Sparkling Beaches, Tiki Torch Menorahs & Jewish Outreach in Curaçao: Rabbi Refoel & Chani Silver

00:00 Speaker 1 In 1984, a young boy named Eli Groysman lived on the small Caribbean island of Curaçao. Groysman, who was brought up in a traditional Jewish home, was having a very difficult time in the Protestant school he attended. He refused to attend religious services there, and he frequently got into fights with other students. Groysman felt that even his teachers and the principal were against him. Eli began skipping school, a little at first, and then every day. His father, Chaim Groysman, found out.

00:32 Speaker 2 So it was a very tense time for the family.

00:34 Speaker 1 That's Rabbi Refoel Silver.

00:36 Speaker 2 And the young boy's father had had a dream. In his dream, he's a young three-year-old boy sitting on his grandmother's lap, and she tells him in the dream that if, uh, "My love, if you ever have any challenges or difficulties, you should know that there's a Rebbe in the world, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, that can help you."

00:54 Speaker 1 But the Lubavitcher Rebbe lived about 2,000 miles away from Curaçao. There had been until that time an occasional Chabad presence there, so the father went to a local synagogue with his son and poured his heart out that he should get the help and support he deserved. When they walked out of the shul, Groysman realized that help was on the way. I'm Gary Wolk, and this is Lamplighters, stories from Chabad emissaries on the Jewish frontier. Life as a Chabad emissary is often joyous, but it can be unpredictable and even dangerous. Chabad has become a ubiquitous presence in every corner of the world, but behind every Chabad house are emissaries, regular people striving to transcend their circumstances, and a community that supports and relies on them. These are their stories. Here's a great opportunity for you. You rely on the Lamplighters podcast to bring you inspiring stories of Chabad emissaries all over the world. Now you can help keep our series going strong. To dedicate an episode, please email us at podcast@lubavitch.com to explore dedication opportunities. That's podcast@lubavitch.com. To subscribe digitally to Lubavitch International Magazine or to receive it at your doorstep, please visit lubavitch.com/subscribe. In early 1984, at the direction of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of Merkos L'Inyani Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad Lubavitch, was on his way to Curaçao with a 17-year-old yeshiva student named Levi Krinsky. Their mission was to remain unspecified until they arrived. Rabbi Refoel Silver picks up the story.

03:00 Speaker 2 They flew down to Curaçao. They landed, take their luggage, get into a taxi, and ask the taxi driver to take them to the local synagogue, to the shul.

03:08 Speaker 1 But even though there was more than one synagogue on the island, most taxi drivers would have assumed that the passenger wanted to go to the famous one in Willemstad, the one that was built in 1732, the one with the sand floors, the one that's the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere.

03:28 Speaker 2 But instead, the taxi driver, in a incredible stroke of Hashgachah Pratit, takes him to the small Ashkenazi synagogue, the Shaare Tzedek, uh, synagogue, which was the Ashkenazi community, and it's a regular Tuesday or Wednesday morning. They pull up in front of the shul expecting it to be empty, when suddenly the door opens, and a fellow walks out along with his son.

03:50 Speaker 1 They were Chaim Groysman and his son Eli, for whom he had just moments before been praying.

03:55 Speaker 2 And Rabbi Kotlarsky's there, a rabbi with a long flowing beard, along with a young yeshiva student, and they're in absolute shock to see Rabbi Kotlarsky there, and they say, "Wow, God exists."

04:06 Speaker 1 Amazingly, the Lubavitcher Rebbe had sent his emissaries to Curaçao without anyone having asked. Eventually, Kotlarsky and Krinsky helped Eli Groysman attend Jewish day camp. That had a powerful, positive effect on the young boy, who went on to attend yeshiva.

04:24 Speaker 2 And a short while later, the young boy's father wrote a letter thanking the Rebbe for this miraculous intervention for helping the family. I don't have the original text of his letter, but we do have the Rebbe's response. It's, uh, dated, I have it right here. It's dated the 3rd of Nisan 5744, 1984, and the Rebbe says, "I was pleased to receive your regards. I must, however, take exception to you referring to yourself as a small Jew from Curaçao. There is surely no need to emphasize to you at length that every Jew, man or woman, has a Nefesh Elokis, which is a part of godliness above, and a Jew must never underestimate his or her tremendous potential." It's an incredibly powerful letter.

