What Impressed This Businessman

By Mica Soffer, Director of COLlive
Photos by Yossi Percia / COLlive

When you step into Chesky Kauftheil‘s spacious office in Boro Park, the first things you notice are the photos of the many children and acknowledgements from people or groups that he has been involved with and helped.

“My passion is working with and assisting, helping or guiding people who are dealing with challenges,” he told COLlive.com. “I try to tap into what’s wrong, be it chinuch related or health issues – even financial, and to find innovative and constructive solutions to the issues. Not lamenting the situation, but taking action.”

Kauftheil is involved in many organizations, such as Mekimi (bringing singers and entertainment to terminally ill children), Tzetzainu (a tutoring program for at risk children), Eitzah (a hotline for Chinuch issues) and Chayeinu (a mentoring program for children from broken homes).

The owner of busy real estate and food businesses, Kauftheil makes it very clear that amidst all his ventures, the ones that really matter to him are the many organizations he’s been on a first name basis with.

Kauftheil and a partner once owned an award-winning advertising and marketing agency and created marketing materials for companies such as AT&T and Bulova watches.

“We always tried to find an angle to make our company stand out,” Kauftheil told COLlive. “We would find a way to print better, or buy cheaper – so we began printing in the Far East.”

And that’s where Kauftheil met Rabbi Mordechai Avtzon and his wife Goldie, the Chabad Shluchim in Hong Kong who led the way to the growing presence of 25 Shluchim in the Asian continent.

“Up until I met the Avtzons, I had no connection to Chabad,” he says.

“I was from Boro Park,” he then adds, as a possible explanation to how he had never heard about Shlichus, although he and his wife hosted unaffiliated Jews at their Shabbos table in Jerusalem, where they lived after they were married.

What particularly captured his imagination – and this from a man who says he was “heavily involved in Kiruv” – was hearing two Lubavitch bochurim speak at the Chabad House in Hong Kong.

“These two young guys had just come from India. They were so young, yet they had worldly guts and Chassidishe knowledge!” he fondly recalls. “They had such power and conviction. I’d never seen this before in Yeshiva bochurim.”

So Kauftheil starting doing research on Chabad, and continued to became close with Chabad in Hong Kong.

GREAT MINDS

While in Hong Kong, Rabbi Avrohom Shemtov, Head Shliach of Philadelphia and the Rebbe’s Shliach to the White House, came to visit his daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren.

Always looking to spread the word, he asked Kauftheil, “Why don’t you use your marketing talents for Yiddishkeit?”

How? Produce a book about Lubavitch.

“I told him that I cannot do work for Lubavitch,” Kauftheil says. “From what I’d seen, all that was printed were big, serious looking books with too many words. After much discussion I said I would do it, but only if he let me do it my way.”

Kauftheil’s thinking was that “you can tell a story with a photo rather than words. A picture of a little Russian child in a ‘kasket’, or a child on his father’s shoulders, is worth a thousand words.”

The first result of this collaboration was “40 Years – Light, Joy and Unity,” a commemoration of 40 years of the Rebbe’s leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch.

“Rabbi Shemtov basically moved into my office to work on the project. We asked Shluchim from around the world to send in photos. Eli Weisel did the introduction.”

These books were presented to several presidents as a set as a gift, but the highlight, of course, was presenting it to the Rebbe. “I watched the Rebbe look through it page by page, smiling,” he proudly notes.

MARKETING THE MOSHIACH

Another Chabad project he worked on was a brochure called “Imagine” which tried to describe to the wider public what will happen when Moshiach comes as a near and tangible reality.

“Rabbi Shemtov came up with the idea, and I simplified that text so that even children can be wowed by the thought of the Geula,” Kauftheil says.

“We presented the Rebbe with two copies – one serious and focusing on how the world today needs Moshiach and the other which focused more on what it would be like and all the positive that will be.”

The Rebbe chose the second option and over 1 million copies of the brochure were printed, and later translated into 13 languages.

Kauftheil was on board with Rabbi Shemtov on more publications. They made a commemorative album of Chanukah around the world and Lag BaOmer with the Rebbe in front of 770 Eastern Parkway.

“We had a great outpouring from shluchim who all wanted to be in the book,” he remembers.

KOSHER ONLINE

Learning about Chabad’s vast network around the globe later inspired Kauftheil to take on a new venture: Kosher.com, described as the world’s largest online kosher supermarket.

The Rebbe’s adaptation of technology and the ever growing Torah observant community around the U.S. thanks to the Shluchim has led him to take on the electronic kosher food market.

“Business people I meet ask me how do I combine being on the edge of technology and still be connected to Heshem. To me, that’s exactly the point: use technology to connect to Hashem,” Kauftheil says.

What Kosher.com is offering, he says, is an easy way to quickly and efficiently shop without the lines, carts and schlepping bags.

Kauftheil is an owner of a large supermarket in the Five Towns called Gourmet Glatt Emporium which allows him to ship nationwide fresh and made to order meat, grocery, deli and fish. (Free delivery to much of NY, NJ and CT.)

“Aside from convenience, I think Kosher.com can be of help to Shluchim families in the U.S.,” he says. “People don’t have the excuse of availability, so why not keep kosher?”

Kauftheil says they are also developing a discount program for communities that make an order together, to make it even easier.

“When a Shliach or Rebbetzin encourages members of their community to order they will be receiving a percentage of sales. They can recommend us to people individually or we can offer some of our goods for a tasting or women’s event,” he says of the idea he’s currently developing.

And as you can imagine, it’s one of Kauftheil’s ideas which will bring positive change – for that’s what his many ventures are really about.