The organization’s goal was two-fold: to spread the light of Torah and the teachings of Chassidus, as well as to provide financial assistance for Jews in distress. The organization was not structured as one might expect today, with a board of directors, several divisions, and so forth. We comprised, after all, just a handful of members, each of us serving as a director and activist simultaneously. Nonetheless, we were successful along a number of fronts, both in the material work of providing financial assistance and the spiritual work of promoting Jewish education. Needless to say, we acted in total secrecy, keeping the organization hidden from even our closest relatives.

We raised money clandestinely, ensuring that donors would have no idea of the final destination of their particular donation. With this money, we purchased food and distributed it to hundreds of families before the holidays. In the winter months, when by law one could only obtain a small amount of coal, and only with government coupons, we managed to illegally obtain large quantities of coal to donate to Jews in need.

R. Binyamin Malachovsky and R. Moshiach Chudaitov were the ones who took charge of this project. They knew an evangelist Christian who was married to a Jewish woman and he saw it as a privilege to help the Jews, the Chosen People. He worked at a railroad station packaging coal from arriving transports and distributing it in the city in accordance with predetermined quotas. When a transport of coal was about to arrive, he would send us a message. R. Binyamin and R. Moshiach would then drive over with a truck under the cover of night and load large amounts of coal on to it. In this fashion, they managed to smuggle hundreds of tons of coal for the Jews of Samarkand.