The Rebbe’s Tankistim are ready for this year’s Mitzvah Tank Parade on Yud Alef Nissan to uplift a world in need of much light. You can be a part of it.
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By Sara Trappler Spielman
It’s a dazzling sight that thousands look forward to every Chanukah – the Menorah Parade whizzing through the streets, lively music blaring, children shouting “Happy Chanukah” to pedestrians, stopping on corners to hand out doughnuts and Menorahs.
Mitzvah Tanks have become synonymous with Chanukah in the Big Apple.
Behind the scenes of this spectacular parade – the largest in the world – is a multi-faceted team involved in strategically planning an event that began with a handful of cars driving together to Manhattan many years prior.
“We inherited the parade,” organizer Mordy Hirsch said, referring to himself and Moishe Schmukler. “It was something bochrim did throughout the years. Whoever got cars, did parades. Before we took over, there were maybe 25 cars on average on Chanukah. Some years, if there were bochrim interested in arranging it, it was done, if not, it didn’t happen.”
Building on the success of the Mitzvah tank parades for Yud Alef Nissan – which Hirsch and Schmukler started together 23 years ago under the auspices of Lubavitch Youth Organization — they began the Chanukah operation four years later, until it grew into the monumental accomplishment it is today.
It didn’t come without challenges at first and still requires months of preparation every year, including trips Schmukler takes across the country to RV headquarters setting up contacts. In the past, there were 5 or 6 tanks, compared to 30 or 35 tanks now. Bochurim usually rented Cadillacs because tanks were so expensive and demanded experienced, vetted drivers.
“There used to be very few classes [of yeshiva students] who could afford a tank,” Schmukler said. “We became like their travel agent.”
Instead of young students going to expensive companies not knowing where or how to navigate affordable prices, Schmukler went to RV companies and guaranteed a price through them, becoming the middle man between driver and tank.
Before Chanukah 19 years ago, the idea was born: to be upfront, reveal to RV companies what they are doing with so many tanks, rent it as a block and ensure safety.
The first year they sealed a deal and rented 18 tanks. Schmukler now has professional relationships, flying to headquarters of different RV locations every year.
“There was a slogan: ‘Today it’s easier to rent a Mitzvah tank than a car.’ We did everything for them. We vetted drivers, made sure they had enough money, told them what gas and tolls cost, which parkways to stay off of… All the things that over the years caused so much headache in Crown Heights, like mess and garbage that caused police and sanitation to be upset, we made it organized,” explained Hirsch.
The team works closely with the NYC police, especially the 71st precinct, who arrange parking for the tanks and check on them throughout the night. They also work with the sanitation department, highway patrol, and activist Devorah Halberstam. In addition, they coordinate with Rabbi Shmuel Butman to drive by the lighting of the World’s Largest Menorah, when it takes place on Motzei Shabbos on 5th Avenue, ensuring he lights at the same time as the parade arrives.
Although it’s a big operation, the organizers take into consideration everything to the smallest detail, in order to think of the community’s needs. They secure all the tanks on President Street, since it’s a wide street with fewer residents, to make parking easier.
Their detailed rules en route, such as where they can park or deposit garbage, ensures a smooth run. “A parent has to drive, not just a bochur. They have to be back in time because of yeshivah the next day and the music must be off when they come back into Crown Heights so they don’t wake sleeping children,” Schmukler said.
Working now with all boys schools in Crown Heights, particularly for 7th and 8th grades, Schmukler and Hirsch meet with every principal and speak to students in classes, forming partnerships with parents. Every tank has a class mother coordinating who goes each night.
Groups of students raise money in advance, starting from Rosh Chodesh Kislev, working hand in hand with the organizers “so kids feel it’s their tank, yet there’s a layer of responsibility that we’re putting on to make sure it’s a success,” Hirsch said.
Young students learn budgeting, delegation and social skills, and hone their outreach talents while doing what the Rebbe wants on Chanukah. The tanks are run by boys for the parade and all through Chanukah.
“I’ve watched kids say year after year, ‘I don’t want to go to a party, but I want to go on mivtzoim on a tank.’ It’s their first real exposure to mivtzoim. Mothers say they can’t get their kids motivated with other stuff, but here, the boys are thrilled to take part,” Hirsch said.
Now, throughout Chanukah, it’s a common sight to run into 3 or 4 tanks anywhere in the city.
