Recalling the Response to the 1956 Terror in Kfar Chabad

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel archives.

The world is now storming about what happened on October 7th last year in Eretz Yisrael. The massacre happened, as in Kfar Chabad. It's almost a month and a half — it's almost a year since October 7th. So people are wondering, what are we supposed to do? What would the Rebbe say after a year, after what happened? We're still in the middle of the Milchemet, and Yisrael needs a big yeshua. What would the Rebbe say today?

So I looked through my notes here. I want to read to you what the Rebbe asked Rabbi Mindel to write in English to the newspaper after the massacre in Kfar Chabad. There was a massacre in Kfar Chabad — I think this was in 1956. There was one in Chevron in 1927, and in 1956. But Chevron is a different program, not today. But the Frierdiker Rebbe — I want to read to you what the Rebbe asked him to write to the newspaper, and I don't see any notations here. Usually, everything that Rabbi Mindel wrote, the Rebbe would look over. So here I don't see it, but I'm almost sure that the Rebbe looked at it, because everything that he wrote, the Rebbe looked over — especially when the Rebbe told him to write this to the newspaper.

So I want to read to you exactly what happened then after the massacre in Kfar Chabad. This is what he wrote to the newspaper, what the Rebbe told him. I'll read it to you the way he wrote it.

"On April 11th, 1956, the world was shocked by the news of the vicious and calculated attack by Arab raiders on the Chabad village, killing three youths and their religious instructor when they were at prayer in the village synagogue. Subsequently, the number of dead rose to six.

The incident occurred at 7:45 o'clock in the old Arab village of Safriyah." This village, where Kfar Chabad is today, was an Arab village, and that village was called Safriyah. "Renamed Chabad by Jewish settlers from Eastern Europe. Chabad is a deeply religious community of settlers belonging to a Hasidic sect of refugees from the Soviet Union."

That's how he wrote it. I think this was also put in the New York Times, I believe.

"The youths of the community were assembled for evening prayer in a schoolroom of the agricultural institution. They were standing stiffly erect, reciting the Shema Yisrael benediction used in the daily prayer. Arabs kicked open the door of the classroom, which opened onto a narrow porch, and sprayed the room with automatic fire. Three of the youths who were hit died almost instantly. Others jumped out of the windows and took shelter in a ditch. It was several minutes before another instructor broke open the lock of the school telephone and called police. Loss of life might well have been larger. As it is, the attack caused the loss of five children and an instructor, and many seriously wounded, some of them with a loss of limbs or crippled for life.

The terrible tragedy aroused the indignation of all decent people. Many thousands of telegrams protesting the massacre poured into the White House, the State Department, the United Nations. Angry protests were heard from the floor of Congress in Washington. A delegation of Chabad leaders was received in the State Department by the Under Secretary of State, Allen [?]. Everything was done to prevent the repetition of such an outrage, and a demand for indemnity for the victims of the village, which in a real sense is an American institution operated by the Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the United States, under the presidency of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in Brooklyn, New York."

That's how Rabbi Mindel wrote it.

"The Chabad village was stunned by the tragedy, as was the entire yishuv. The whole Jewish world, and the yishuv in particular, was anxiously waiting for the reaction of the Chabad village. The tragedy was enormous. Would it crush the spirit of the villagers? Did it spell the end of the Chabad village? Would the Arabs succeed in driving terror into the hearts of the people? These were crucial questions, for the Chabad village was more than a settlement — it was a symbol.

But the anxiety was not for long. On the day after the tragedy, a cable was received from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, addressed to everyone in the Chabad village — the settlers, the institutions, the administration, the teachers and students. In the cable, the great leader, whose word commanded both love and loyalty, urged the bereaved village to bear up bravely under the terrible tragedy, and let no trial or obstacle deter them from their divine purpose, to serve as a stronghold of true Judaism and a beacon of light of Torah and mitzvos and Chassidus for our people. On the contrary, the answer must be — the Lubavitcher Rebbe continued — to show increased determination and renewed efforts to enlarge the village and its institutions, and to expand its absorptive capacity, in order to serve as an ever-growing source of inspiration and influence for all.

The effect of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's message was electrifying, and the response was unanimous. Not one of the settlers, teachers, or students deserted his place in the village, and steps were immediately taken to implement the Rebbe's call for action."

And then they wrote that they had projects, and people came to participate — a lot of government people came. But then my father-in-law ended it here:

"Most moving was the participation in the ceremonies of a 13-year-old boy, Yosef Edery, one of the victims of the attack, who was brought from the hospital in a plaster cast from the hip up, with one leg in straps. The young immigrant from Morocco had been only three months in the Chabad village when the Arab raiders sprayed 13 Sten gun bullets into him. All eyes were filled with tears when he declared, in response to the question of whether he planned to return to his school in the village: 'It's here that I shed my blood. It's here that I wish to grow up.'"

And then he said there was more, but he's not going to read that.

But here we see that the Rebbe asked him to write this. The Rebbe felt that after such a tragedy, people have to start something. So, after such a thing, in the place where the tragedy happened, they should have a shul, or a yeshiva, or a Talmud Torah — something there. That's what the Rebbe wanted.

Now, a year later — everybody knows the Rebbe sent a group of bochurim to Eretz Yisrael to give everybody chizuk after this happened. Here we have a picture. They were bochurim — there was Fogelman, Avraham Mordechai, Avraham Sholem Ber Butman, and Rosenfeld, Avraham Sholem Ber Shemtov, and Rabbi Krinsky.

And then, by the airlines, the Rebbe asked Rabbi Hodakov and Rabbi Mindel — here's a picture — to be there with them, and to give them... The Rebbe told them where to go; they should stop off in England, in France, in Belgium, in Sweden, in Italy — they should speak there.

So the Rebbe made a whole thing from this. And then the Rebbe said the main thing is that they should right away open up something — a yeshiva or something. So here I would say the same thing happened as before. And then — the Rebbe should help that there shouldn't be any more tragedies, and we should see the geulah shleimah, may we know it soon. Thank you.