05:11 Speaker 1 Today, Eli Groysman and his family are members of the Chabad community in Queens, New York. Chaim Groysman eventually moved to Venezuela and became a baal teshuva and a full-time Chabadnik. The effects of the Rebbe's concern for every Jew are still rippling across the Caribbean. Rabbi Silver and his wife, Chani, have served as Chabad emissaries to Curaçao for more than six years. They always bear in mind the Rebbe's profound message.

05:38 Speaker 3 There is no such a thing as a small Jew in Curaçao.

05:42 Speaker 2 There's no such thing as a small Jew.

05:48 Speaker 1 Rabbi Refoel Silver was born in Belgium. When he was still very young, his family moved to Brooklyn, where he studied in yeshiva before moving on to schools in Chicago and Brunoy, France, and on to Jewish outreach in Morocco, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Canada. He knew throughout what he wanted to do with his life.

06:08 Speaker 2 My aspiration was to go out on shlichus, to join the Rebbe's army of, of shluchim, to make a positive difference in this world, helping establish Jewish infrastructure in a place where it was lacking, where we can actually make a difference.

06:20 Speaker 1 Rebbetzin Chani Silver grew up in Paris, where her parents run an educational network for thousands of Jewish children.

06:27 Speaker 3 I have siblings on shlichus, uncles, aunts, cousins all around the world on shlichus. So I always had this dream to go on shlichus.

06:36 Speaker 1 Chani attended seminary in Tzfat, Israel, and in Moscow. She taught in several cities in Russia and met Refoel Silver after moving back to Paris. They were married in 2016. They already were having conversations about going out on shlichus.

06:52 Speaker 2 And we were looking into the different options when one day a friend reached out to me and he said, "Why don't you look into Curacao?" And I said, "Say that again? Curacao?" I, initially I thought he meant Krakow.

07:03 Speaker 1 As in the second-largest city in Poland, which is slightly north and east of the Caribbean.

07:08 Speaker 2 So I told him, "I believe there's already shluchim there." He said, "It's Krakow with a beach and different weather." So I started researching more about Curacao, and I found that there was quite a few Jews living here in Curacao, and that they'd been here for hundreds of hundreds of years.

07:26 Speaker 1 Since about the 1630s, in fact. Here's a quick primer. The original settlers of Curacao were Arawaks indigenous to the South American mainland. Spanish conquerors arrived in 1499, and they colonized the island. In 1651, after the victory of the Republic of the Netherlands in its war of independence from Spain, Sephardi Jews began to arrive. They established farming communities and shipping and trade businesses. In 1732, construction was completed on Mikve Israel-Emmanuel, a beautiful synagogue in the port city of Willemstad. These days, it's the biggest tourist attraction on the island. A 1920s influx of Ashkenazi Jews from Romania resulted in the founding of a new community. About 300 Jews currently live in Curacao, and thousands of tourists visit every year to experience its pristine beaches, unique history, and natural beauty. Six years ago, Refoel Silver's research led to the conclusion that there was a need for permanent Chabad emissaries.

08:40 Speaker 2 And we were encouraged to pursue the option to work on it. We reached out to the bachurim that had been visiting Curacao on merit shlichus for many, many years, and who had had, uh, built an amazing relationship with the local Jewish community. And a few, uh, weeks later, my wife and I were on a flight down to Curacao to, uh, seriously consider the option of establishing Chabad of Curacao.

08:59 Speaker 1 In June of 2017, Refoel and Chani Silver boarded a plane for Curacao on a fact-finding mission. When they stepped off of it-

09:08 Speaker 2 The first thing that, uh, hit us was the heat, the intense heat. It wasn't something that we were used to. It was in late June, and it must have been 90, 95 degrees and just the intense heat. We got off the plane, got into our car, and it was, it was very different. It was, uh, the scenery was very, very different than, uh, New York.

09:28 Speaker 3 Beautiful beaches. There's an old town here with colored houses. There's the old synagogue, Shaare Tzedek, which is a beautiful synagogue. Historical island, a lot of culture. It's, it's very international.

