By COLlive reporter
Wednesday, 16 Iyar, marks the 23rd yartzeit of Rabbi Leibel Kaplan OBM, one of the most dominant Chabad figures in the holy land of Israel during the Rebbe‘s times.
Rabbi Kaplan served as Head Shliach of Tzfas and even served as a city councilman and vice-mayor for many years. He was also chairman of Irgun Gag, a Lubavitch umbrella organization in Israel for many years.
In 1998, he traveled to the former Soviet Union to participate in the groundbreaking of a new Lubavitch center in Minsk, Belarus. A tractor-trailer smashed into his car and killed Rabbi Kaplan. He was 50 years old.
His passing was a shock to the Chabad community around the world. “The Chabad Lubavitch army lost one of its generals,” an official press release from Chabad read at the time.
In a rare gesture, a delegation of Agudas Chassidei Chabad International, the umbrella organization of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, made a special trip to comfort the family and ensure that his activities continue in Tzfas.
Representing Aguch were the Chairman Rabbi Avraham Shemtov of Philadelphia, the secretary Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky of New York, Rabbi Nachman Sudak OBM of England and Rabbi Mendel Lipskar of South Africa.
Joining them were Merkos Vice Chairman Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, Colel Chabad Director Rabbi Sholom Duchman, Kehot Publication Society director Rabbi Yosef B. Friedman and Shliach Rabbi Yisroel Deren of Stamford, Connecticut.
They were welcomed by Rabbi Ephraim Wolf OBM, representative of the Rebbe in Israel and director of the Central Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch in Israel, as well as his son Rabbi Berke Wolf OBM and Rabbi Menachem Lerer, then Chairman of the Kfar Chabad village.
The delegation comforted the Kaplan family and had a long working meeting at the home of Shliach Rabbi Yossi Chitrik, brother-in-law of Rabbi Kaplan and Director of the Beit Chana Seminary in Tzfas.
They later toured the Chabad institutions in the city where Lubavitch chassidim have been living since 1777. They visited the Shikun Chabad neighborhood, the Levi Yitzchok shul and the Chabad House in the Old City led by Rabbi Gavriel Marzel.
Following that visit, Rabbi Chaim Kaplan was appointed as a successor of his father in the role of Head Shliach of Tzfas and Director of the Chabad institutions in Tzfas.
The short visit of Aguch included a stop at the Chabad Yeshiva in Kfar Chabad and the Kotel in Jerusalem.
Photos of that rare visit are being shared for the first time in honor of Rabbi Kaplan’s yartzeit.
