Community news service COLlive.com presents “In the Footsteps of Rebbetzin Chana’s Diaries,” an exclusive new 5-part short documentary series revisiting key locations written about by Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson OBM, the mother of the Rebbe.
Rebbetzin Chana voluntarily joined her husband, Harav Levi Yitzchok Schneeerson OBM, during his exile in Kazakhstan between 1940 and 1944. She had written about her harrowing experiences after arriving in the United States in 1947.
Reb Levi Yitzchok was sentenced by the communist regime for his fearless stance against their efforts to eradicate Jewish learning and practice in the Soviet Union. He and the Rebbetzin eventually moved to the city of Almaty, after which he passed away on Chof Av.
The series shows the Shluchim and Chabad historians, Rabbi Eliezer Zaklikovsky of Monroe, NJ, and Rabbi Mendel Feller of Minnesota, as they tour the buildings and areas mentioned by the Rebbetzin’s diary.
Featured on Episode 2:
1. Entrance to Shieli village: Where Harav Levi Yitzchak arrives in the middle of a freezing night and can’t find anyone to take him in
2. Shieli Train Station: Trying to purchase bread on the black market and standing trial for it
3. Shieli Train station: Rebbetzin Chana makes the harrowing 5 day trip with all of her essential cargo to be at her husband’s side
4. Daily visit to “The Bench”: Where the Rebbe’s parents went daily for some respite from life in the deplorable confines of the village
The film shares details of what the Rebbe’s parents did in each place, while narrating directly from the Rebbetzin’s famous handwritten. The narration of the film are the actual text of the original diaries written in Yiddish, and have a running translation of English subtitles.
EPISODE 2
Special thanks to Sam & Bracha Stern for enabling this episode.
The diaries were first published in the original Yiddish was in 5753, in “Tzadik Lamelech” Volume 4, edited by Rabbi Zaklikovsky. He asked and received the Rebbe’s permission and bracha to publish them. Get the set here
The Yiddish diaries were subsequently published by Kehot with footnotes etc. Translated versions of the diaries (in English, Hebrew, French, Russian and Spanish) are available on Chabad.org.
The diary in the original Yiddish can be found on Lahak.org.
Many have asked about further reading of the diaries, and they are published in English in “A mother in Israel” by Kehot: https://store.kehotonline.com/prodinfo.asp?number=EH-MOTH
This is a very special documentary!! Thank you, thank you! As I watch this documentary it brings tears to my eyes of what the Rebbes parents had to endure, and all of our relatives who lived at that time.
Thank you,