Mitteler Rebbe’s Ohel Repaired

By COLlive reporter

The Ohel gravesite of Rabbi Dovber Schneuri OBM, the second Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, has been repaired in recent months in the northern Ukrainian city of Nezhin.

Agudas Oholei Tzadikim, headed by R’ Yisroel Meir Gabbai, is responsible for the expansion and renovation work, making the Ohel more accessible for visitors and prayers.

Gabbai, a Breslaver chossid widely recognized for upkeeping Jewish graves around Eastern Europe, has opened a few years ago a Hachnosas Orchim guest house in Nezhin.

Visitors on Kislev 9, the Mitteler Rebbe’s birthday and yahrzeit, or any other date of the year can drink coffee, tea or use the restrooms in the nearby house.

Born in Li’ozna, White Russia in 1773, the Mitteler Rebbe assumed the leadership of Chabad in 1812 and then settled in the town of Lubavitch, which was to serve as the movement’s headquarters for the next 102 years.

In 1826, he was arrested on charges that his teachings threatened the imperial authority of the Czar, but was subsequently exonerated. He passed away on his 54th birthday in 1827, a day before the first anniversary of his liberation, Kislev 10.

Another recent development in the Jewish cemetary of Nezhin was the marking of the grave of the known chossid R’ Shlomo Menachem Mendel Chein HY”D, a close friend of the Frierdiker Rebbe, who was murdered by in 1918 by anti-Bolsheviks.