09:40 Speaker 2 We visited the local people. We really tried to mingle with the local community and feel what it's like to live here so we can feel the potential of the place here and, uh, on the other hand, the challenges of living here.

09:50 Speaker 3 We met people from all places in the world. Everyone was just so nice and relaxed and welcoming. That's what we felt. We felt it right away.

10:01 Speaker 2 We had a beautiful Shabbos in the community there. We had a meeting one evening at the shul, and we called upon local members to come, and they had set up a lot, a lot, a lot of chairs, apparently expecting 40 to 50 people. A lot less people showed up, and there was a fellow that got up there, and he says, "But look around the room. There's so many empty chairs. Why would you come here?" And my response, I said that, "You know, that's a great question, but my answer is if I would come here tonight and this room was full, then you don't need me here. Our job here is to fill up the chairs in this room and then to bring more chairs and put them in the overflow room in the hallway." We felt potential wherever we went. We saw that this is a place where, with a lot of tender love and care, we can have a flourishing Jewish community.

10:46 Speaker 3 We felt that this was the place.

10:48 Speaker 1 The Silvers made a big decision while they were still on the island.

10:52 Speaker 2 Chani and I would serve as the shluchim to Curacao.

10:54 Speaker 1 The Silvers flew back to New York and began packing for their big move. Remember the story involving Rabbi Kotlarsky and the yeshiva students in 1984? Well, the Silvers would experience that same level of divine providence 24 years later. It would involve a man named Michael Match. Match grew up in Curacao with his father, mother, and sister. When he was older, he split his time between Curacao and Florida, where he became interested in Chabad through Rabbi Lipschitz at Chabad of North Miami. Match's parents divorced, leaving his father alone for long stretches, but Match says his father gave him something invaluable.

11:35 Speaker 4 So my father really was the one that gave me the love for my Yiddishkeit, that I would go to synagogue with him. But, uh, unfortunately, my father was bipolar, and we didn't really know What was going on with him for quite a few years, because we just thought, "Oh, he's eccentric." But as the years passed on, we figured out that he had a chemical imbalance and that he would go into these highs, and he would go into these crazy highs that sometimes he wouldn't sleep for days and days.

12:12 Speaker 1 And there were also lows. Michael says his father had been an important member of the Jewish community of Curaçao who helped many people in many different ways. But Mech says his father's illness had caused him to break many of the relationships he'd forged in the Jewish community there. Michael and his sister brought him to clinics in Curaçao, Miami, and Venezuela, but nothing was helping much.

12:37 Speaker 4 He was sick. The reason that he was sick was just because he could not help himself. Even though he was such a smart person, he just didn't have the ability to confront himself and, and help himself, and it was very hard for us to help him.

12:53 Speaker 1 Michael Mech began to look for a spiritual remedy, but he says there wasn't an Orthodox rabbi on Curaçao to whom he could turn for help. In July of 2017, Mech and about 20 family members arrived in Crown Heights for a wedding. Mech was by this time very interested in Chabad, and he knew that the island had been visited many times by Chabad emissaries. So before the wedding ceremony, Mech and his family decided to go as a group to the Ohel, the resting place of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Mech began to write a pan.

13:31 Speaker 4 A, a little letter to the Rebbe or, or to HaShem and the Rebbe and have the Rebbe be your emissary to HaShem.

13:38 Speaker 1 Mech says he made three requests. One of them had to do with his father.

13:43 Speaker 4 My father was in a very dark place. He was surrounded by all these negative energies and negative people and, and people that he was paying, and even some drug things were going on. And I wrote there that, you know, really he's in such a dark place that we need someone to come and give him some kind of light, some kind of guidance.

14:10 Speaker 1 That someone, Mech knew, should be a Chabad Shliach.

14:16 Speaker 4 Then I went over to his grave, and I davened and I read the pan, and then I broke up the letter and I threw it in.

14:23 Speaker 1 Mech and his family members returned to Crown Heights that afternoon for the wedding, held in the courtyard beside 770, Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters.

14:33 Speaker 4 And we had a beautiful wedding event.

14:37 Speaker 1 Mech woke up the next morning wondering how best to spend his one remaining day in Crown Heights.

