It was near 90 levels again dwelling in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Friday, however Chani Aziza stated she was thrilled to be freezing on a sidewalk in Brooklyn.
Aziza was certainly one of 1000’s of ladies affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch motion who gathered in Crown Heights this week for the motion’s annual gathering of feminine emissaries.
Aziza, who moved to Dar es Salaam together with her husband and two kids three years in the past as Chabad’s first emissaries there, is used to cooking all of their middle’s meals from scratch. No kosher ready meals can be found in Tanzania.
Now, as she braved frosty temperatures to pose in Chabad’s signature group photographs, she stated she was trying ahead to visiting the various kosher institutions within the space, together with the sushi restaurant Noribar.
“My buddy simply advised me, like, get pleasure from it, you may eat no matter you need,” stated Aziza. However she stated the gathering had a extra critical upside, too: “It’s enjoyable additionally to return right here to take energy, see all this quantity of shluchos, everybody in other places and completely different challenges.”
Folks collect outdoors of a kosher ice cream store in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on Feb. 6, 2026. (Jewish Telegraphic Company)
The ladies in Crown Heights, hailing from over 100 international locations the place the Chabad motion maintains a presence, have been taking a uncommon break from the entrance strains of serving as what is commonly the one Jewish presence of their communities. As their husbands fulfill rabbinic duties, feminine emissaries tackle a variety of tasks, from managing their Chabad facilities’ academic programming to supporting neighborhood members via disaster to creating positive Shabbat meals are ready — usually whereas elevating their very own households removed from prolonged help networks.
“We give the complete yr. Our lives are all about giving, and immediately it’s about filling up our cup to ensure that we’re receiving,” stated Dinie Rapoport, who serves on the manager committee for the convention. “The objective of this convention is for us to return and to be renewed and rejuvenated, to have the ability to proceed this mission, spreading Judaism all through the world.”
Past the host of programming supplied throughout the convention, together with a go to to the gravesite of the Chabad-Lubavitch motion’s late chief and several other panels and workshops, most of the emissaries stated they have been excited for the possibility to attach with friends.
“I used to be so trying ahead to this yr,” stated Devorah Leah Kalmenson. “You get a lot vitality simply from coming and simply seeing folks and, like, they care for you.”
Kalmenson moved to Leeds, England, three years in the past when she was 22 to assist lead the Chabad middle’s youth applications, together with 5 day camp periods per yr.
“I’ve two boys, so a variety of instances the hours find yourself being when my youngsters are sleeping and simply getting the schedules out and the planning and registration,” she stated.
Perel Krasnjansky (L), Dinie Rapoport (M) and Devorah Leah Kalmenson (R) pose contained in the Chabad motion workplaces on Feb. 6, 2026. (Jewish Telegraphic Company)
The Chabad motion at present operates 500 Jewish day camps in areas world wide in addition to six in a single day camps. The camp sector of the Orthodox motion’s programming is increasing amid a push to have interaction extra younger households.
Whereas Kalmenson stated she had expertise serving to her mother and father run the Hebrew college and camps on the Chabad middle in Vilnius, Lithuania, she stated she had acquired coaching from CKids, the Chabad motion’s youth programming arm.
“I did a variety of completely different workshops and applications, and CKids can be superb with educating run issues and work with youngsters, self-discipline, I did an early childhood course and issues like that,” stated Kalmenson.
Kalmenson stated she had additionally usually relied on the steering of different feminine emissaries as she navigated the challenges of working childcare programming.
Perel Krasnjansky was 25 when she first moved to Honolulu in 1987 to serve Hawaii’s solely Chabad middle on the time. She rapidly began a Hebrew college which at present has 45 college students enrolled. She stated she nonetheless works anyplace from 12 to 18 hours a day, seven days per week.
“It was like touchdown on the moon, and in 1987, don’t neglect, there was no web, there was no WhatsApp, there have been none of those supportive networks,” stated Krasnjansky. “I’ve to say it was extraordinarily difficult, it was extraordinarily lonely.”
However Krasnjansky stated feminine Chabad emissaries immediately had entry to a stage of connection and help that merely didn’t exist when she first went out, a shift she stated had remodeled the expertise of serving in far-flung communities.
“Right this moment, the younger women that do exit as far out as they go, they don’t have that excessive sense of loneliness we did within the ‘90s, that sense of being reduce off and unmoored from all the pieces you’ve ever recognized and cherished,” stated Krasnjansky.
The gathering befell within the shadow of two latest Chabad traumas, coming simply over per week after a person was arrested for ramming his automobile repeatedly into Chabad’s world headquarters, the backdrop of the group {photograph} at 770 Jap Parkway. A month earlier, two gunmen had killed 15 folks at a Chabad Hanukkah celebration in Sydney.
Rabbi Mendel Kotlarsky, the coordinator of the Worldwide Convention of Shluchos, stated Chabad had partnered with the NYPD and Counterterrorism Bureau to rearrange safety for the occasion, and had been “scouring social media” for “mischievous exercise.”
“Clearly, in a yr like this, the previous couple of years, safety is a high merchandise throughout the board internationally for all of our occasions,” stated Kotlarsky. “It’s a brand new actuality that we stay in.”
The hazard, he stated, “on the similar time, recommits us to creating positive that we give them the perfect expertise once they come right here, that these women can return dwelling to Bondi Seashore or to essentially the most distant locations on the earth, whether or not it’s Cambodia or Ghana, and have the ability to stand proud and share the Jewish message.”
Chana Kavka (R) and Laya Slavin (L) pose outdoors of the Chabad headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on Feb. 6, 2026. (Jewish Telegraphic Company)
Laya Slavin, co-founder of the Sydney-based nonprofit Our Large Kitchen, stated most of the feminine emissaries from Sydney had not come to the Crown Heights gathering within the wake of the Bondi bloodbath due to the quantity of labor wanted at dwelling.
She stated she had debated making the journey herself earlier than ultimately deciding to return, saying she had taken inspiration from Rabbi Eli Schlanger, the emissary in command of Chabad of Bondi who was killed throughout the assault.
“I had missed my flight, and I stated to my husband, that’s it, I missed my flight, I’m not coming, I’m not meant to be right here,” stated Slavin. “There may be a lot to do in Sydney. I imply, as I used to be flying, now we have 50 volunteers baking 500 challahs to ship out on Bondi Seashore. I’m like, what am I doing right here? I should be in Sydney. However then once more, you may have that message from Rabbi Eli.”
