A Strange Chol Hamoed Trip

By Ezra Benchaim – Hamodia

Every Chol Hamoed, my wife, children and I discuss where to go for our family trip. Last Sukkos we went to Philadelphia. This Pesach we visited the aircraft carrier Intrepid, the zoo, and the aquarium. But if you ask Ahron Chazan, 23, of Crown Heights, where he’s going on his Chol Hamoed trip, you will get a strange answer.

“We are going to prison,” he told me. It turns out that visiting prisons on Pesach is a Chazan family tradition.

For the last 23 years, Reb Kasriel Shalom (Stanley) Chazan, z”l, or his son, ybl”c, Reb Michoel, would team up with the rabbi of Ellenville, Rabbi Moshe Frank, to visit the Eastern New York Correctional Facility in Napanoch, N.Y. Over the years, Rabbi Frank has expanded this Chol Hamoed trip to include Ellenville Regional Hospital, drug rehabilitation facilities, and shut-ins.

This Chol Hamoed, Reb Kasriel’s grandson, Ahron Chazan, along with his brother Mendel and close friend Yitzchok Kanner, both 20, drove to Ellenville with a list of places to visit, first stopping at the local shul, and then heading to the Eastern New York Correctional Facility. The bachurim took Pesach refreshments and a musical keyboard (which Mendel plays) with them into the prison.

Their visit with the Jewish inmates took place in the prison synagogue, which had been stocked with a sefer Torah and a full supply of sefarim by its longtime chaplain, Rabbi Herman Eisner, z”l. After a few inspiring stories, Mendel Chazan began playing the keyboard and the inmates and visitors sang and danced together, experiencing simchas Yom Tov even in this place of iron locks and bars. They exchanged warm hugs and promises to keep in touch, which are fulfilled each Sukkos, Chanukah and Purim, when Eastern inmates who have served their sentences and have been released gather at the Chazan home.

After the visit, Rabbi Frank took the group to the Ellenville Hospital to bring comfort and simchah to Yidden who were hospitalized over Yom Tov. The bachurim played music and danced. Afterward they made their way to a local drug rehab.

Unfortunately, in many of these rehab centers, Yiddishkeit is not on the agenda, and the visit means a lot to the residents. During some Pesach visits —especially those made by the legendary Tevel brothers, Zalman and Mendel, whose father, Rabbi Yossel Tevel, z”l, was the driving force behind the Lubavitch Youth Organization Prison Visitation Program — the place would be rocking. I attended this party a few years ago, and I can testify that the building was quite literally shaking.

These visits give the Jewish residents at the center, who could not have cared less about Judaism before, the opportunity to experience simchas Yom Tov, and some of them slowly evolve into proud Jews. That is what a little ahavas Yisrael can accomplish.

There is still so much more work to do in bringing Yiddishkeit into rehab centers.

The next stop for the group was the Woodbourne Correctional Facility, where a minyan of Jews awaited their arrival. When the music started, all the inmates joined the circle, including one Jewish inmate who was blind. Frum or not, chassidish, Litvish or just Jewish, they sang “Atah Vechartanu Mikol Haamim.” They felt the love of their Heavenly Father, and there was not a dry eye in the house.

During the year, the Chazan and Tevel families are part of Chabad’s Riker’s Island Brigade, visiting the prison before all the Jewish holidays.

For years, this group joined a dedicated group of Satmar chassidim, under the dynamic leadership of Rabbi Shea Aryeh Gross of Kiryas Yoel, and made a Pesach party for the Jewish inmates at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility. The Satmar chassidim sang Lubavitcher niggunim, and the Lubavitcher chassidim sang Satmar niggunim. They all had one goal — ahavas Yisrael for the inmates — and the achdus was tangible.

When it’s not Yom Tov, every week a group of Yidden from Brooklyn visit Jews in an upstate prison.

Special thanks are due Rabbi and Mrs. Moshe Frank. Rabbi Frank is the Jewish chaplain at Eastern New York Correctional Facility, and his year-round dedication is exemplary. Credit also goes to Rabbi Kasriel Kastel and Mrs. Nili Gurevich, both of Lubavitch Youth Organization, which sponsored this Chol Hamoed event.

Truthfully, I did enjoy my Chol Hamoed trip to the Intrepid, and the French Acrobatic Twins. But after hearing Ahron Chazan’s story, I feel that I kind of missed the boat on what a real Chol Hamoed trip should be. I think that next Chol Hamoed, I will join some chessed activities to help our Jewish brothers and sisters.

That’s what it’s all about.