About Rabbi Raskin

 

Memories of my father by Dvonye Korf

This year the 12th day of the month of Iyar marks the 14th yahrtzeit of my dear father Rabbi Yehuda Leib (Leibel) Raskin of Blessed Memory.

My father was a giant in his warmth to everyone. He made every person feel like one of his closest friends.

I had a special connection with my father because I was so much younger than my siblings that I grew up after everyone else was out of the house. It was as if I was an only child. My father believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself. Despite how shy and young I was, he put me in charge of many of the youth activities of our Chabad house: Mesibos Shabbos, Tzivos Hashem, overnight camp head counselor. I was only able to fulfill these responsibilities with my father's encouragement and guidance. He always reminded me that everything I was doing was as a shlucha of the Rebbe. He reminded me if I would give nachas to Rebbe through all my mitzvot, he would give me courage. That's true for all of us.

Let me tell you a little about my father's remarkable life.

Rabbi Yehuda Leib Raskin, a legendary Chabad figure who served more than 40 years as the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s emissary to Morocco, was born in Russia in 1933. During during World War II he escaped with his family to Kazakhstan, where he met Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, father of the future rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of blessed memory. The elder Rabbi Schneerson had just been released from prison and exile, and as a young man, my father often helped him with his religious and physical needs.

After the rebbe's ascent to Lubavitch leadership in 1951, Rabbi Raskin moved from Israel to Crown Heights where he became known as one of the rebbe's "Russian boys," rising to prominence in the movement.

In 1960, the rebbe directed asked my father to be his emissary to Morocco, where Chabad had more than 70 educational institutions.

Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, administrator of Chabad-Lubavitch, said, "Rabbi Raskin raised two generations of Moroccan Jewish children, now spread around the globe, to love and respect their Sephardic Jewish heritage and loved each of them like his own child. His gallantry in serving his community, while risking physical danger, served as an example to all of us and stood his community in very good stead.” Rabbi Krinsky added that Rabbi Raskin “was a mentor to thousands of rabbinic leaders worldwide who looked to him as a model of self sacrifice.”

Even as Moroccan Jewry shrunk from 250,000 to less than 5,000, Rabbi Raskin stayed in Casablanca until his passing, working closely with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to maintain services for those who remained.

He had famously good relations with the late King Hassan II, and after anti-Semitic bombings in 2002, King Mohammed VI sent assurances to the Jewish community via my father.

Rabbi Raskin is buried in the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, near the Rebbe’s tomb.

His widow Reizel, my mother, continues to run the Chabad activities in Morocco. My five older siblings serve as emissaries in Vermont, Montreal, and Maine. My husband Rabbi Leibel Korf and I try to live up the examples of our parents, serving as shluchim of the rebbe at Chabad of Greater Los Feliz in Los Angeles, California.