“It’s a very powerful part of the Rebbe’s arsenal,” Hirsch continued. “The tanks go to the front line, they go through hard places, they get to people who otherwise can’t be gotten to, it’s the marines in the Rebbe’s war against assimilation.”
In 1974, soon after the Yom Kippur war, the Rebbe had already initiated a few campaigns by then, and Chassidim were looking for creative ways to bring tefilin to the streets. They used trucks back then – not tanks – and tried to promote the campaigns by going to the city.
Rabbi Kasriel Kastel from Tzach remembered that the first truck went out with loudspeakers promoting campaigns of the time. Rabbi Sholom Duchman helped start it with some Israelis and took it to 5th Avenue, just driving up and down with speakers, not even getting out. At one point they stopped for a drink and someone asked what it was about, which led to exchanging phone numbers. And so the concept of using a Mitzvah tank for Mivtzoim was born.
Once, the Rebbe walked by a truck outside 770 and said, “This is a tank against assimilation.” The Rebbe created a new category, Hirsch believes, which has its own unique mission.
“Thousands are getting Menorahs, we’re bringing excitement to Chanukah that people won’t get elsewhere. A lot of them are roaming the streets, they are lonely, lacking meaning. They enter a welcoming environment sheltered from the hustle and bustle of Fifth Avenue and experience yiddishkeit in a way that they don’t get anywhere else in Manhattan with non-judgmental bochrim who just want to bring the messages of the Rebbe out there to the masses. So a tank is the perfect vehicle for that. That’s why I dedicated my life to Mitzvah tanks.”
Schmukler shared a humorous story of a bochur calling an RV company for a tank and was told to call the U.S. army. Nowadays, however, all the heads of RV companies Schmukler works with use the lingo themselves, calling them “tanks” in place of RVs.
Now they own two tanks that go to Wall Street and Park Avenue with bochrim every Friday, as well as renting pick up trucks as Sukkah mobiles for shluchim, bochrim and restaurants during the Sukkos holiday.
Hirsch and Schmukler are strong partners, teaming up with many others, including Chanukah project directors, a group department and shluchim department, which reach out in the Tri-State area to get tanks to enhance Menorah lightings or do mivtzoim at a mall. There’s also a driver department, which oversees drivers each night, getting tanks moving along legally and returned properly, and a dispatch like in an airport, who knows when tanks are going out, and to where.
Schmukler does walkthrough and damage checks so when drivers show up they just sign and drive off. He checks everything, even marking tape with how much gas there was when rented (he rents from NY, NJ or CT locations).
Parade directors are focused on the parade itself, registering cars with the police department, while Shmuly Shuchat runs databases and the IP department.
Many Crown Heights families register for the parade – approximately 300 families participate in their cars – ordering car Menorahs, kits and doing mivtzoim with their children. Since everyone has to be ready and synchronize to leave at the same time, the organizers came up with schedules and manuals of how to pull off a parade of this size, coordinating different zones for cars, leaving and returning systematically. Led by tanks, followed by cars, the parade sometimes double up in Brooklyn lanes and in Manhattan use triple lanes just to be able to move together efficiently.
“The parade is not always perfect in one lane, sometimes it breaks up, as it is hard driving through with so much traffic, but it’s not an issue because there are so many people on the streets that see the cars coming past,” Schmukler explained.
He described a scene he once witnessed of a little girl with her mother in a vast city of non-Jewish holiday sights and the child looked so proud to have something that’s hers.
“Just from driving by with a Menorah on your car affects people’s lives,” Schmukler said. “Car Menorahs have become more accessible. When you drive around the whole week, even before Chanukah, and people see it on the car, you never know what you’re accomplishing by just one person seeing it.”
The parades take place during the height of holiday shopping season when hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world – both Jews and non-Jews — come to shop at this destination city.
“We aim for that, for the busiest time, for the biggest pirsumei nissa,” Schmukler said.
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The Mitzvah Tank Office is turning to YOU for much-needed financial support for both this parade and for future Mitzvah Tank endeavors!
Whether it’s Chanukah, Sukkos, Yud Alef Nissan, or even just a regular Friday, DOZENS of Mitzvah Tanks are storming the streets of NYC, spreading Yiddishkite to the world, in accordance with the Rebbe’s directives.
YOU can become one of the Rebbe’s special Tankistim by contributing to the Charidy Campaign, which was started for the sake of the continuation of the Rebbe’s Tanks!
Your contribution will enable the gifts to continue to be given, both to the Rebbe and, by extension, the entire world!
Hatzlacha Raba