Chabad Opens Up Store in Newfoundland

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Speaking by phone to Rabbi Chanan Chernitsky at his apartment in Montreal, a mountain of cargo seemed to grow in the background. He and his wife, Tuba, were preparing to send it all to their new home and the home of the world’s newest Chabad House: St. John’s, Newfoundland. Their dishes, books, strollers, menorah, Shabbat candlesticks, and other home and Jewish necessities would soon begin a 1,500-mile journey to a remote Canadian island—and so would the Chernitskys and their three young children. Writers tasked with reporting on the Chabad shlichus juggernaut have shown a weakness for frontier language, eager to write of uncharted territory and the intrepid young couples who bring the wisdom and practice of Torah to Jewish locals and travelers in remote areas. If there ever was a place deserving of the frontier label, it is Newfoundland. But what the 27-year-old rabbi and his 26-year-old wife see in Newfoundland and its Jewish population is what truly drove the frontiersmen of old: the untapped potential and untold promise. Read more.