By Dovid Zaklikowski for COLlive and Hasidic Archives
Diamond dealer Bobby Vogel was radiant with the love of life. The owner of N. Vogel and Company would travel regularly to Sweden, Switzerland and Gibraltar, and the Rebbe would invariably encourage him to spread Judaism wherever he went.
Before one of his trips to Sweden, the Rebbe gave him one hundred dollars, telling him to purchase mezuzahs for the Jewish community there. “Make sure that you meet all the members of the Jewish community,” the Rebbe said.
On another occasion in the early 1970s, the Rebbe told Mr. Vogel to give his best wishes to the president of the congregation in Gibraltar. The territory has a small Jewish community.
“I would like to have a Jewish library in Gibraltar,” the Rebbe said, and asked that Mr. Vogel bring it up when he met the president. “A special room should be dedicated for the library, and you should donate the first Jewish books.”
It turned out that the Rebbe had more than books in mind: “It could be that a Jewish girl and boy will want to read various books,” the Rebbe said with a smile. “They will go to the library, meet each other, and the outcome will be another Jewish family.”
A room was duly dedicated in the local Jewish day school for a library.
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Gibraltar is not ON the coast of Spain its adjacent to it.
It is politically separate, but it is connected geographically by land.