A Rosh Hashana to Remember

By COLlive reporter

Over 350 people packed a large tent of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life at University of Illinois to mark the new Jewish year of 5771.

Rosh Hashana services were led by Shliach Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel with the help of bochurim Michoel Kerendian, Folik Gurevitch and Shmulik Moscowitz.

Also on hand to help were Shimon and Caitlin Zimbovsky, Mushka Shemtov and Bracha Tiechtel.

“It was a major Yomtov with the first night people sitting all down the street due to the overflow crowd,” Shlucha Goldie Tiechtel said, noting that it was their 8th year organizing High Holiday services.

During Rosh Hashana, over 700 people came to the prayers and meals. Each night a Chassidic farbrengen and discussion was held, going on as late as 4 AM.

The students went with the bochurim on Mivtzoim, some even walking 4 miles each way to blow shofar at a retirement community which Illini Chabad serves. The shofar was sounded at all Jewish affiliated fraternities, sororities, dorms and dining halls.

“Sitting there together with hundreds of others, for the first time in my life, I really felt what it meant to be proud to be a Jew,” one of the students said.

Another student wished to pay tribute to Chabad and put together a slide show. “The pictures of the holiday are in our memory, but here are some pre and post pictures in a musical slide show,” he wrote.