14:43 Speaker 4 I said, "Okay, look, I've never been inside 770, so why don't I take my tefillin and just go daven in the big shul where I seen the Rebbe, uh, praying and giving his, uh, speeches and, and the Hasidim dancing and..." So when I got there, lo and behold, the shul is closed.

15:02 Speaker 1 It was Yud Beis Tammuz, the birthday of the previous Rebbe and the anniversary of his release from a Soviet prison. Mech says he thought to himself...

15:12 Speaker 4 Who can I call in Chabad that can get me a tour?

15:17 Speaker 1 So Mech called Rabbi Dovid Kotlarsky, the son of Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, both of whom he had met in Curaçao. He figured they could help.

15:26 Speaker 4 And I said to him, "Dovid, I'm here in 770." And he said to me, "Yes, I know you're in 770." And I said to him, "How do you know?" He, he says, "Well, you were at a wedding yesterday. You were streaming it live on, uh, Facebook." I said to him, "Okay. So listen, I want a tour of 770, but everything is closed here. Can you call somebody to arrange this for me?" And he said to me, "Give me about 20 minutes. I'll call you back." And he called me back. He says, "Michael, I'm sorry. My father's in Germany on a mission, and there's nobody that can do anything for you. But would you like to meet the Shliach that's moving to Curaçao that's going to be the rabbi of the community there?" And I said to him, "There's a Shliach moving to Curaçao?" And he said to me, "Yes."

16:10 Speaker 1 Mech's head was spinning. Kotlarsky told him to go to a particular stairway in 770 that he knew would be open, and that he'd call him back. Kotlarsky immediately called Rabbi Refoel Silver, who was still in Crown Heights preparing for the move to Curaçao with his wife and their newborn daughter.

16:29 Speaker 2 And he says, "Are you near 770?" Our apartment was already empty. We had shipped everything to Curaçao. And I said, "Yes, I'm, I'm maybe a five, 10-minute walk away." He says, "Well, drop everything you're doing and run right over to 770." I said, "Why?" He says, "I'll tell you when you get there." So I quickly ran up Kingston Avenue to 770. I came there, and the large shul downstairs 770, the main shul, was closed, so I went upstairs.

16:57 Speaker 4 And as I was walking down the stairs, he looked up to me. He said, "Michael Mech?" I said to him, "Rabbi Silver?" And he said to me, "Yes."

17:05 Speaker 2 This fellow with a big beard comes up to me. He gives me a tight hug. He says, "Rabbi Silver." And I said, "Yes, a pleasure to meet you." He says, "What a miracle. The Rebbe sent you to Curaçao." And I said, "How do you know about Curaçao? What, what, what's going on over here?" And he said, "Come, let's sit down."

17:22 Speaker 4 Then we went for a coffee. My wife also, um, came, and the three of us sat for about an hour and a half talking about all the issues in Curaçao, and not only that, but the issues with my father.

17:34 Speaker 1 Remember that Michael Mech had written a note to the Rebbe just the day before requesting a Shliach for Curaçao.

17:42 Speaker 4 What I was surprised about was how quickly I got that answer. I mean, it was like, "Oh my God, here it is," you know, right away. To me, it felt like a miracle.

17:54 Speaker 1 The Silvers moved to Curaçao a week and a half before Rosh Hashana of 2017. They planned a big dinner and Yom Tov services for the community.

18:04 Speaker 3 We sent all our stuff in a 20-foot container, and it was meant to arrive a little before, um, we would arrive to Curaçao. So all our furniture was in the container, dry goods, clothes, e- everything for the baby. Everything was in the container.

18:18 Speaker 1 But Hurricane Irma had diverted the container ship to Jamaica.

18:22 Speaker 3 So this was definitely a challenge.

18:24 Speaker 1 But the Silvers were up to it. They used the kitchen of a community member to prepare Rosh Hashana meals. Even an island-wide power outage an hour before sundown didn't stop them from their first event as official Chabad emissaries to Curaçao. Their container arrived a day before Yom Kippur, and the Silvers began meeting more and more Jews.

18:46 Speaker 3 We had a sushi and scotch event, and it was a beautiful, beautiful turnout. We had, um, over 60 people that joined. And then right after Sukkos, I had a challah bake. So many ladies came, and since then we've been doing a lot of challah bakes, and babka bakes, and, um, women events, as well as children's programs, Mommy and Me holiday events.

