As the Shlucha I have a unique insight and role to play. Everyone who comes to Zambia feels some level of isolation. While they may be apathetic, or even annoyed, to meet a rabbi back at home, they’re usually overjoyed to see a fellow Jew out here in the middle of nowhere. They’re much more receptive to Yiddishkeit here than they are at home.
It’s not like a Chabad house in America. Here, we’re all foreigners together. And every foreigner is aching for friendship and connection.
Like Meirav, a dear friend, fifteen years my senior but in the same stage of small kids at home. She showed me around the town my first year here, giving me the best recommendations, taught me how to make pitot for my Israeli events, while I offer her the opportunity to give a Shabbos experience to her kids where, for personal reasons, she cannot do it at home.
There’s Jasmine, an American Jewish mom who grew up going to a Conservative Synagogue. She told me with a laugh, “We didn’t manage a Jewish preschool back in Chicago, and here in Zambia I landed in Chabad!” She confided a few minutes later, “I never would have gone to Chabad... my parents cannot believe it.” Now her sweet little Josh and Yali are part of our brand new Mommy and Me.
Originally, Noa* and her family weren’t interested in connecting with us, even though they’d been to Chabad in other places they’d lived. But with her son’s bar mitzvah coming up, and her grandmother pressuring them to celebrate it properly, she reluctantly called my husband to schedule bar mitzvah lessons.
While my husband taught her son to lein, Noa hung out with me in the kitchen or on the couch, chatting about anything and everything. Her younger son played with my toddler, and we enjoyed many cups of coffee over those few months.
Although originally indifferent, Noa is now our greatest ambassador. Whenever she meets another Jewish parent, she asks, “Have you been to Chabad? You must meet them!”
