The Kazakhstan Hospital R’ Levi Yitzchok Would Visit

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.

Scenes and stories covered in the fourth film are:

12)  Hospital Building, Shieli: Where Harav Levi Yitzchak heroically accomplishes extraordinary things for Jewish patients who are gravely ill

13)  Shieli Cemetery: The non-Jewish cemetery, where Reb Levi Yitzchok himself, clandestinely helped dig graves, and arrange burials, for Jewish people who passed away tragically, and would otherwise be buried in mass graves for non-Jewish Typhus victims.

14)  Post office, Shieli: This was perhaps the one place that one might say the Rebbe’s parents somewhat ‘happily’ looked forward to visiting. A place that represented a connection to the outside world, where telegrams, letters and care packages were received (including from their son, the Rebbe, already by then in New York). These brought long awaited regards, and signs of life, from family and friends, as well as vital essentials for basic life during their exile.

The film shares details of what the Rebbe’s parents did in each place, while narrating directly from the Rebbetzin’s famous handwritten memoirs. The narration of the films are the actual text of the original diaries written in Yiddish, and have a running translation of English subtitles.

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The 5^th and final episode, which depicts the “mud hut” where the Rebbe’s parents lived, and how they celebrated the Yomim Tovim throughout their years in exile, will be published Be”h in honor of the upcoming 59^th Yartzeit of Rebbetzin Chana, Tishrei 6, 5784.

VIDEO:

For episode 1 click here:
Sponsored by Levi & Chana Matusof, France

1)   Kyzylorda Open air market: Purchasing essentials needed for everyday life.

2)   Kyzylorda Military hospital: Helping obtain a military pardon for a Jew

3)   Kyzylorda Train station: Traveling back and forth from Shieli and from Kyzylorda

4)   Kyzylorda NKVD government building: Desperate pleas for better treatment of her husband

For episode 2 click here:
Sponsored by Sam & Bracha Stern, Brooklyn, NY

5)   Entrance to Shieli village: Where Harav Levi Yitzchak arrives in middle of a freezing night and can’t find anyone to take him in

6)   Shieli Train Station: Trying to purchase bread on the black market and standing trial for it

7)   Shieli Train station: Rebbetzin Chana arrives to join her husband after a harrowing 5 days of travel with all her essential cargo

8)   Daily visit to “The Bench”: Where the Rebbe’s parents went daily for some respite from life in the deplorable confines of the village

For episode 3 click here:
Sponsored in honor of Rabbi Levi Wolff’s 50^th birthday

9)   NKVD Building, Shieli: Harav Levi Yitzchak walks 4 kilometers every 10 days to register, including on Shabbos

10)                  Shieli Open-air Market: Where essential food items and housewares are purchased, and the tailor and the shoemaker are found

11)                  Shieli Government bakery: Harav Levi Yitzchok and Rebbetzin Chana wait on line every three days for many hours to receive a kilo of bread, amounting to hundreds of trips.

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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