There hasn’t been a daily minyan in Potsdam, Germany, in at least 150 years. Prior to the Holocaust, the city had only a small Jewish population; their synagogue was gutted on Kristallnacht in November of 1938, and by October 1942, the last remaining Jews were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Finding itself in the wrong sector of Germany, the post-war years saw Potsdam slip behind the Iron Curtain, where it remained until 1989.
But each day since last November, 12 men gather at Chabad-Lubavitch of Brandenburg in Potsdam, where they pray together and study Torah as part of the Kolel Torah-study program. Rabbi Nachum Presman, director of Chabad-Lubawitsch Brandenburg, says its existence has added a new vitality to this suburb of Berlin.
“The Kolel Torah program has had an amazing impact on our community,” says Presman, who first arrived in Potsdam in 1996. “I never thought we’d have a weekday minyan; there was a hope to get one once a month on Rosh Chodesh, but now we have one every single day. It really has caused a revolution.”
Kolel Torah was first piloted in 2014 in 10 communities, mostly in Russia and Ukraine. Featuring a specially designed curriculum studied daily by participants, the program was to draw Jewish professionals between the ages of 21 to 70 (a wide range, to be sure) for an hour of rigorous Torah study. As in the traditional kolel system, a monthly stipend was provided to attendees.
Last year, the program took place in 35 cities; today, it has expanded to nearly 90 in 19 different countries, drawing more than 1,500 men. This year also saw a weekly women’s kolel open, which now attracts 960 women in 60 cities.
“I don’t think anyone believed that the Kolel would be this successful,” says Rabbi Bentzi Lipsker, a Chabad emissary in St. Petersburg, Russia, who directs the project. “We have seen this bring life into cities throughout Europe.”
With this year’s expansion into Germany, Austria, Italy, Serbia and Poland, in addition to communities in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic states and the Caucuses, Kolel Torah’s program means Torah study and prayer is once again taking place on a daily basis in many places for the first time since before World War II.
“For many in my community, this is their first exposure to serious Torah study,” notes Presman. “We are now studying an in-depth Chassidic discourse. That’s unbelievable!”
‘Support People Spiritually’
While the recent growth and expansion has meant that cities in the heart of the European Union are joining, that doesn’t mean those as far from the West as possible have been left behind. A case in point is Donetsk, Ukraine—a city once home to more than 10,000 Jews and a burgeoning Jewish community. Now, it’s a war-torn shell of its former self. Yet even there, in a patch of Europe governed by a self-declared rebel government, Kolel Torah has opened its doors.
“It is very important to support people spiritually,” says the Donetsk Chief Rabbi and head Chabad emissary Pinchas Vishedski, “but even more important to support them materially. Kolel Torah has had the ability to do both, and we are able to help them financially while they come and study Torah.”
Each late afternoon, 25 men arrive at the Donetsk synagogue to study with Rabbi Aryeh Shvartz, Vishedski’s assistant, who has worked to hold up the fort in the decimated city. The men come to the synagogue at the end of the work day, where they pull out their books and study the same text studied by Jews in Moscow, Russia; Riga, Latvia; or Frankfurt, Germany. Once a week, 15 women come to study at the city’s women’s kolel.
Since its inception, Kolel Torah has been funded by the Meromim Foundation, a Russia-based Jewish charity run by Lipsker. Last year, it was able to fund a portion of its vast budget via an online matching campaign that saw 3,000 donors donate to the cause. Today, Kolel Torah launched its second online fundraising drive with the ultimate goal of raising $2.8 million.
Vishedski, who leads a community split between those who have fled to safer parts of Ukraine and those left behind in the separatist east, says that every penny raised helps keep Judaism alive in many places where it’s needed most.
“Those who have remained in Donetsk for various reasons, they don’t have access to the level of Jewish life they once had. That’s all gone,” says the rabbi. “Now the synagogue isn’t empty during the week anymore. If you walk in today you will hear the sound of grown men learning Torah, and that’s amazing.”
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