Kfar Chabad
Kfar Chabad (lit. "Chabad Village") is a Chabad-Lubavitch village in central '48 'Israel'. Between Beit Dagan and Lod, it falls under the jurisdiction of Sdot Dan Regional Council.[1] In 2021 Arutz Sheva put its population at about 2,000 families.[2]
History
The site had previously been the Palestinian village of al-Safiriyya (known to the Byzantines and Crusaders as Sapharea or Saphyria).[3] During the 16 century, Haseki sultan endowed al-Safiriyya to its Jerusalem soup kitchen.[4] Under Ottoman rule, the area of Kfar Chabad belonged to the Nahiyeh (sub-district) of Lod that encompassed the area of the present-day city of Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut in the south to the present-day city of El'ad in the north, and from the foothills in the east, through the Lod Valley to the outskirts of Jaffa in the west. This area was home to thousands of inhabitants in about 20 villages, who had at their disposal tens of thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land.[5]
Kfar Chabad was established in 1949 by Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn.[6] As late as 1957 it was referred to in Hebrew as Tzafrir or Shafrir. Sources differ on the year of founding: the scholars Norton Mezvinsky and Joshua Kolb describe "a Chabad agricultural settlement between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, established in 1949 by Russian Lubavitch refugees",[7] while Lubavitch.com says the village was "established in 1948".[8]
The first inhabitants were mostly recent immigrants from the Soviet Union. Regarding their settlement, the Zionist Jewish Observer reported: “There were several noteworthy aspect of this Aliyah. Chabad members refused all offers of help from religious and political organizations; they insisted on going on the land. Adapting themselves to modern agricultural methods ... To them it was a point of honor to live as they were taught. This meant subsisting only on what they earned by their own toil".[9]
Kfar Chabad, which is just outside Lod and about 8 km southeast of Tel Aviv, includes agricultural lands as well as numerous educational institutions. It serves as the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement in Israel. Kfar Chabad is a Lubavitch community.[10]
1956 attack
On the evening of Wednesday 11 April 1956 a squad of fedayeen who had crossed from Egypt attacked the village's vocational school, where three teachers and about 50 children aged 9 to 16 were at evening prayers in the synagogue. Arutz Sheva, drawing on Chabad.org, reports that the attackers cut the electricity and fired through the doors, killing an instructor, Simcha Zilbershtrom, 24, and four pupils, Nisim Assis, 13, Moshe Peretz, 14, Shlomo Mizrahi, 16, and Albert Edery, 14; a fifth pupil, Amos Uzan, 15, died two weeks later. Israel's chief rabbis, Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog and Yitzhak Nissim, visited three days later. Some residents considered leaving; at the end of the mourning period Menachem Mendel Schneerson declared a fast and encouraged them to continue building the village.[2] According to Lubavitch.com, he sent twelve senior students from Chabad headquarters in New York to spend a month in the village, arriving on 13 July 1956; it calls this "one of the first missions appointed by the Rebbe".[8]
Nachlat Har Chabad
In 1969 ten young families from Kfar Chabad moved to Kiryat Malachi at Schneerson's request to found Nachlat Har Chabad, a neighbourhood for new immigrants from Georgia and Bukhara, after space in Kfar Chabad and the Chabad neighbourhood of Lod ran out.[11]
Replica of "770"
The village features a full-scale replica of "770", the world headquarters of Chabad at 770 Eastern Parkway, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York, which was built in 1986. The building, which serves as a synagogue, includes the exact same number of bricks as the original structure; the brickwork was produced by Teracotta Ofakim Clay Industries in Ofakim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe covered the US$700,000 building cost.[12]
Railway station
Kfar Chabad has a railway station served by trains on the line between Binyamina and Ashkelon. It was built in 1952 and rebuilt in 1999.
