How Free Coffee For Shluchim Actually Helped Israel

By COLlive reporter

At the International Kinus Hashluchim on Thursday, a clever promotion by a Shliach for his High School turned out to also be a boost for Israel support.

Rabbi Yossi Bassman is the Director of the Bader Hillel High in Milwaukee, which provides a Jewish education to Jewish teens of all backgrounds, offering Shluchim a top-quality educational option for teens in their community who want to learn more about and grow in their Judaism.

To enhance recognition of the school among the Chabad Rabbis, Bassman hired a coffee cart to give out free coffee to Shluchim, with the feel-good stunt promoting his High School using a play on the Dunkin Donuts advertising jingle.

Weeks ago, Bassman hired a coffee cart operator, Aaron Dahan, who is also the owner of the Manhattan Coffee Shop Caffe Aronne, to be stationed on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights on the morning of the Kinus Hashluchim to offer free coffee for the visiting Rabbis.

He could not have predicted that last week, Dahan would gain fame as the center of a widely reported incident about rising antisemitism due to the current war in Israel, when most of his employees quit over his support for the Jewish state after the Hamas attacks.

After the workers’ walkout over the last couple of weeks, Dahan nearly had to close his shop, he told Fox News. But after the news of his struggling cafe hit social media, hundreds of customers lined up to support, as well as pitch in and work for, his cafe.

Since then, the cafe has employed Israelis who have been displaced from their homes in Israel, and the story of Dahan’s brave support for Israel was widely covered in the media.

Today, Aaron Dahan arrived in Crown Heights with a coffee cart, and continued to serve the Jewish people and brewed coffees for thousands of Jewish leaders from across the globe.

Many of the Shluchim recognized him and said they were proud of his support for Israel, “and the coffee was pretty good too!” a Shliach said.

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