Kigel in Crown Heights

Chaya soon entered the world of shidduchim. American-bred, she consciously chose to continue her family’s unique mesorah by marrying Rav Bentzion Frankel ztz”l, a Vyelipoler einekel deeply loyal to his chassidishe heritage. They settled in Crown Heights — default destination for vast numbers of Holocaust survivors — and opened a small shtiebel, inviting weary, lonely immigrant couples to find solace in a warm kehillah.

“The moment I walked into the shul, I became part of the family,” says Mrs. Clara Chopp, a dear friend of the Rebbetzin for over five decades. “My husband and I had no one in Crown Heights, just a baby of four weeks old. The Frankels opened their home and their hearts.”

“Rebbetzin Chaya,” as she was now called, pulled an all-nighter every Thursday, preparing a magnificent kiddush and seudah of “alte-heim” culinary offerings: Matjes herring, fluffy potato kugel, and mouthwatering cholent.

“People came for the kigel but stayed for the company,” confirms an old-time Crown Heights resident who remembers the shul’s growth. “They discovered a loving rav and rebbetzin and a supportive, close-knit community.”

It wasn’t close-knit by coincidence. Rebbetzin Chaya worked hard to strengthen the connection between members. “If someone from the group wasn’t well, she’d ask us ‘Did you visit her?’ says Mrs. Chopp. “If someone was sitting shivah, she’d say ‘Did you go be menachem avel?’ Until today, we are all still best friends, and it is surely to her credit.”

Slowly, steadily, the Frankels shaped Crown Heights into a cohesive, vibrant community. Apart from hosting a weekly kiddush in shul, Rebbetzin Chaya also prepared a Friday-night oneg, where shul members would come and sing zmiros while enjoying her famed arbes and kishke.

“My in-laws reinvigorated this ravaged group of survivors; they restored their simchas hachayim,” attests her daughter-in-law. “Their home was open in the most literal sense; it was the most normal thing for children to give up their beds for guests.”

And her kindness wasn’t just material in nature. Many of the orphaned survivors found in Rebbetzin Chaya a loving surrogate mother and mentor.

“While schmoozing one day,” remembers Mrs. Tzibu Rabinowich, a longtime Frankel’s shul member who lost nearly her entire family in Auschwitz, “I told her how hard it is for me that my children have no grandparents, that I live everyday with such dreadful memories. I said ‘I feel so alone!’

“Rebbetzin Chaya stood up and kissed me on the head. ‘Tzibu,’ she said, ‘I will always love you. I will always be there for you.’

And indeed, she was.

“I discussed with Rebbetzin Chaya virtually all my difficulties,” relates Mrs. Rabinowich. “Besides the invaluable household advice she constantly fed me, she was a tremendous baalas eitzah.”

Song, Dance — and more

The Frankels invested enormous energy in building up their community, but still struggled to make ends meet. To supplement their meager income, Rebbetzin Chaya started a kindergarten in her basement. Yet even as she juggled full-time child-rearing, shul-building, and morah duties, the beginnings of a lifetime career in communal chesed already began to burgeon.

Rebbetzin Chaya became president of the nascent Agudah Women chapter, a role which encompassed a range of responsibilities. One of them was supervisor of the celebrated Bnos groups she’d started just a few years before.

“I was sixteen years old, but Rebbetzin Chaya spoke to me like a contemporary,” remembers a former Bnos leader, now a grandmother herself. “She demanded we produce, and in doing so, brought out our best. We couldn’t just sing and dance; there had to be solid content to our sessions.”

A visionary, Rebbetzin Chaya used her Torah knowledge to provide spiritual sustenance for adults as well. At a time when women’s formal learning was decidedly unusual, she saw a need for inspiration — and hosted first-of-their-kind women’s shiurim in Crown Heights, later continuing them in Flatbush.

And in her nonexistent spare time, Rebbetzin Chaya directed fundraising plays and banquets for the Agudah Nshei. “She was a bundle of fun,” reminisces Mrs. Chopp, “we had such good times making those hilarious skits.”

