Family Marks 31st Yartzeit of Rabbi JJ Hecht

The 31st yartzeit of Rabbi Yaakov Yehuda Hecht OBM, one of the notable Chabad chassidim of this past generation who led the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE), was marked on Thursday.

Family and friends gathered at his gravesite, near the Rebbe‘s Ohel, in the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Cambria Heights, Queens, and then continued for a seuda at one of the tents of Ohel Chabad-Lubavitch Center.

Over his lifetime, Rabbi JJ Hecht was the rov of Congregation Meir Simcha Hakohen of East Flatbush, dean of Yeshiva Hadar Hatorah and the Machon Chana Institute of Higher Learning for Girls and founder of Camp Emunah for girls and the Ivy League Torah Study Program.

Speaking at the yartzeit were his family members as well as Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, Mazkir of the Rebbe and Chairman of Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch and Machne Israel Development Fund.

A guest speaker was Rabbi Binyomin Friedland, a Rosh Mesivta at Yeshiva Mayan HaTalmud in Lakewood, New Jersey, who told about his parents’ friendship with Rabbi Hecht and the miraculous story of the Frierdiker Rebbe and Rebbe blessing them with children.