19:06 Speaker 1 By this time, the Silvers had already met Michael Metch's father, Louis.

19:10 Speaker 2 The very first Shabbos that we moved here to Curaçao, I show up to the shul, I arrive there early, or far, a half an hour or so before davening services were going to begin, and the first person I meet there was Michael's father, Louis, of blessed memory. And he says, "Rabbi, I'm here to check you out and see what you're like."

19:31 Speaker 4 And my father started coming to the synagogue, and under that he would be the first one there, waiting at the door for them to open for him to come to the synagogue.

19:39 Speaker 2 You know, I saw he, he would shine when he would come to shul. He was in his element. He was in his element.

19:45 Speaker 4 And this really helped him very, very much.

19:47 Speaker 2 It was the start of a great friendship, and, uh, let's just say that from a dark place, Louis entered a, a very well-lit-up place. It brought a lot of light to his life, and he almost didn't miss any service or holiday event, even when physically it was very hard for him to join us. He made every effort to come for the next two, two and a half years of his life, 'cause it's exactly what he needed.

20:10 Speaker 1 Louis Metch passed away in January of 2020. Metch and his wife, Miriam, recently moved to Curaçao for good. The Silvers say he's a pillar of the Jewish community, and always willing to help, as was the case last winter.

20:28 Speaker 4 The rabbi called me about a month before Hanukkah, and said he would like to have the first Hanukkah lighting event in Bonaire.

20:39 Speaker 1 Bonaire is a small island just to the east of Curaçao.

20:42 Speaker 2 And Michael loved the idea, and he said, "Rabbi, it's not just an idea, it's a plan. We're doing it."

20:48 Speaker 5 We kind of just jumped in.

20:50 Speaker 1 That's Pedro Wasserman, known in the Jewish community as Pesach. He's a US Navy lieutenant, and chief of the military liaison office for the Dutch Caribbean. Silver had also asked Wasserman to help. He and Metch discussed the logistics with the rabbi.

21:08 Speaker 4 So the rabbi sent me a picture of a Hawaiian menorah done with tiki torches, and he says, "Michael, I want to have this menorah."

21:18 Speaker 1 Metch, whose family runs a shopping center in Bonaire, couldn't find the materials he needed to make the tiki torch menorah, so he made a trip all the way back to Florida for them. Operation Tiki Torch in Bonaire was on.

21:32 Speaker 2 We reached out to the press in Curaçao and in Bonaire. We invited TV crews, we put out a press release before, and us four, Michael, I, Pedro, and one other member of the community, we got on a small plane, a, a puddle jumper with seven, eight seats.

21:50 Speaker 1 Silver admits that he was concerned about the turnout.

21:53 Speaker 2 What if no one shows up? What if it's just us there? And I get off the plane, and I receive a WhatsApp message from a family from Cincinnati that had visited Curaçao four years earlier for Hanukkah. We had stayed in touch, and they said, "Rabbi, we're back in your region. Do you have any menorah lightings in Bonaire?" I said, "As a matter of fact, tonight we're having the very first menorah lighting in Bonaire."

22:15 Speaker 1 Metch constructed the custom tiki torch menorah.

22:18 Speaker 4 It came out amazing.

22:20 Speaker 1 The Curaçaoans had flown to Bonaire with food, and made sufganiyot in Metch's office there. So far, so good, but would anyone be there to enjoy the festivities? Pesach Wasserman had his doubts, too.

22:33 Speaker 5 Bonaire is described in the Dutch Caribbean as kind of like the backcountry island, and it's not a place where you think of as having any type of connection to Yiddishkeit, really, whatsoever. First of all, because there's not a lot of people there, and second of all, there's not really a lot of reason for there to be a Jewish community, or so we thought.

22:52 Speaker 2 And we were expecting five people at the menorah lighting.

22:56 Speaker 1 But the people came.

22:57 Speaker 5 And before you know it, there's over 50 people singing and dancing, and enjoying the lighting of the menorah. The public television of Bonaire came to cover us. It was really a very special evening.

