Dear COLlive readers,
N’shei Chabad Newsletter has a mystery perhaps you can help solve. So far, COLlive readers have never let me down. So here it is:
I received an email from Lieba Gordon Handler, a professor at Long Island University. A woman walked past her office recently and they started to chat. When the woman found out that Lieba is a Lubavitcher, she began to share the story of how the Rebbe influenced her to become frum as a young girl.
She and her sister, from Queens, went to the URJ Eisner Camp in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, which is affiliated with the Reform movement.
It was approximately 1969 and she remembers two twin sisters from Crown Heights – around the age of 19, both tall with blond hair — coming to visit the camp.
She remembers them being so loving and inspiring and she was moved to have a bas mitzvah and later to attend a few Shabbatons in Crown Heights.
She and her sister did not stay at the twins’ home but it was arranged by them. She and her sister saw the Rebbe and were deeply moved.
This woman would love to find out who these twin sisters are and get in touch with them to thank them. Assuming they were born in approximately 1950, the twins would be about 67 now.
Does anyone know who they are?
You may reply here, or contact the N’shei Chabad Newsletter at [email protected], or reply to Lieba Handler directly at [email protected]
based on recent pigmentation research it is evident that hair color can change drastically during different seasons so h\their hair could well have been orange or brown
The Laufer twins were dark-haired. If I had to bet, it would be the Berkowitz sisters.
Maliki and faigy were two amazing Bobov sisters who went to Bais Rivkah and formed extremely close friendships with their classmates . It is misleading to say ” they are not chabad anymore” .
At that time ,there were often frum girls from outside of chabad whose parents wanted the warmth of a chassidishe chinuch that Bais rivkah could give their kids .
it may have seemed to her that they were twins, but perhaps they were very close in age and appearance.
Yes, you are right. My mistake.
Leiba mentioned in #20 the woman is Fay Greenberg.
I’m surprised that nobody pointed out that hair color (boys’ and girls’) can be much lighter in the summer. As long as the twins didn’t have jet-black hair, it certainly could have looked blonde in the middle of summer camp.
Fay Greenberg from Queens, now aged 61, is the young girl of this mystery.
It may help if we knew the name (including secular first name and maiden last name) of the woman who became frum as a result of the sisters’ friendship with her–which began at the Reform Jewish overnight camp that the frum girls visited.
Maybe the host family in Crown Heights will recognize the name and remember who arranged for the girl to stay with them.
It is not “Lieba” whose memory you’re challenging. Lieba is helping ANOTHER lady who asked Lieba to help her find these twins.
(Maybe the “ANOTHER lady’s” memory of the hair coloring is right, or maybe it’s wrong. But Lieba is simply the Lubavitch connection through which this “ANOTHER lady” is seeking to find the sisters who did so much for her, way-back-when.)
she said they were 19 in ’69… faigy and dina are not that age.. also not blond
could this be Faigy and Dina?
Faigy and Dina Popack were REALLY not blonde. Fradel and Gitel Berkowitz were light-skinned with blue eyes – could be thought of as blonde-ish.,
Also, to a young girl they might have looked tall but not necessarily be so tall…
Malky and faigy Laufer were not blond. Berkowitz twins gittel and fraidel who now lives in Scranton were not blond
Maybe Lieba doesn’t have an accurate memory of their hair coloring… It was many years ago…
Malki and Feigy are not tall and not.blond
Fradel and Gittel Berkowitz from Worcester (maiden names), were definitely not blonde
Evidently she cannot remember the right names…
The other twins name is Gittel, I believe she lives in Crown Heights and Fraidel lives in Israel….
I wonder if the twins were baalei tshuva from stern college? I brought a number of people to lubavitch from stern college who went to speak to the rebbe. Among them were twins who had light brown curly hair. One is married to a lubavitcher but no longer lives in crown hts. I dont remember maiden name. Also i brought basie rosenfeld who is blond but her sister isnt a twin and not sure her sister was here then
From Worcester, fair but not blonde, might be Fraidel and …, can’t remember the other one’s name, one lives in Crown Heights now and the other I believe is in Israel. They are identical twins and dressed exactly alike until the first one got engaged! Very, very nice ladies, very friendly and always with a bright smile….
Isn’t Mrs. Susskind a twin?
Does she maybe have a photo?
blonde and tall… but i don’t think they’re chabad anymore
Was it for sure twins and not sisters?
Nice try. But…
1) the twins in this story must be much older
2) The dubravskys were not blonde
Maybe she met the Dubravsky sisters?