‘The Mikveh Saved Us’: How Chabad Family Survived ‘Off The Charts’ Irma
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Ari Feldman September 7, 2017
When Hurricane Irma finally bore down on St. Martin, a tiny Caribbean island, Rabbi Moishe Chanowitz and his family thought they were ready. The Chabad emissaries have lived on the island for eight years, and have seen many storms. But the record-breaking 185 mile-per-hour winds drove them from their homes into the recently constructed Chabad center.
Chanowitz, his wife and their five children moved farther into the building as the storm worsened, finally entering the windowless room at the center: the mikveh, or ritual bath. Just as they got inside, the building’s door flew off.
“We have hurricane-proof doors and windows. It’s not like we weren’t prepared, but this was off the charts,” Chanowitz told Chabad.org. “The mikveh saved us.”
The storm reached the island at about 4 a.m. Wednesday. By 5 a.m., the plywood that Chanowitz had installed over the windows of his house and the Chabad center were flying off.
“Roofs are torn off. The interiors of people’s homes have been swept away. A friend of ours who lives in a very nice, very secure building down the street from the Chabad House, his whole house was blown out,” Chanowitz said. “He survived because he had a closet he could hide in.”
Chanowitz’s sister has set up a GoFundMe page to help get her brother and his family off the island.
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aefeldman.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
