Grandma, 106, Had Hundreds Of Descendants
Maryasha Garelik, a Lubavitcher Hasid who survived pogroms, Soviet persecution and the Nazi killing machine, died in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights last Wednesday. The progenitor of more than 560 direct descendants, she was 106.
Garelik, who was known in her community as Bubbe Maryasha, was born in tsarist Russia. Her father and her maternal grandparents were murdered in pogroms. Matters did not improve under the Soviet regime; her husband was arrested and murdered for promoting Judaism in 1938. Garelik survived World War II in Tashkent. After the war, she moved to Paris, where she founded a Lubavitch girls’ school. In 1953 she moved to New York, where she remained an active fundraiser. Many of her descendants serve today as Lubavitch emissaries in such locales as China, Australia, South Africa, and, ironically, Russia and Ukraine.
She was laid to rest in Queens, near the grave of late Lubavitcher rebbe Menachem Schneerson.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
