‘Lost a brother’: Chabad community vows to press on with outreach after emissary’s killing

Efraim Glasomitsky was hanging out with friends on Saturday night, celebrating the end of Shabbat, when someone in the group checked their phone — and relayed terrible news.

“He said, ‘There’s a story. They murdered the emissary in Abu Dhabi,’” Glasomitsky said on Monday outside of 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, the world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement of Judaism. “Everyone was full of energy, we said ‘L’chayim’ and all that … Then, all of a sudden, everyone came down.”

Glasomitsky said that since the start of the Israel-Hamas war last year, he had gotten used to getting bad news on Saturday nights, when Shabbat-observant Jews reconnect to technology. But the killing of Zvi Kogan, an emissary, or shaliach, with the Chabad Hasidic movement in the United Arab Emirates, hit closer to home. 

“Shlichut is something that touches all of us,” he said, using the Hebrew word for mission that Chabad uses to describe its practice of sending rabbis and their families across the world.

That network was reeling in the wake of Kogan’s killing, for which Emirati police have arrested three Uzbek nationals. But around the world and in Crown Heights, people affiliated with Chabad say they are redoubling their efforts to help Jews fulfill the commandments of Judaism, no matter where they live or travel.

Chabad has called for Jews to “increase our acts of goodness and kindness” in response to the killing by doing good deeds, making donations, and keeping kosher. The community has raised more than $700,000 for Kogan’s family, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump pledged to donate $1 million to Chabad in the UAE to continue its work.

The movement has also sought to address the concerns of its emissaries. Dr. David Fox, the head of crisis intervention at Chai Lifeline, a Jewish medical support network that assists in crisis intervention and management, held a three-hour call on Sunday night with Chabad emissaries to speak about how to deal with the fear and trauma resulting from Kogan’s death.

The emissaries are part of the vision laid out by the movement’s late leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994. Taking on a mission of reaching every Jew in the world, he began sending rabbis abroad soon after assuming leadership of Chabad in 1950, starting with Morocco. Today, there are more than 5,000 emissaries stationed around the world, including in remote locations, countries with few Jews and even war zones. In addition to running Chabad synagogues, they operate schools, youth outreach efforts, restaurants and, in the case of Kogan, kosher grocery stores.

Chabad emissaries have faced danger before. Rabbis in Ukraine, for example, have continued to provide meals and religious services despite blackouts and missiles during that country’s war against Russia. And one of the most traumatic events in recent Chabad history was the murder of the Chabad couple in Mumbai, India, in a 2008 terror attack. Kogan’s wife, Rivky, from New York, is the niece of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and Rivka Holtzberg, the Chabad emissaries killed in the attack, according to Chabad.org. 

Shlomo Naparstek, from Long Island, said he thought Kogan’s killing would add to the lessons learned after the Mumbai attack.

“I think we’re still impacted by the story of the terrorist attack in Mumbai,” he said. “It’s definitely going to bring awareness to safety concerns to Chabad offices all over the world and vulnerable spots in particular.”

Naparstek, who works in Chabad’s International Moshiach Office, an educational center, said he had never met Kogan but felt that he had “lost a brother.” He said he has a similar routine to the one Kogan maintained, helping his community with activities such as visiting the sick. He noted that he and Kogan were the same age, 28.

“His routine as a shaliach is a very innocent one. He was not signing up to be in a combat zone, he was spending his days and nights helping people, volunteering, spreading light,” Naparstek said. “An attack on him felt like an attack on my family.”

Yishay Gittelman, a singer from Israel who is studying in Crown Heights for a year, said that after news of Kogan’s death, videos spread through the community heralding Kogan’s work. Kogan had hosted members of Gittelman’s yeshiva in Dubai and they shared videos and pictures of him after the news of his death. 

“The day we heard about it, it was a very hard day of sorrow for Chabad,” he said. “There were a lot of videos on WhatsApp about him, everything that he did, that he opened a kosher supermarket for Jews.”

“It’s really hard to hear that such a good man is gone,” Gittelman said.

Ynon Levi, from Jerusalem, said he met with Kogan while he was visiting New York for a couple of weeks earlier this year. They spent time together like many young Chabad rabbis do when they visit the movement’s home base from abroad: traveling the city and learning Torah. On a Friday night, Levi had Shabbat dinner with Kogan’s family.

“In the few weeks I knew him I met a wonderful soul, caring, happy, always nice, always respecting, always smiling,” Levi said. “The moment you sit with him you feel his vibe.”

Kogan’s death had an impact outside the Jewish community in New York, with officials including Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, Attorney General Letitia James and local lawmakers expressing their sorrow.

The killing was also reverberating across the Middle East and in Washington, D.C., where it represented a test of relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel. The two countries normalized ties in 2020, in a signature deal orchestrated by the Trump administration, and Chabad formalized and expanded its presence in the UAE as a result. The first Chabad emissary, Levi Duchman, was officially assigned there in the fall of 2020; Kogan was one of four rabbis assisting him there.

Back in Crown Heights, Chabad community members said the killing had sparked safety concerns but vowed to press on with emissary work and other outreach.

Glasomitsky, who is from Jerusalem and is in New York to study ahead of his nuptials, is considering becoming an emissary after his wedding in two weeks.

“I’m about to get married and all the time I’m thinking about shlichut after the wedding and I think if a situation like that could happen to me,” he said. “It’s scary on one side, but on the other side, the Rebbe sent us. We do everything we can, the best that we can.”

Gittelman said Kogan had helped inspire him to be an emissary, and that his death was “a little scary,” but he wasn’t afraid. “Wherever people need you, you go,” he said.

The movement is hosting its annual International Conference of Shluchim, which brings in emissaries from around the world, in New York next week. The event’s head, Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, said at Kogan’s funeral on Monday in Israel that “there will be a piece of us missing.”

“But we will rededicate ourselves to continuing what you dedicated your life to,” he said, referring to Kogan.

And Levi, too, said he would not be deterred by Kogan’s killing. “We have to not let anything affect the mission,” he said.