23:08 Speaker 2 And since then, that's what we've been doing, bringing together the Jews of Bonaire, and helping found a local Jewish community. And this year, more, a lot more than just four people are coming with us from Curaçao, and we're going to be preparing donuts for more than 50 people.

23:21 Speaker 1 These days, back on Curaçao, the Silvers are raising their four children, and bringing Curaçao's Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities together, families who have lived there for generations, more recent arrivals, and of course, tourists.

23:36 Speaker 3 So we do holiday programs, pre-holiday programs, classes for ladies, for men, for the community, kids programs. We used to have Mommy and Me, but now the kids grew up, so now it's Kids in the Kitchen, and holiday kids activities. And every Shabbos we, we host, and not only for the community, but for the tourists as well.

23:54 Speaker 2 The community has, has grown, and grown, and grown since we arrived here. We found so many Jews who were living here. Many of them were once members of the community and drifted away, or people that grew up never having, being affiliated in the community or with Yiddishkeit in any, uh, significant or revealed way. And there's so many other people that we met here whose parents were Jewish, but they themselves never knew that they were Jewish. There's a whole new generation of a Jewish community here in Curaçao, and to see how people have grown in their Judaism, that's the most meaningful for me.

24:32 Speaker 1 Pesach Wasserman has lived in New York and in Israel. You'd expect that he'd have found it easier to maintain a strong connection to Yiddishkeit in those places than in Curaçao. He says that actually the opposite is true.

24:45 Speaker 5 Here, there is no taking it for granted. If you want to be an observant Jew, you have to work at it. You have to work at it harder, I would say, than any- anywhere else that I've been. That's, uh, how I've strengthened my connection with Yiddishkeit here. And the Silvers really make it easy. They really do. They've given their all. They've sacrificed on a daily basis. They're bringing Jewish life to Curaçao on a daily basis, and I feel I'm a part of that.

25:08 Speaker 1 Rabbi Silver is delighted to hear that, of course, but he doesn't seem surprised by it. After all, the letter of 1984 emphatically declares that there's no such thing as a small Jew. Silver recently discovered another letter of the Rebbe to the Jews of Curaçao from 1959 stressing the exact same point.

25:30 Speaker 5 That there's no such thing as a small Jew, not in Curaçao, not in Bonaire, and not anywhere else in the world, and our goal here is to be the Rebbe's shluchim here, and just to bring the Rebbe's light, the Rebbe's love, and to bring Moshiach now to reach every Yid here in Curaçao, and to bring them that message. There's no such thing as a small Jew.

25:55 Speaker 1 This is the first Lamplighters episode since the October 7th attacks against Israel. I spoke with the Silvers just about a week and a half after. They told me that just the night before my interviews with them, they had held an evening of unity, prayer, and solidarity at their Shaarei Tzedek Synagogue that brought together over 100 Jewish Curaçaoans and tourists.

26:18 Speaker 6 It was very emotional. People sang together, and people shared emotions, and shared a talk, and we davened together. And once the event was over, people stayed for a long time just, just being together and, and s- showing support and being here for one another. It was very, very special.

26:35 Speaker 5 And we've seen unprecedented unity, I think, here in Curaçao, in Eretz Yisrael, and around the world, and I think that's something very, very, very powerful.

26:44 Speaker 6 In, with Hashem, there'll be peace in Israel and around the world. But right now what we could do is be united and do mitzvahs, bring light against darkness.

26:54 Speaker 5 We already know the outcome. Eretz Yisrael is the land, "Asher tamid einei Hashem elokecha bo, mereshit hashanah ve'ad achrit hashanah." It's the most blessed land in the world, and we know that the outcome will be that peace will reign in Eretz Yisrael, in the region, and eventually in the entire world.

27:14 Speaker 1 I'm Gary Wolach. Thanks for listening to Lamplighters: Stories from Chabad Emissaries on the Jewish Frontier. We welcome your questions and comments about what you've just heard on Lamplighters. Please email us at podcast@lubavitch.com. And if you know of a great story involving Chabad emissaries or the people they inspire, please let us know about them. That's podcast at L-U-B-A-V-I-T-C-H.com. To subscribe digitally to Lubavitch International Magazine or to receive it at your doorstep, please visit lubavitch.com/subscribe. This is a Lubavitch International podcast.