s Brochos!
You Guys Rock! Keep on doing a fabulous job…cool pic!
Great job Gurkovs,
love the pic 😉
BS:D
In High School we all used to go to Nathan’s ( as in treifens ) in Oceanside, Long I sland ( on Friday night no less ).Thanks to Chabad, not conservative or reform ,thank G-d I haven’t touched treif in 35 years ( or been mechalil Shabboos ). So whose education was more beneficial