By COLlive reporter
New York State Senator Anna Kaplan invited Rabbi Anchelle Perl, Chabad Director of Mineola, to help hang the mezuzos at her new District Office in Carle Place, Long Island.
The Democratic Senator is a member of the New York State Senate, representing the 7th district, which runs from the North Shore to roughly the central part of Western Nassau County on Long Island.
Kaplan was born Anna Monahemi in Tabriz, Iran to a Jewish family. When the Islamic Revolution swept the country, Anna’s parents made the difficult decision to send her on her own to the United States for safety.
It was a cold day in the spring of 1979 when 13-year-old Anna Monahemi arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. She came with a group of 40 Jewish girls—all of them from Iran, each of them alone. Her parents, like those of the other girls, had quietly bought her a ticket to Rome and sent her off, not knowing when they would see her next.
She arrived in Brooklyn as part of an international effort to save Iran’s Jewish children, in the form of Operation Exodus, a historic Chabad-Lubavitch effort, still largely unknown, to rescue the Jewish children of Iran.
With help from the Crown Heights community and an army of volunteers, the operation was spearheaded by the late Rabbi JJ Hecht, head of the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE), and personally approved and encouraged every step of the way by the Rebbe.
During the Mezuzah hanging ceremony, the Senator shared special recognition and appreciation to the Rebbe, who played such an integral part in where she is today.