Not only did the Frankels reach out to groups, they also cherished each individual Jew.

“One day, Rav Frankel spotted a lost-looking Yid on the street,” shares Leah Gelernter, current vice president of Nshei Agudas Yisrael, who worked hand in hand with the Rebbetzin for years. “They began talking, and it soon emerged that he was a destitute immigrant who’d come with his wife and kids from abroad in search of parnassah. ‘Do you have a place to stay?’ inquired Rav Frankel. When the fellow replied in the negative, Rav Frankel insisted the family stay in his home.

“The grateful father lived with the Frankels for several weeks. One morning, he woke up early and — to his horror, sighted the Frankels sleeping on cots in the kitchen. Unknowingly, he’d been sleeping in their only bedroom the entire time. The newlywed Frankels had cleared away their belongings each morning to conceal the arrangement; it was only due to the unearthly hour that their guest found them out.”

The Frankels gave and gave — even when they didn’t have.

One year, while festivity reigned at their annual communal Purim seudah, the lights went out. The Frankels hadn’t been able to pay the electric bill that month, and their grace period was up.

Rav Frankel ran up and down the house, ostensibly searching for the “faulty fuse,” while the Rebbetzin lit copious amounts of candles. Determined to hide the real cause so their guests wouldn’t feel badly, the Frankels put on their most superb act yet.

“The Rebbetzin would always recount this incident laughing,” says her daughter-in-law. “The enormity of what they’d done didn’t occur to her; she simply thought it was funny.”

Move to Flatbush

In 1969, when the Crown Heights population began to change, the shul members decided it was time to relocate — together, of course. After researching several neighborhoods, the kehillah set its sights on Flatbush, and within a year, the Frankels and forty-eight shul families made the move.

Though Avenue J and East 21^st Street was the new locale, nothing much else changed.

“There was the same warmth, the same family feeling,” says Mrs. Chopp. “The Rebbetzin continued to cater every bris herself; each Simchas Torah, she made a seudah for the entire shul after hakafos.”

Chavi Finestone, PhD, who joined the shul upon its move to Flatbush, remembers the annual event fondly.

“Before Succos, Rebbetzin Chaya would phone each member to extend a personal invitation. On Simchas Torah night, we’d head to the Frankel home, where a breathtaking display of delicious food awaited us. It was a ten-course meal, and everything was served on crystal and china — not to show off, as anyone who knew the Rebbetzin’s minimalist style would understand — but to show her guests respect. The message to each of her members was ‘You’re worth it!’

“I was only in my twenties,” remembers Chavi, “but she made me feel so important.”

And yet, even as she warmed hearts and uplifted souls, Rebbetzin Chaya didn’t neglect the less-popular role of the rebbetzin: upholding standards of frumkeit.

“If someone close to her was dressed in a way that didn’t reflect the halachah,” says Leah Gelernter, “Rebbetzin Chaya would gently tell her so — in an endearing, not off-putting way.”

Chavi remembers the Rebbetzin working hard to raise awareness about necklines.

“I had never even thought about it,” she laughs, “but we young girls accepted her suggestions without question. Who were we to argue with someone who had angels on her side?”

Once, a woman half-jokingly pointed at an elderly shul member whose collarbone was exposed. “But Rebbetzin,” she said, “look at her neckline!”

“She went through the war,” said the judicious Rebbetzin. “She’s judged differently.”

Rebbetzin Chaya’s children also highlight the singular chashivus haTorah their parents displayed. At a time when kollel life was unheard of — particularly in chassidishe circles—the Frankels joyfully married off their daughters to committed yungeleit.

“My parents held a unique blend of values,” says one daughter. “They chose sons-in-law who were chassidish yet steeped in full-time Torah learning — a traditionally litvishe aspiration. And even more remarkable was their willingness to send their daughters away to then-hick towns like Monsey and Lakewood — where the kollel consisted of barely thirty couples, and staples like bread and milk were delivered twice a week.”

