EVERETT – Rabbi Yossi Mandel intends to leave no stone unturned in his search for Snohomish County’s Jews.
“It’s really important that we not miss a single person,” he said.
Mandel and his wife, Chaya Sara, moved with their three children to a south Everett home in August to offer something they say is missing in Snohomish County: Orthodox Jewish teaching.
“Our goal is to make sure that Jewish learning is available to every single Jew in the county,” Mandel said.
He’s already formed a study group of about a dozen people at Naval Station Everett, and another is in the works for Boeing employees. There will be classes about Jewish holidays and children’s programs.
Because Snohomish County is growing so fast, there are more Jews here than ever before, Mandel said. He believes there are as many as 3,000. He has about 300 people on a list so far.
Leaders of the Chabad-Lubovitch movement, Mandel’s organization, believe the area could benefit from a full-time Orthodox rabbi.
The Chabad-Lubovitch movement can be traced back to 18th-century Russia. The movement gained followers in the 1940s, when a Belarusian rabbi settled in Brooklyn with a dream of expanding Orthodox Judaism in America.
Today, the Chabad-Lubovitch movement boasts more than 3,000 centers around the world, according to its Web site. There are 10 centers in the United States, Mandel said.
The movement has roots in the Jewish mysticism called Kabbalah.
Mandel is quick to distance himself from what he calls “pop Kabbalah,” the mysticism practiced by Madonna and other celebrities.
The celebrities follow a distorted version of Kabbalah that ignores daily rituals in favor of superstitious practices, Mandel said.
Mandel was born in Brooklyn and raised in a Jewish community in Caracas, Venezuela. He has worked for the Chabad-Lubovitch movement in Pennsylvania and Utah.
Mandel is fully Orthodox. He doesn’t shake hands with women and doesn’t touch his wife in public. His face is obscured by a long beard. His diet is completely kosher.
The family lives in a six-bedroom house that doubles as the Chabad Jewish Center of Snohomish County. In time, Mandel hopes to move the center to its own location and eventually build an Orthodox temple. The county is ripe for a Jewish revival, he said.
“There is a growing Jewish community, and they’re largely unaffiliated,” Mandel said. “We’re constantly discovering more people.”
Mandel says he’s not trying to coax anyone away from Temple Beth Or, a Reform temple in north Everett.
“Judaism isn’t a take-it-or-leave-it package,” he said. “Every single good thing that you do benefits your soul and society. Judaism is based on birth, so it doesn’t matter how you worship – we’re all Jews.”
Instead, he wants to expose more people, both Jews and non-Jews, to Orthodox Judaism.
He’s not an evangelist, he said, but he welcomes new converts.
“There are very mixed movements within the Jewish world,” said Rabbi Harley Karz-Wagman of Temple Beth Or. “Some Jews are becoming more ritually active, and others, particularly in the Northwest, are moving more toward a private approach to faith and religion.”
Though Karz-Wagman and Mandel have theological differences, both men say they want to work together toward common goals.
“There may be other synagogues, but this is the first opportunity for Orthodox services,” said Rabbi Moshe Kletenik of the Bikur Cholim-Machzikay Hadath Orthodox congregation in Seattle.
“It provides an opportunity for Jewish education for those who might seek it in a forum that hasn’t been before.”
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.
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