A delegation of senior Yad L’Achim officials visited the homes of Gedolei Yisrael in recent days to seek their advice on a number of pressing issues and to receive their blessings for success.
The delegation began by visiting the Beis Din of the Eidah Hachareidis in Jerusalem, where they were received warmly and given time to discuss fateful questions, despite the frantic schedule of the rabbinic court judges.
Rabbi Chaim Deutsch, a senior lecturer at Yad L’Achim, gave a detailed overview of the organization’s wide-ranging rescue activities, leading the rabbinic court judges to comment that in addition to their annual appeal to the public to donate to Yad L’Achim on Erev Parshas Zachor, they would take further steps to support Yad L’Achim’s vital activities.
On hearing of the difficulties activists encounter in trying to bring lost Jewish souls back to their source, Rabbi Yehudah Fisher, a member of the Badatz, shared with the visitors an amazing segulah he had received from his father, Rabbi Yisrael Yaakov Fisher, the previous Raavad of the Eidah Hachareidis.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the rabbis were presented with a list of names of Jewish children – whose mothers are Jews and fathers are Arab – who have been enrolled in religious Jewish school over the past two years. Seeing the juxtaposition of Jewish first names with Arab last names gave the rabbis a deeper appreciation for what Yad L’Achim is up against.
The delegation then visited the home of the Sadigura Rebbe who was briefed by Rabbi Chaim Eisenberg, a senior Yad L’Achim official, on the organization’s successes in saving Jewish souls from Arab villages and the scope of the investment that is necessary to bring survivors’ children to Jewish education.
Afterwards, the rebbe heard a survey from Rabbi Yoav-Zeev Robinson, head of the counter-assimilation department, on the organization’s unrelenting battle to save errant Jews from marrying out, and on the struggle against the missionaries.
Members of the delegation were surprised by the rebbe’s penetrating questions regarding the activities of the missionaries and the way he explored in great depth Yad L’Achim’s strategies for countering them.
The delegation also visited the home of the Dushinsky Rebbe. As they entered, the rebbe expressed his respect and appreciation for the rescue work of Yad L’Achim and its leaders.
The rebbe was shaken to hear that missionaries in Israel were investing hundreds of millions of dollars to ensnare Jews, and pleaded with the officials to bring this information to the general public so that people will participate, with their money, in the fateful battle for Jewish souls.
An additional visit was paid to Rabbi Shaul Klein, the rabbi of the Or Hachaim neighborhood of Bnei Brak and one of the city’s leading decisors of Jewish law.
Rabbi Klein spoke with great emotion about the special relationship he enjoyed for more than 20 years with Yad L’Achim’s founder, Rabbi Shalom Dov Lifschitz. He related that they had met frequently on halachic matters that were related to saving lives, literally.
When the members of the delegation laid out Yad L’Achim’s wide-ranging promotional activities – aimed at containing the missionary plague and preventing intermarriage – the rabbi surprised them with a story of how he had witnessed first-hand the results of their dedicated efforts.
“The story showed me again the importance of your work and the need to strengthen your hands in any way possible,” he said.
Yad L’Achim officials said: “The warm reception, the support and encouragement of these exalted Rabbanim, gives us the strength to continue our activities, despite the difficulties, to save more and more Jewish souls and return them to our people.”