My Rebbetzin, the CEO

Rebbetzin Chaya flawlessly fulfilled her family and shul-based responsibilities, but it wasn’t enough: she wanted to give en masse. And so she dived into a project which would become a fiber of her being: the Flatbush branch of Satmar Bikur Cholim.

“The Rebbetzin ran this organization as if she were CEO of a corporation,” commented one Bikur Cholim volunteer. “She approached it with the same seriousness, diligence, and tenacity as an investor who stands to make millions.”

Indeed, Rebbetzin Chaya made millions — in the number of lives she touched. Founded in 1957 by Satmar Rebbetzin Faige Teitelbaum a”h, the Satmar Bikur Cholim is world renowned for easing the hardship of hospital-bound Yidden. Arranging rides to and from hospitals, providing scrumptious, hot meals, and offering post-hospital support are just a few of the organization’s functions. Rebbetzin Chaya was in charge of them all — and then some.

“She wasn’t a baalas chesed,” says Leah Gelernter, “she was the amud hachesed.”

Leah saw this firsthand in her volunteer work at Coney Island Hospital. Her assignment was to give challah and Shabbos candles to every Jewish patient, but often, more critical issues came to the fore.

“Sometimes I was asked to advocate for patients who weren’t receiving proper care; other times, Rachmana litzlan, a Jewish burial needed to be arranged. And more than once, a grown Russian man approached me, asking for a bris!

“Whatever issue arose,” says Leah, “I picked up the phone and dialed the Rebbetzin. She was the address for everything.”

As she went about her work, Rebbetzin Chaya was meticulous about making a kiddush Hashem: she made sure to buy holiday gifts for the non-Jews who assisted her, and they reciprocated by demonstrating deep respect.

A Frankel’s shul mispallel recalls, “While preparing packages for the homebound, we once said to the Rebbetzin, ‘Why schlep this to so-and-so? She’s not even frum!’

“A Yid is a Yid,’ the Rebbetzin replied without missing a beat. In her matter-of-fact way, she taught me about the holiness inherent in every Jew.”

Chavi shares a late-night scene she’ll never forget.

“It was dark and stormy, at about midnight. A friend and I had just finished cleaning up the evening’s tzedakah party and were on our way to the Rebbetzin’s to return some baskets. As we approached her home, we saw a woman violently kicking the door, cursing and hollering. She was clearly psychotic.

“Amidst the cracking thunder and lightning, my friend and I turned to each other, mouthing ‘What should we do?’ We were terribly frightened, but understood the Rebbetzin might be in need of help. We inched our way to the door when suddenly — it opened, framing the Rebbetzin with a plate of steaming food on china! The demented woman grabbed the dish and ran away.

Rebbetzin,’ we said shakily to our fragile mentor, ‘what were you thinking? She could have pushed you down!’

“The Rebbetzin shrugged. ‘She was hungry, she was a person.’ To her, that was all that mattered.”

Directing the Army

Every frum woman yearns to do chesed, but Rebbetzin Chaya’s resume seems awfully intimidating, almost superhuman. How did she do it all?

“She trained us as her soldiers,” says Mrs. Peska Friedman, a shul member and friend of the Rebbetzin. “She managed to spread kindness on this scale by drafting others to the cause.”

It was hard to say no. “She was so sincere; you saw how much she wanted to help others,” shares one volunteer. “How could you let her down?”

Cecile Wieder can still visualize the Rebbetzin painstakingly putting together Pesach packages for Russian Jews.

“She’d often do the ‘drudgery’ herself; she wouldn’t just give orders. You wanted to help because you knew she’d never ask you to do something she herself wouldn’t do.”

Directing without demeaning is a tricky task. But as a skilled psychologist herself, Chavi Finestone asserts that Rebbetzin Chaya was the best psychologist she ever encountered.

“She’d never say ‘Could you please….’ but rather ‘You think maybe we should…?’ She made you feel that you were coming up with the idea, that it was your choice to value her opinion.

“And because you felt it was your initiative,” says Chavi, “you were invested in making it happen. That was the Rebbetzin’s brilliance.”

