Rebbitzen Menucha Rochel is Remembered in Hebron

Hundreds of Chabad Chassidim and descendants of Rebbitzen Menucha Rochel Slonim gathered in Hebron on Thursday night to commemorate her 124th yahrzeit. 

The Rebbitzen was the daughter of the Mittler Rebbe, and she is known as “the mother of the Chabad community in Hebron.”  She was very well-respected by all of the residents of Hebron, and even the Arabs honored her. The Jews of Hebron used to come to her for blessings.

In 1982, with the encouragement of the Rebbe, a yahrzeit ceremony would be held every year at her gravesite in Hebron. This has grown over time, and her gravesite has become a popular site for tefillos.

The annual event has been organized for the past thirty years by Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Halperin, director of the Organization of the Descendants of the Alter Rebbe. Over the years, the leaders of the rebuilt Jewish community and the Chabad House of Hebron have joined together to found a yeshiva at her gravesite, known as “Colel Menucha Rochel.” It has become a site for Torah, tefillah, and more for many local avrechim.

Organized buses brought hundreds of visitors to the site from throughout Israel to the Rebbitzen’s gravesite in the ancient Ashkenazi cemetery in Hebron. There, a general pidyon nefesh was read out.

Everyone davened at the gravesite before attending a farbrengen and festive meal at the Gutnick Center, with speeches given by Rabbi Ze’ev Dov Slonim, Chief Rabbi of downtown Jerusalem and a descendant of the Rebbitzen, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Heilperin, Rabbi Yosef Hartman, and Rabbi Moshe Gelbstein.
(SOURCE & PHOTO: COL.ORG.IL)