After 23 years of using the Pacific Ocean for ritual immersions crucial to the observance of Judaism’s family purity laws, members of Honolulu, Hawaii’s Jewish community are just about done with building the capital’s first-ever indoor ritual bath.
Six weeks into the project, the special miniature mikvah includes a surrounding deck, changing area and shower, and sits in the backyard of Rabbi Itchel and Pearl Krasnjansky, directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Hawaii.
According to Pearl Krasnjansky, local women saw that more young couples were moving to the tropical state and decided that now was the time to offer them a proper mivkah facility.
“We started with no funds, just a plan and a hope,” related Krasnjansky. “We put it out there to people, and they really responded. It’s been incredible that we’ve done it so quickly.”
Known as Mikvas Batsheva, the bath is named after Krasnjansky’s late mother, Batsheva Rotenstreich.
Home to between 8,000 and 10,000 Jewish residents, Hawaii draws hundreds more as tourists. Still, less than a dozen women, said Krasnjansky, ritually immerse on a regular basis. She’s hoping that number rises.
“This is something we wanted to do for a long time,” said Krasnjansky. “We’re still planning to build a nice, much larger mikvah in the future in our new Chabad House,” a 12,000 square-foot building at the edge of Waikiki Beach that is slated to house a synagogue and classrooms.
The Krasnjanskys sent out their first fundraising email for the mikvah project to more than 1,000 people in the Aloha State and abroad on Sept. 20, the day before the holiday of Sukkot. Rabbi Maier Rotenstreich, Krasnjansky’s father, was spending the holiday in the Catskill Mountains and made a point of talking to people about it.
Within days, several New York families – touched by the enthusiasm for a ritual bath in the tropics – pledged support for the project. Together, they contributed more than half of the structure’s cost.
“People understood that my daughter is sacrificing her time and her life to build a community in Hawaii,” said Rotenstreich. “The mikvah is arriving 20 years late, but you can’t go back in time. As they say, better late than never.”
On Nov. 14, the Chabad House hosted a celebration fundraiser to honor donors and encourage more contributions.
“So many people came forward and wanted to be a part of this,” said Krasnjansky. “Local women who have used the ocean for 20 years, as well as people who won’t get any use from this mikvah have sent in contributions. I truly believe my mother is pulling strings up there for us.”
Designed by Rabbi Gershon Grossbaum, a S. Paul, Minn.-based authority on the laws governing ritual bath construction, the mikvah was built using pre-fabricated parts shipped from Wisconsin.
“As of now, the mikvah has been built, the tiles have been laid, and now a deck is being built around it,” said Itchel Krasnjansky. “Next, we’ll work on the landscaping to maximize the beautiful gardens surrounding it.”
“The Talmud says you’re not an established community until you have a mikvah,” said the rabbi’s wife. “So I guess, after 23 years, we’re finally a real community.”
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