Leah Gelernter describes Rebbetzin Chaya as a “diplomatic queen.”

“She loved peace and stopped at nothing to maintain it. It’s easy to offend someone while running a huge organization, but the Rebbetzin used her legendary people-smarts to make everyone happy.”

She lavished praise upon her soldiers, but held herself to a much stricter standard, always striving for more. Each fundraising event was evaluated with a fine-tooth comb, to determine what should be done differently the next year.

“Sleep is for the grave,” the Kotzker Rebbe once said — and Rebbetzin Chaya’s daily schedule seemed to abide by his dictum. The driver who drove her and the Satmar Rebbetzin a”h on their frequent cross-city chesed trips discovered an unusual phenomenon. “They both fall asleep the minute they step into my car,” he once reported.

It was the only time the extraordinary pair allowed themselves to nap.

You Can Be the Vilna Gaon

For many individuals immersed in klal work, family responsibilities take second place. But for Rebbetzin Chaya, it wasn’t a matter of primary or secondary — she enmeshed her children into her chesed work so that family and klal became one, indissoluble entity.

“She didn’t compartmentalize her life,” says Cecile Wieder. “Her shul-goers and children were at the core of her klal operations; perhaps this was the secret behind her juggling act.”

And yet, if ever a conflict arose, her family knew they came first.

“We revered her,” reports one family member. “She had many, many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, yet managed to cultivate a deep relationship with each of them.”

Chavi Finestone once visited the Rebbetzin, and several minutes into the visit, the Rebbetzin’s soon-to-be-bar-mitzvah grandson knocked on the door. He wanted to practice his pshetl.

“For over an hour,” recalls Chavi, “she listened to every word of the intricate discourse. Her time was exceedingly precious, but when it came to family, there was no compromising.”

After a prolonged hospital stay, Leah Gelernter once visited the weakened, elderly Rebbetzin. She started murmuring ceaselessly, agitatedly about onions, fifty pounds of onions, to the point that Leah became concerned about her lucidity.

“Finally,” says Leah, “I realized. The Rebbetzin needed fifty pounds of onions to make Simchas Torah stuffed cabbage for all of her einiklach, as was her yearly custom. This is what was troubling her in her exhausted state.”

At her packed levayah earlier this year, her son Rav Yosef Frankel shlita, rosh yeshivah of the Vyelipoler yeshivah and current rav of the Frankel shul, stood up to eulogize his mother. He began to cry.

“As a little boy, my Mamme put me to sleep each night; she sang to me and soothed me,” he wept. “And when she finished the bedtime routine, she’d say, ‘Yossele, az men vill nar, ken men veren a Vilna Gaon (if you really want it, you can become a Vilna Gaon).’

“She taught me to reach for the stars.”

“It was incredibly poignant,” says a kehillah member who witnessed the emotional scene. “Here is Rav Frankel today, an enormous talmid chacham, rosh yeshivah, and grandfather many times over, recounting the way his mother gave him the courage to strive.”

The Adrenaline of a Mother

A magnificent family of yirei Shamayim, a beautiful, united kehillah of committed Torah Jews, and chesed networks that continue to impact the lives of thousands. What Rebbetzin Chaya accomplished in one lifetime is the stuff of dreams. Of reaching for stars and cradling them in her hands.

“It was supernatural,” Leah Gelernter insists. “It’s not humanly possible for one person to do what she did. Hashem saw her fierce desire to help His children and said ‘I’ll be your partner; I will help you along.’

Leah likens the Rebbetzin to the proverbial mother who effortlessly lifts up a five-ton vehicle pinning down her child, saving his life.

“Her will to give was so strong that she became unstoppable. We are scrambling to fill her single pair of shoes with a million different people — but she cannot be replaced.”

And from revitalized survivors to loyal shul members, from young Bnos group listeners to awe-inspired non-Jews who worked alongside her, from impoverished Russians to her loving children and grandchildren, all will agree: Rebbetzin Chaya is sorely missed.

We are left with a precious legacy — and a mission to carry on.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 260)