I could hear the screech of packing tape being stretched across cardboard boxes and the thud, thud of its ends being slapped down by eager hands. Speaking by phone to Rabbi Chanan Chernitsky at his apartment in Montreal, a mountain of cargo seemed to grow in the background. He and his wife, Tuba, were preparing to send it all to their new home and the home of the world’s newest Chabad House: St. John’s, Newfoundland. Their dishes, books, strollers, menorah, Shabbat candlesticks, and other home and Jewish necessities would soon begin a 1,500-mile journey to a remote Canadian island—and so would the Chernitskys and their three young children.

The oldest of the Chernitsky children: Menachem Mendel

Writers tasked with reporting on the Chabad shlichus juggernaut have shown a weakness for frontier language, eager to write of uncharted territory and the intrepid young couples who bring the wisdom and practice of Torah to Jewish locals and travelers in remote areas. If there ever was a place deserving of the frontier label, it is Newfoundland.

It is here, on this island in the Atlantic Ocean that only joined Canada in 1949, that the romantic writer may truly offer his tributes to the wide expanses untouched by man and the thrill of being on the edge of civilization.

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But what the 27-year-old rabbi and his 26-year-old wife see in Newfoundland and its Jewish population is what truly drove the frontiersmen of old: the untapped potential and untold promise. There has not been an Orthodox Jewish presence in Newfoundland for decades, and to the Chernitskys, it is fertile land to till (agriculture metaphors—growth, fruits, seeds—are the next best option after frontier ones).

The uniqueness of Newfoundland’s Jewish community is a reflection of the province, which also includes mainland Labrador to the northwest, as a whole. Prior to joining Canada, Newfoundland was an English colony for centuries; the native-born tend to have English, Irish or Scottish ancestry. Its time zone is half-an-hour off from any other time zone in North America. It also stands apart geographically from much of Canada—a rugged territory of roughly 150,000 square miles with a little more than 500,000 people just 1,300 miles from Greenland. Triangular in shape, the rocky island blocks the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, creating the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the world’s largest estuary.