Education
Kfar Chabad provides vocational training in printing, mechanics, carpentry, and agriculture for male students, and education for female students. The programs are combined with religious education.[13] Most students, who come from outside the village, are not Hasidic.[14]
Institutions
In October 2026 the Lubavitch.com directory listed 23 Chabad institutions in Kfar Chabad, including the headquarters of Agudat Chasidei Chabad in the Holy Land and of the movement's youth and outreach organisation, Tzeirei Agudat Chabad.[15]
| Institution | Address |
|---|---|
| Agudas Chasidei Chabad B'Eretz HaKodesh | Beis Agudas Chasidei Chabad – 770, Kfar Chabad 72915 |
| Tzerei Agudat Chabad H.Q. Israel | Beit Shazar, Kfar Chabad 60840 |
| Beit Hakneset Beit Nachum Yitzchak | Shikun Chadash, Kfar Chabad 72915 |
| Beit Menachem | Kfar Chabad |
| Beit Rivkah – Elementary School | Kfar Chabad |
| Beit Sefer Lemelacha (vocational school) | Kfar Chabad |
| Beit Shazar Kfar Chabad | Beit Shazar, Kfar Chabad 72915 |
| Chabad's Children of Chernobyl | Kfar Chabad |
| Chabad-Dovrei Tzarfatit | Beit Shazar, PO Box 27, Kfar Chabad 72915 |
| Children's Sefer Torah | PO Box 8, Kfar Chabad 6084000 |
| Colel Tiferet Zkenim | Beit Menachem Shul, Kfar Chabad 72915 |
| Igud Hashluchim | 4 Admur HoEmtzoi, Kfar Chabad 6084000 |
| Kehot Publishing House – Israel | 770, Kfar Chabad 6084000 |
| Machon Levi Yitzchak | 16 HaRabonis Chaya Mushka Street, Kfar Chabad 6084000 |
| Merkaz Ruchani Lyahadut Gruzia | Kfar Chabad |
| N'shei U'bnot Chabad | Kfar Chabad |
| Oholei Torah | Kfar Chabad |
| Ohr Simcha | 21 Meshek, Kfar Chabad |
| Reshet Oholei Yosef Yitzchok | Kfar Chabad |
| Shabbat Hospitality Eshnav LeChabad | Kfar Chabad |
| Talmud Torah | Kfar Chabad |
| Torat Chabad Lebenei Hayeshivot | Kfar Chabad |
| Yeshiva Oholei Tmimim | HaRabbi Milubavitch 1, Kfar Chabad 60840 |
Political leadership
Previous mayors include Shlomo Meidanchik and Menachem Lehrer. The current mayor is Nachmen Richman.[16]
Religious leadership
The village rabbi was Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi from 1983 until his death in 2015. The previous rabbi was Shneur Zalman Gorelik, from the town's founding until his death.[17]
See also
Notes
- ↑ Daily Record, Course on Holocaust to begin April 27 in Mtn. Lakes Daily Record, archived 1 October 2014, accessed 1 October 2014.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ben Shaul, Chabad marks 65 years to brutal massacre Arutz Sheva, 13 April 2021, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Walid Khalidi, All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington DC, 1992, ISBN 0-88728-224-5, p. 253.
- ↑ Roy Marom, Jindās: A History of Lydda's Rural Hinterland in the 15th to the 20th Centuries CE Lod, Lydda, Diospolis, vol. 1, 1 November 2022, pp. 8–9.
- ↑ Roy Marom, Lydda Sub-District: Lydda and its countryside during the Ottoman period Diospolis – City of God: Journal of the History, Archaeology and Heritage of Lod, vol. 8, 2022, pp. 103–136.
- ↑ Chabad.org, Chabad.org Calendar Chabad.org.
- ↑ Norton Mezvinsky and Joshua Kolb, "Eyes Upon the Land: Chabad Lubavitch on Israel", Religious Studies and Theology, vol. 32, no. 1 (2013), pp. 7–21, at p. 12.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, Remembering Summer 1956 Lubavitch.com, 10 August 2017, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, 3 July 1959.
- ↑ Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, Course in Madison will examine leadership of Talmudic heroes JLI Central, accessed 1 October 2014.
- ↑ "The founding of Nachalas Har Chabad", A Chassidisher Derher, Tishrei 5780 (October 2019), pp. 18–21, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Rayle Rubenstein, "The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Replicas around the world", Binah, Pesach supplement, 2015, p. 27.
- ↑ One Torah Way, Course explores avenues to emerge from times of uncertainty onetorahway.org, accessed 1 October 2014.
- ↑ Edward Hoffman, Despite All Odds: The Story of Lubavitch, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991, pp. 154–55.
- ↑ Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, Chabad centers: Kfar Chabad Lubavitch.com, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, Six-week course in Madison to study leadership of Talmud heroes JLI Central, accessed 1 October 2014.
- ↑ Cincinnati.com, Class gives portraits of leadership Cincinnati.com, archived 25 October 2014, accessed 1 October 2014.