I recently found an outstanding Jewish tour of the Chassidic Crown Heights community. It was quite easy to get to by subway from Manhattan and included a tour of one of the foremost Jewish research libraries in the world. We were told that the Lubavitcher Rebbe's library contains over 300,000 volumes, some dating prior to Columbus' discovery of America. While we were there we also observed librarians scanning many of the ancient volumes and making them available on the internet.
The tour included a visit to "770", Lubavitch World Headquarters - its main synagogue, and rabbinical study hall, a sofer (scribal arts studio), where Torahs, mezuzot and tefillin are produced, a women's mikva with a quite open discussion about dating, sexuality and traditional Jewish family life, and a matzah bakery (November until Passover). Questions were encouraged throughout the tour and the tour guides were quite patient in answering everyone's questions. The moderate price for the tour included a deli lunch. I was told that schools, Jewish and other (mostly teenagers) from all over America, and tourists from all over the world, come on this highly educational tour. It has been featured on Nightline, CNN Japan, and other international media. A 5 minute introductory video, and other information about the tour is available on the Chassidic Discovery Center website at www.jewishtours.com. --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
