Mr. Chaim Groisman, 74, OBM

By COLlive reporter

Chaim Groisman, the administrator of the Chabad Yeshiva in Venezuela and the recipient of a famous letter from the Rebbe, passed away on Wednesday night, the eve of 5 Teves 5776.

He was 74 and did not wake from his sleep.

Groisman lived and raised his family in Curacao, a Caribbean island that is part of the Netherlands Antilles. With no Jewish school on the island at the time, he sent his son Eli Groisman to the local Protestant school.

In 1984, when the school grew hostile to his son, Chaim Groisman had a dream of his grandmother telling him, “Liuvu (Russian for ‘my love’), anytime you are in trouble, the one who can help you is the Lubavitcher Rebbe.”

It was the first time Groisman had ever heard of the Rebbe, his son told Chabad.org. The worried father went to the small neighborhood shul called Mikvah Israel Emanuel to pray for blessing and guidance.

As he was leaving, he met two Lubavitch chassidim, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky and 17-year-old Levi Krinsky, who were instructed by the Rebbe to travel from New York to Curacao “immediately.”

Eli went on to attend Camp Gan Israel in the Catskills that summer, and later to Yeshiva that started in September. Their grateful father wrote to the Rebbe thanking him for caring for “a small Jew from Curacao.”

“I was pleased to recevie your regards through out esteemed mutual friends,” the Rebbe responded in a later dated 3rd of Nissan 5744. The Rebbe then added, “There is no such thing as a ‘small Jew,’ and a Jew must never underestimate his or her tremendous potential.”

While the state of Jewish life on the island has improved since, the Groisman family moved to Venezuela over 30 years ago and became a part of the Chabad community in Caracas.

Chaim Groisman would participate in every Minyan, often serving as Chazan and studying with the bochurim of the local Chabad Yeshiva, directed by Rabbi Leibel Shuchat. In recent years, Groisman served as the Yeshiva’s Menahel Gashmi.

He is survived by his wife, children, and grandchildren.

Baruch dayan haemes.