Family Escapes the Storm

By COLlive reporter

It was a pleasure not meeting you, Sandy.

Cousins and relatives of Sholom Ber Raskin were debating how to make it to his Bar Mitzvah in Montreal, not wanting to take off from school and work.

But when it became clear that Hurricane Sandy would be disrupting life on the east coast, they picked themselves up to cross into Canada.

There were the families of Rabbi Mendy Bogomilsky of Short Hills in New Jersey, and R’ Fitzy Lipsker, Rabbi Motty Perlow and R’ Levi Plotkin, all of Crown Heights.

They did meet strong winds and heavy rain upon arriving in the Quebec province, yet it was nothing close to the power outages and streets wreckage in their hometown, declared by President Barack Obama as disaster zones.

Overall, the Montreal region was spared the brunt of the hurricane’s force, the Montreal Gazette reported.

The families met with the Bar Mitzva boy’s parents Rabbi Hirshel and Shternie Raskin and the grandparents R’ Mayer and Sara Leah Plotkin.

They were joined by the families of R’ Moshe Notik of Montreal, R’ Mendel Plotkin of Toronto, and R’ Shmarya Plotkin of Montreal.

Gathered in the “up north” vacation area of Montreal, one participant told COLlive.com, the small Bar Mitzvah was the perfect setting for the family “to farbreng together.”