TV Viewers Pick Chabad Shliach As ‘Person of the Day’

By COLlive reporter

Viewers of the Israel Index show hosted by Avri Gilad on the Reshet 13 television channel were given a choice of 3 people to choose from as their “Person of the Day” on Sunday.

There was Israeli gymnast Artem Dolgopyat who won a gold medal in the World Cup and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett who attempted to diplomatically mediate between Russia and Ukraine.

The third option was Rabbi Menachem Kurzweil, a person unknown to the wider public yet whose story has moved viewers to pick him as “person of the day.”

As reported on COLlive.com, Rabbi Kurzweil escaped with his wife Daliah Kurzweil and their children last week from the destruction in their hometown of Dnipro in Ukraine after the Russian attacks.

They ended up in Isai, Romania, where they were preparing to get on a plane and settle in Israel. But then, abruptly, their plans changed.

His brother-in-law, Rabbi Akiva Camissar, a Chabad Rabbi in Amsterdam, called and asked about serving the large group of Jewish refugees from Ukraine that moved to The Netherlands.

“I have been wracking my brain, as to who will help them, and lead them? Who will deal with them logistically? Who will be able to give them love and a personal connection – who speaks their language?”

“I understand the hardships you are going through now, the difficulty of uprooting your entire life,” Camissar continued. “Would you consider taking on this position?”

Then and there, the Kurzweil family decided to change their plans and move to Amsterdam on a new Shlichus yet with a similar demographic.

“We pray that with Hashem’s help all these negative experiences from the past will disappear, and together we will rejoice and flourish in our new location,” Kurzweil said.

Israeli TV viewers were moved by their story. The image of Rabbi Kurzweil ended up being projected on large digital billboards around central Israel on Sunday.

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