Front Page Draws Guests

By COLlive reporter

The power of the press.

A front page article on Erev Pesach in The Miami Herald, the largest newspaper serving South Florida, has almost caught Shliach Rabbi Fishel Katz by surprise.

It was not like the 72-year-old who heads the Jewish Community Council in Miami didn’t know it was coming. The day before, on Sunday, Herald reporter Elinor J. Brecher and photographer Carl Juste came and interviewed him.

They documented him in blue overalls, holding a a propane tank and torch to kasher the kitchen kitchen of Beth Israel, an Orthodox Miami Beach synagogue, which he was using to host the Chabad community seder on both nights of Pesach.

He also brought reinforcements, the Herald reported: Zalman Bryski and Yosef Rapp, 21-year-old rabbinical students from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, headquarters of the Chabad Lubavitch movement.

“Anyone can come to my Seder. I never refuse anyone,” said the senior Katz, noting that his son Rabbi Zev Katz will lead the Tuesday night Seder.

The guest list included 30 Russian Jews and “a lady who’s been coming for 30 years who doesn’t say a word. The only time she said anything was when I told her we might not have a Seder the next year and she started screaming, ‘Where am I going to go?’?”

The article paid off. In addition to publicizing the occasion of Pesach to the paper’s many Jewish readers, an extra 50 was attended the Seder, bringing the total number each night to well over 150 people.