Rabbi Ari Shishler, director of Chabad of Strathavon, South Africa, takes a moment to snap a selfie with a Jewish man donning tefillin at the Western Wall
Fifty years ago, the Lubavitcher Rebbe launched the Tefillin Campaign, encouraging Jewish males over the age of 13 to don tefillin daily.
To celebrate this anniversary, we’ve collected pictures of Jews around the world sharing in this special mitzvah
The Guardian of Israel
A Chabad Chassid helps Israeli soldiers don tefillin in the build up to the Six-Day War. The Rebbe underscored the protective and redemptive power of this mitzvah for all Jews.
No matter where you may be in the world, you can connect spiritually.
By the Western Wall
As soon as the Western Wall plaza was opened to the public in June 1967, Chabad Chassidim helped Jews visiting the holy site don tefillin.
By the Sea
A man puts on tefillin in Barranquilla, Colombia, with the help of a “Roving Rabbi” taking part in the Merkos summer visitation program.
In the Desert
Two teens participating in the CTeen Xtreme summer camp wrap tefillin and say the prayers outside of Lake Powell, Arizona.
In the Mountains
At a Resort
This picture was taken at Manorca, Peru.
On an Island
Rabbi Berel Pewzner, co-director of Chabad Cayman Islands, helps two men with tefillin.
Or in a Suburban Office
Rabbi Nochem Tenenboim helps Jews in Hewlett, N.Y., do a mitzvah.
You Can Put on Tefillin All Alone
A young Jew on the CTeen Heritage Trip prays on top of Masada, Israel.
Or With a Friend
Two students taking part in the annual Chabad on Campus International Shabbaton wear tefillin at the Ohel, the resting place of the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—in Queens, N.Y.
Jewish competitors in the Maccabi games put on tefillin in Berlin.
From the Ashes of the Holocaust
Jewish survivors in a Displaced Persons camp following World War II.
To return again and say, “We’re still here!”
A young Jew on the CTeen Heritage Trip to Poland and Israel prays on the grounds of Auschwitz.
On a Mitzvah Tank
Or a real tank
Whether you started putting on when you were young ...
… or old
Holocaust survivor Sam Zelikson, 85, put on tefillin for the first time on an unlikely day, Tisha B’Av, known to be the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.
At Home
On vacation
A Jewish man puts on tefillin while visiting Venice’s famed Piazza San Marco. The Talmud was burnt there in 1553.
Whether Ashkenazi...
… or Sephardic
A Chinese Jew
So-Han Fan discovered his Jewish roots and heritage after moving to China.
Or a Jewverine
From Anchorage
Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, co-director of the Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska, wraps tefillin with a Jewish visitor.
To Zhitomir
By way of Machu Picchu
Montana
Pisa
Rome
Or the Taj Mahal
You can always do this special mitzvah!
What’s Your tefillin moment? Share a tefillin selfie of yourself or a friend with the hashtag #Tefillin50, and we may feature it on our Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts! At the end of the summer, we’ll collect our favorites and share them here on Chabad.org.
B'H, seeing all these beautiful, proud Jewish men in tefillin gives me such joy and hope for the future. Thank you for sharing these photos--and for keeping the mitvah.