As her family members concluded the traditional weeklong mourning period known as shiva, Jewish community members across Southern California and throughout the world credited Mrs. Sarah Rochel Schochet – who passed away Feb. 23 at the age of 65 – with inspiring thousands of people.
As a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary and wife of Rabbi Ezra Schochet, the well-known dean of Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon Chabad in Los Angeles, Schochet held the role of matriarch to the boys who attended the school, and served as a role model for local girls and women.
Born in the city of Tiberias in what was then Palestine in 1945, Schochet came from a long line of rabbinical leaders, and was the granddaughter of the Slonimer Rebbe. Arriving in America as a young bride, she hewed closely to her religious convictions, refusing to be affected by the materialism of Western society. Sima Simmonds, a neighbor, remembered her as “a woman devoted to authentic Judaism, who consciously remained unaffected by modern society.”
“She was a woman,” said Simmonds, “of another generation.”
What stood out among the accounts of many who knew her was Schochet’s unyielding willingness to lend a hand to those in need.
Inna Vcherashansky recounted coming to Los Angeles from Israel 29 years ago to marry her husband, a student at Schochet’s husband’s yeshiva.
“I had no one here, no family; my mother was ill and could not travel,” relayed Vcherashansky. “Mrs. Schochet had four children under the age of 13, yet she took care of my entire wedding, even took me shopping, just like a mother would. She totally adopted me.”
The friendship continued, and Schochet hosted the circumcision of Vcherashansky’s first son.
The woman also recalled a widow who once called Schochet and told her that she had no food in the house and couldn’t go to the grocery store because of the rain. Within minutes, Schochet arrived at the widow’s home with cooked chicken and vegetables.
“She didn’t calculate the time or check her schedule,” said Vcherashansky. “She did things because they needed to be done.”
Known as active and energetic, she loved walking around the neighborhood with her friends. Her house seemed to always be full of people, from her children and grandchildren to her husband’s students to the couple’s many acquaintances and neighbors.
More than 1,000 people attended her funeral last week, a testament “to how many lives, how many people she had a personal connection with,” said Shterna Citron, a fellow Chabad-Lubavitch emissary whose husband, Rabbi Chaim Zev Citron, teaches at the Los Angeles yeshiva.
“She was the real McCoy,” added Citron.
In his remarks at the funeral, Schochet’s husband said that perhaps her greatest pleasure was bringing people together, a trait evident in the many events she hosted.
At “funerals and the like, she used to ask, ‘Why only at these times do we see everyone together?’ ” said the rabbi. “Let’s try together to come together [and] appreciate one another. It’s time to unite and strengthen one another.”
Mrs. Sarah Rochel Schochet was buried in Jerusalem. She is survived by her husband of 42 years, Rabbi Ezra Schochet, and their six children and many grandchildren.
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