Zalmon Jaffe

I was able to arrange an immediate meeting with Rabbi Chodakov. I handed him a copy of the latest My Encounter with the Rebbe. “I have been waiting for this,” he said. I confessed that it was becoming increasingly difficult to write my diaries. Last year ...

We soon found out that yesterday the Rebbe visited “our” apartment. (For a number of years, the Rebbe would loan us the apartment upstairs from the kollel (study hall) for our stay in Crown Heights.) Unfortunately, we were out. In fact, we were still in E...

The next morning, Wednesday, Iyar 28 (May 30) – almost one week before yom tov – Roselyn and I traveled to New York for our yearly Shavuos visit to the Rebbe. We arrived at 770 at 3:05 p.m., ten minutes before the Rebbe was due to attend mincha (afternoon...

A few years ago, Lubavitch of London and Manchester jointly embarked on an ambitious program to print the first bilingual Tanya [seminal work of Chabad philosophy] with the original Hebrew text and an English translation on each facing page. This was to b...

The Rebbe sent me a beautiful Pesach-letter, dated “Erev Pesach, 5735” [March 26, 1975] with the following postscript: P.S. The copy of my letter [to Rose Goldfield; Mr. Jaffe’s sister in Israel] is sent to you confidentially. I was prompted to write to y...

This year [5733 (1973)] Lag B’omer was on a Sunday (May 20). Following Lubavitch procedure, we in Manchester also held a parade on this day followed by a picnic. Arrangements were under the control and supervision of Rabbi Chaim Farro. Over 1,200 children...

On Wednesday, Elul 6, 5736 (September 1, 1976), I suddenly felt unwell displaying symptoms consistent with jaundice. The doctor diagnosed me with hepatitis, a serious illness that, he said, should take twelve months to totally heal. We immediately informe...

During the ensuing summer (1976), one hundred so-called “handicapped” Israeli soldiers, who had been injured on duty, competed with remarkable success at the Paraplegic Olympics in Canada. Every one of them was bound to a wheelchair. They expressed the wi...

The time of our departure was drawing near. After mincha, on Monday, Sivan 16 (June 14), the Rebbe called us into the “waiting room,” right outside his office. The Rebbe wished us a happy and healthy summer and winter and for all good things. "Be well, an...

Rabbi Yudel Krinsky told us that it would not be possible for us to use the Rebbe’s apartment above the kollel in the future. It had by now deteriorated and disintegrated to a state of disrepair. However, he did have some good news for us. The whole build...