When Yosef Kantor was ordained as a rabbi from the Lubavitch Rabbinical Seminary in 1990, he never anticipated having to slaughter 500-and-some-odd chickens each month. But this is part of the job description of the rabbi of Thailand.
In May, the 24-year-old Kantor, wife Nechama, 21, and daughter Chaya Mushka, 10 months, became the first reigning rabbinical family to serve the Jewish community of Thailand in more than 20 years.
Kantor, who was raised in both New York and Australia, served as a rabbinical intern in Ukraine for three months before his marriage, but this is his first post to head a congregation.
The Jewish community has sorely been in need of a spiritual leader. It asked the Lubavitch movement for a rabbi to serve during Chanukah, and Kantor impressed the community as someone who should remain all year.
“During the Vietnam War we had a succession of rabbis who were stationed here to serve the U.S. troops,” said longtime congregant Ruth Gerson. “But in 1974 that stopped, and we’ve had many temporary people, and sometimes no one at all.
“It is very difficult to attract a rabbi to this part of the world, especially one with a family,” Gerson continued.
Kantor’s two immediate predecessors each lasted less than six months. Both were Israeli, and neither spoke English, which did not fare well with the international makeup of the community.
The some 150 families consist largely of businesspeople, attorneys and retirees from the West, Israeli Embassy officials, and several Iranian Jewish families who fled to Thailand when the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in 1979.
Many are employed in the jewelry business.
“We wanted someone who spoke both Hebrew and English” and “someone who could really communicate well and relate to all the people,” despite level of observance, said Gerson.
NO DENOMINATION, JUST JEWISH
Kantor admitted that striking a balance which satisfies all members is not easy, but credits his non-judgmental outlook as one reason for his success in relating to his congregation.
“Whenever people ask me if our congregation is Orthodox, Conservative or Reform, I answer ‘Jewish,’ ” said Kantor.
“If someone is less observant than me, he is still my brother, and I treat him with respect because he is a fellow Jew,” the rabbi said.
“And due to the special nature of our community, people are of course more tolerant than they would be if they lived in, say, New York, where if they didn’t like one synagogue, they could go to the next one down the road,” the rabbi said.
The synagogues “down the road” happen to be in Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.
Not having any support staff is Kantor’s greatest challenge.
For example, before arriving in Thailand to assume his post, he had to complete a course in ritual slaughter to provide meat for those who keep kosher, and for the one kosher restaurant in Bangkok, which is under his supervision.
Nechama Kantor teaches religious school on Sundays, organizes social activities, maintains the mikveh and is preparing to open a preschool in January, which she will also oversee. “These kids get no other Jewish education,” she said.
Nechama Kantor’s biggest complaint is about Bangkok’s heat and pollution. She looks forward to the day when she can take Chaya Mushka outside for walks in unpolluted air, which is ironic, as she herself grew up in Los Angeles.
But husband and wife believe strongly in the missionary philosophy of the Lubavitch movement.
“We are shlichim, emissaries of the rebbe,” said Yosef Kantor, as he emphatically gestured to a portrait of the Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, hanging on the wall.
“Numbers are not important,” echoed Nechama Kantor. “What is important is that there are Jews here, and that they need a rabbi.”
Nechama Kantor said that her husband placed the decision of whether or not to come to Thailand solely upon her.
Last year before Chanukah, the leaderless congregation requested help from the Lubavitch movement to locate someone who could help them celebrate the Festival of Lights.
Kantor was recommended by a friend who had visited the Bangkok community. He went alone, as his wife was expecting a baby.
He ended up staying two months. During this time, he made a good enough impression to be asked to return on a permanent basis.
“We wrote a letter to the rebbe and received his blessing,” said Rabbi Kantor.
Both Kantors agreed that only God knows how long they will remain here. The lack of a Jewish education for their daughter might be a deciding factor when she reaches school age.
Kantor presides over two synagogues. The main Jewish community center, Beit Elisheva, is a three-story building, where they also live.
SIMPLY ‘NO IDEA WHAT A JEW IS’
For the more observant families, space is rented in a hotel in the gem district, within walking distance of their homes and businesses.
The one duty which does not fall upon the rabbi’s shoulders is that of mohel, someone who performs brit milah, or circumcision. Since he arrived, one has not been needed.
But should the need arise, one is flown in from the Philippines. It also helps that if someone from the Israeli Embassy gives birth to a boy, it is written in the employment contract that the Jewish Agency will fly out a mohel from Israel.
Outreach to the more temporary people is also a priority of Yosef Kantor’s.
From before Rosh Hashanah to after Simchat Torah, two Lubavitch rabbinical students came out from New York to organize for the holidays.
A 250-person dinner on the eve of Rosh Hashanah was held in the Banglamphu area of Bangkok, where most budget travelers stay. And a sukkah was built out of a “tuk tuk” (a three-wheeled open-air taxi) and parked on Khao San Road, in the area’s hub.
The Israeli Embassy says some 30,000 Israelis pass through Bangkok annually. That number may increase with a newly established E1 A1 route.
Michael Gerson, who was born in Thailand, said the community is difficult to lead because it keeps changing.
Although Kantor draws some attention, there are enough foreigners here so that he looks as out of place as anyone. “Your average Thai simply has no idea what a Jew is,” he said.
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