5 Two Great Stories heard at Chabad of Sudbury from local residents
1. On Yom Kippur a lady come over to me after the Kol Nidrei Service to tell me how she remembers in the 2nd World War her father covered her with a big coat to hide her yellow star and she went secretly to a small house in Budapest to join in a small Kol Nidrei Service. She knew she was risking her life but she knew it was so important for her to be there and mark Yom Kippur with other Jewish people. She also told me that she never misses Kol Nidrei each year due to this special powerful memory of hers from Kol Nidrei under the Nazi’s in Budapest, Hungary.
2. While I was speaking at the Kiddush on Simchat Torah about people having tremendous self sacrifice to celebrate the joy of Simchas Torah in Russia, an elderly couple from Sudbury shared with us that they themselves were refuseniks for 30 years in Russia, and that they vividly recall going to Hakofot dancing in Leningrad on Simchat Torah in the 1970’s knowing full well the risk of arrest and danger that they faced. They then described how in the middle of the Hakofot dancing the KGB surrounded the Shul and arrested many of the participants.
They also mentioned that as people were being led away they sang a Jewish song with some of the people singing the words and some just singing the melody as they didn't know the words. Initially they didn’t recall which song it was, but later on in the evening as we sang Am Yisroel Chai they told us excitedly that that was the song that they sang as they were led away.