This summer, Chabad-Lubavitch rabbinical students traveled across 16 counties and dozens of cities to greet Ireland's Jews.
Rabbis Menachem Posner and Menachem Lipskier, one team among hundreds that were dispatched across the globe by Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch, did not take any risks in skipping over a Jewish man, woman or child.
They took a 45-minute ferry, for instance, to Inishbofin Island to meet the only known Jew on the island. She will now keep in touch with the larger Jewish community and stay informed through Chabad.org, which will enable her to know exactly when to light Shabbat candles.
The two rabbis also traveled to meet with the only known Jew on Ireland's Dingle Peninsula, where they affixed a mezuzah to his door. All three of them enjoyed an impromptu Chassidic dance together afterwards.
Sometimes, the success of their search was left up to Divine Providence. Although they received names and addresses from the Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries based in Dublin and other students who had visited the country in previous summers, many had relocated. The rabbis thought, for example, that one David Cohen just would not be found, but when they stopped in a parking lot to ask for some help, they looked up and saw a sign for a Dr. Cohen on a door. His office door now has a mezuzah thanks to the students' work.
Another wrong turn turned up a sign for a Dr. Goldberg, who turned out to be Jewish.
All told, Posner and Lipskier visited more than 60 Jewish homes over the three-and-a-half weeks they were in Ireland; they affixed more than 20 mezuzahs.
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