Rabbi Sholom Eidelman, one of the longest-serving Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries in the world—a devoted Chassid, teacher and congregational leader who along with his wife, Gittel, rarely left the North African nation of Morocco since being dispatched there in 1958—passed away in a hospital in Casablanca on April 10, the second day of Passover, after contracting COVID-19. He was 84 years old.

For more than 60 years, Rabbi Eidelman oversaw a dozen Chabad of Morocco Jewish schools and is mourned by tens of thousands of students he taught throughout the decades. He opened and ran a kollel (advanced study group) where he trained most of the rabbis and shochtim (ritual kosher slaughters) in Morocco. Among his students were Jerusalem’s Chief Rabbi and former Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Moshe Amar, and Montreal Dayan Rabbi David Raphael Banon.

Born in Soviet Russia and raised in Brunoy, France, young Sholom Eidelman grew up in a home steeped in Chassidic thought and practice.

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As a young rabbinical student, he hoped to travel to New York to learn in yeshivahs there and be close to the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—but the Rebbe wrote to him that many young Jews from North Africa were already beginning to emigrate to Brunoy, and he was needed there.

In 1958, he sought the Rebbe’s blessing to marry Gittel Gurkow, who later recalled in an interview with JEM how the Rebbe’s response to his request signaled the young couple’s next chapter. Following the engagement, the young rabbi traveled to New York, where in a private audience with the Rebbe, he and his bride were given their assignment in Casablanca.

The Rebbe had been deeply concerned with the plight of Jewish communities in Muslim countries and the fate of Sephardic Jewry in general in the post-war era. In 1950, the first emissaries sent by the Rebbe to open new Chabad centers around the world were in Morocco, when Rabbi Michoel and Taibel Lipskar were sent to Meknes and Rabbi Shlomo and Pesia Matusof were sent to Casablanca, joined by Rabbi Nisson and Rachel Pinson. In 1960, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Raskin and his wife, Raizel, arrived in Casablanca, and together the Rebbe’s emissaries established what today are among the longest-running Chabad institutions and centers in the world. Mrs. Raizel Raskin remains a mainstay of Chabad-Lubavitch in Morocco.

At its peak, more than 250,000 Jews lived in Morocco, and for decades following their arrival, many of the schools, synagogues and social-service organizations assembled by Chabad emissaries and staff were among the leading educational and religious institutions for Moroccan Jews.

Over the next 62 years, Rabbi Eidelman and his wife continued to serve the community up until his passing. Even as the numbers of Jews in Morocco would dwindle, 10 years ago they were joined by Rabbi Levi and Chana Banon, who have revived many educational programs and religious services for the youth and younger generations who continue to live in Morocco today.