When Argentinian-born rabbinical student Mendel Polichenco was asked to visit San Diego, Calif., and Tijuana, Mexico, for a few weeks in the summer of 1991, he could not possibly have known that it would lead to more than two decades of hopping between the two cities that share a populous binational metropolitan area across the U.S.-Mexican border.
“It all began when Rabbi Yonah Fradkin wanted me to help out with the many Spanish-speaking Jews in San Diego,” recalls Polichenco. “I was still a student at the Rabbinical College in Morristown, N.J., then, so I spent a few weeks in both San Diego and Tijuana, and then returned to yeshivah. I went back again for the summer of 1992 and did the same thing.”
That year the Jewish community of Tijuana, which was without a rabbi, asked the young man to return and lead High Holiday services. They then invited him to come back and be their rabbi.
“I was still unmarried and had not yet received my rabbinical ordination,” he recalls, “so I went to Israel to study for semichah (ordination).”
One year later, just before Yom Kippur of 1993, the young rabbi felt he was ready to move down and open the first Chabad center in Mexico, but he needed to consult the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. Although the Rebbe was paralyzed at that time, he was still communicating through motions.
Fradkin—the director and senior rabbi of Chabad S. Diego Headquarters—sent a message to the Rebbe’s office on the eve of Yom Kippur; the reply came less than an hour later, an empathetic nod signifying “yes.”
A Life of Torah
Polichenco and his Italian-born wife, Nechama Dina, found that they had their work cut out for them. Tijuana has a population of 3 million, with between 1,000 and 2,000 Jews scattered throughout the sprawling metropolis. The rabbi recalls that in those days, almost no one was religious, and that he felt very out of place when he compared Tijuana to his native Argentina, with its large Torah-observant population.
But the community did have a large campus—the Centro Social Israelita, built in 1965—that contains a sanctuary, halls, a swimming pool, catering facilities and practically everything else they needed to serve their flock.
The rabbi fondly remembers an incident involving a gentleman who operated a non-kosher taco stand open until 4 a.m., seven days a week. After attending the shiva (Jewish memorial) services of a friend, he and the rabbi grew close, and the man slowly started observing Judaism more. Over time, he decided to stop serving Jewish customers. Eventually, he gave up the stand altogether and decided to become a shochet (ritual slaughterer), and now lives a fully Jewish lifestyle and enables thousands to eat kosher meat.
“When the people saw him, they realized that they could grow Jewishly as well,” explains Polichenco. “When it was just me, they figured I did it because it’s my job to be a professional Jew, but he helped them see that anyone can live a life of Torah.”
In other demographics, Chabad of Tijuana also serves a surge of medical tourists who come seeking cheaper—and sometimes, risky—treatments.
While Polichenco has observed many fine dental practices and other clinics that provide premium health-care services and even facilitates a Jewish medical group, he says he’s seen too many people arrive hoping for miracle drugs that don’t materialize. “They often come here desperate for a ray of hope, and unscrupulous practitioners sell them hope at a very high cost,” the rabbi explains. “Regardless of why they come, we do what we can to serve them. We have a not-for-profit kosher restaurant and accommodations for those in need.”
And in the event that a Jewish individual passes away there—as happens all too often—the city’s active chevra kadisha, or burial society, prepares the body for transport abroad. (The community has no cemetery of its own, but has an agreement with a Jewish cemetery in San Diego, about 20 miles away.)
At one point, the Polichencos founded a school for local Jewish children, but after the security situation took a dip in the 2004, many families with young children left, and the decision was made to provide transportation to Chabad Hebrew Academy in nearby San Diego for those that wanted a daily Jewish education.
(The rabbi is quick to point out that Tijuana seems much safer in recent years, thanks to military intervention.)
Around that same time, the Polichencos did what so many of their constituents did; they relocated with their five children to Chula Vista, Calif., just north of the border, and continued to cross back to work every day. Unlike others, they continued to spend every Shabbat and Jewish holiday in Tijuana.
This arrangement gave birth to “Chabad Without Borders,” a Chabad center that functions on both sides of the border, just like its community.
After 10 years of zipping back and forth, the rabbi felt his community deserved a permanent rabbi. After searching for a fitting candidate, he found Rabbi Mochi Birman, who had served as a Chabad rabbi in Argentina for 30 years, and has the communication skills, empathy and temperament Polichenco describes as fitting to the more laid-back Mexican mentality.
Birman’s arrival just before the High Holidays doesn’t mean that the Polichencos have been taking it easy. In fact, they just expanded their operations to serve the Jewish community in Carmel Valley, Calif., 30 miles to the north in San Diego County.
And the rabbi’s reach has extended in the other direction—further south—as well. Branching out from the first Mexican Chabad center in Tijuana, Chabad now has centers in Guadalajara, Cabo San Lucas, La Paz, Cancun and Playa del Carmen.
And it all transpired from a single nod of the Rebbe on the eve of Yom Kippur 21 years ago.
![The rabbi leads a "pidyon haben" service, the "redeeming of a firstborn son."](https://w2.chabad.org/media/images/858/MIXo8582470.jpg?_i=_n32DD4A5CE5B405756B86D11830CBE5B1 "The rabbi leads a "pidyon haben" service, the "redeeming of a firstborn son."")
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