Mrs. Chana Popack, 98, OBM

Mrs. Chana Popack, wife of Rabbi Aaron Popack obm and a longtime leader of N’shei Chabad in Crown Heights, passed away on Friday night, 11 Elul, 5784.

She was 98.

Chana, nee Teleshevsky, was born in Moscow in 1926 to her parents Rabbi Mordechai Dov and Chaya Sara Teleshevsky.
The family, guided by the Frierdiker Rebbe, escaped the Soviet Union to Riga in Latvia when she was 4 years old. There she attended Yeshiva Torah vDerech Eretz of which Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Aizik Hodakov was principal.

When her father got a position as a chazan, shochet and mohel in Helsinki, Finland, the Frierdiker Rebbe advised that she and her brother Moshe, who was later to become the well-known Chazan Moshe Teleshevsky, continue to attend their respective yeshivos in Riga.

The 2 children miraculously escaped from Riga ahead of the war in 1939.

The Teleshevsky family – parents Chazan and Mrs. Teleshevsky and their 3 teenage children – Chana, her brother Moshe, who later married Riva Minkowitz from Toronto and her sister Rochel, who was later to marry Rabbi Sholom Mendel Simpson, arrived in the US in August of 1946 and settled in Crown Heights.

She was then personally sent by the Frierdiker Rebbe, to be a kindergarten teacher in a small school in Buffalo, NY where she met her future husband, an American-born, passionate and devoted Lubavitcher Chosid, Rabbi Aaron Popack. They were privileged for the Rebbe to be mesader kidushin at their wedding.

Dedicated shluchim of the Rebbe, the young couple, at the behest of the Rebbe, were to serve as shluchim in different cities in the US. After they were married, they returned to Buffalo as shluchim of the Frierdiker Rebbe where they remained for the next two years.

The Frierdiker Rebbe then moved them to NY where Rabbi Popack served as the executive director of the Bais Rivka Girls’ School. In 1951, the Rebbe sent them to Worcester, Massachusetts to work in Chinuch and for Rabbi Popack to work as a shochet. In 1953 the Rebbe sent them to serve in Philadelphia. There, under the guidance of the Rebbe, Rabbi Popack became well known and beloved.

He served as executive director of the Beth Jacob Schools, ever building and expanding the institution, created and ran a large day camp and even opened a unique Shul for the Yomim Noroim just to accommodate Philadelphia’s large Holocaust survivor community whom he nurtured.

He was active in Philadelphia’s Jewish communal affairs until his untimely passing in 1977.

Mrs. Popack then moved to Crown Heights to care for her parents who were not well. In Crown Heights, she worked tirelessly for many years, and became one of the leaders of N’shei Chabad, helping to build the organization into a flourishing mosad of the Rebbe. As an integral part of the Crown Heights Lubavitcher community, she took an active leadership role and contributed much to individuals and activities on an ongoing basis.

Ever devoted to the Rebbe and to bringing Moshiach, she is survived by her 4 children all of whom are shluchim:
Rabbi Mendel Popack and his wife Avigail (née Parshan), head shluchim to Capetown, South Africa; Mashi and her husband Rabbi Mendel Lipskar based in Johannesburg, head shluchim to Southern Africa; Dina and her husband Rabbi Sholom Ber Groner, shluchim in Johannesburg; Rivkie and her husband Rabbi Yossi Yarmush, shluchim in Toronto; as well as dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren serving as shluchim around the world.

The Levaya will take place tomorrow – Thursday September 19th – passing 770 at 12pm, burial Beis Hachayim 1pm.

Shiva:
655 Montgomery St
Shachris 9:00am
Mincha 6:30pm
Maariv – Bezmana

The family requests no visitors between 2-4pm and no visits after 10pm

Baruch Dayan Ha’emes – Chana bas R’ Mordechai Dov.