Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka (Moussia) Schneerson was born in Babinovitch, near the Russian city of Lubavitch, on Shabbat, the 25th of Adar, in 1901. From her earliest years, the Rebbetzin absorbed the purity and holiness that surrounded her, both in the house of her grandfather and that of her father.
Her family settled in Rostov. While in Rostov, Rabbi Shalom DovBer became ill, and nineteen-year-old Chaya Mushka was at his side. Before his passing in 1920, Rabbi Shalom DovBer blessed Chaya Mushka and left several Chasidic classics to her in his last will. This marked the end of an era and the beginning of her father’s heroic struggle. During those dark Soviet nights, her father Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, who had become the sixth Rebbe of Chabad, had his daughter Chaya Mushka at his side.
When the family moved to Leningrad, Chaya Mushka’s involvement continued. At the age of 23, she was empowered by her father to receive monies or documents on his behalf from government banks and other organizations. The persecution was relentless, and in 1927 the notorious communist police came to arrest her father in their Leningrad home. Maintaining her composure, she brilliantly managed to alert her father to the danger, allowing him to notify others and begin the international campaign for his release.
Following his arrest and imprisonment in Leningrad, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak was exiled to Kostroma. Upon his request, she was allowed to join him for the journey. On the 12th of Tammuz, her father was released. In the autumn of 1927, on the day after Simchat Torah, the Schneersohn family left the Soviet Union and moved to Riga, Latvia.
Before leaving Russia, Chaya Mushka was engaged to marry the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Their marriage was celebrated in Warsaw, Poland. The wedding was attended by a multitude of Chasidim from Poland, Lithuania, and Russia. Thousands surrounded the building, and there simply wasn’t enough room for them all. Hundreds of miles away, in Russia, in Dnepropetrovsk (Yekatrinoslav), another wedding celebration was taking place. The Rebbe’s parents, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and Rebbetzin Chana, unable to attend in person, organized a festive meal and farbrengen in their own home.
Following their wedding, the young couple lived in Berlin until 1933. When the Nazi regime came to power, they moved to Paris, France, and later escaped Nazi occupation by boarding the Serpa Pinto and sailing from Marseilles, France, via Lisbon, Portugal, to the United States of America. On the 28th of Sivan, they arrived safely in New York, where her father had settled in 1940.
In 1950, upon the passing of her father, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, leadership of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement passed to Chaya Mushka’s husband, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Despite the Rebbe’s initial refusal to accept the mantle, it was his wife, the Rebbetzin, who, notwithstanding the great personal sacrifice, encouraged him to accept the leadership.
An erudite and wise woman, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka carried the mantle of her revered and exalted position in a most humble and dignified manner. She passed away on Wednesday, the 22nd of Shevat, 1988, after a brief illness. She was interred next to her grandmother, Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah, and near her father, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak.
