She was born in Romania, and he was born in White Russia (now Belarus). She was a survivor of the Holocaust, and he was a refugee from Communist oppression. After they were married, they wanted to emigrate from London to Montreal, but that is when they received surprising instructions from the Rebbe. * It was only after the passing of R’ Nochum Yosef, when his wife Zlata moved to be near her children in Crown Heights, and needed a residence permit for the United States, that the farseeing vision of the Rebbe came to light and a more than fifty year old mystery was solved. * Firsthand account of a miracle story of the Rebbe.
The green card which astonished the employees of the emigration office.PART I
The Chassidic brothers, R’ Yerachmiel and R’ Sholom Ber Benjaminson sat in the office of the lawyer, Lena Rosenberg. They saw that their immigration request for their mother would not be easy to obtain, that is, if they could get it altogether.
“The U.S. is not quick to issue immigration permits,” said the lawyer, an expert in emigration matters. “Although she has children with American citizenship, there is no guarantee that your application will be accepted. It’s a known problem and many Canadian citizens who want to move to the U.S. are not accepted.”
Despite her skepticism, they decided that they had no other choice and they asked her to start preparing the paperwork. They knew they would have to burn some serious money to submit the forms, and the money might end up going to waste and they would not get a permit, but they had to try.
The story began in the summer of 5767. Their father, R’ Nachum Yosef, had died a few days before Pesach and their mother, Zlata, began feeling lonely.
Although she had lived in Montreal for fifty years, over the years all her children had left Canada for the United States and Eretz Yisroel. Since most of them lived in Crown Heights, the children and their mother decided that it was best for her to move to Crown Heights.
Mrs. Benjaminson, who was over eighty, urgently needed good health insurance that would cover her doctor visits and medication. But since she was a Canadian citizen, she couldn’t get on Medicaid. This is why she asked her children to go to a lawyer and make urgent efforts to get her an immigration permit.
PART II
While the lawyer tried to move things along, R’ Yerachmiel and his wife went to Montreal to help clean out his mother’s house, so she could sell the house. Most of the old stuff was relegated to the garbage. R’ Yerachmiel took a folder of important documents that he found in the house, put it in a large box, and took it with him to New York to go through when he had the time.
R’ Benjaminson is the director of Tzivos Hashem and it took a few days before he finally found the time to go through the contents of the box. He began organizing the papers, removing documents from faded envelopes and throwing most of it into the garbage. Suddenly, he noticed two green cards with pictures of his parents. They looked official and he decided to bring them to the lawyer.
When his brother, R’ Sholom Dovber, met with the lawyer, he brought the green cards with him. They were faded and worn out since they were so old. He said that his brother Yerachmiel found them among their parents’ documents.
When the lawyer saw the green cards, she couldn’t get over it. She immediately called R’ Yerachmiel and asked him excitedly: Do you know what this is? It’s pure gold!
She explained to the surprised R’ Yerachmiel that the green cards that he found, legally allowed his parents to live permanently in the United States. She explained why she was so amazed. It was because many years had passed since green cards began to be issued for a limited time period only and made conditional on a long period of uninterrupted residence in the United States. His parents’ green cards were unusual in that they had no limitations. Now, his mother did not need the long, difficult process in which success was not guaranteed. She just needed to go to the immigration office where they would give her an updated residency permit which would allow her to receive all the benefits in the U.S., including medical care!
R’ Yerachmiel was thrilled by this news, but he wondered how did his parents have American green cards when they had lived all their lives in Canada?
He showed his mother the documents and asked whether she knew when she had gotten the green cards. She said she had never seen them before; this was the first she was hearing of having a green card. It was a mystery.
It was only after R’ Yerachmiel explained the significance of these documents and he asked her to try and remember whether they had ever considered moving to the U.S., that she suddenly remembered a brief period in their lives when they had actually lived in New York. This was because of something the Rebbe told them.
PART III
Mrs. Benjaminson was born 94 years ago; her maiden name was Wertzberger. She was 16 when World War II began and she experienced the horrors of the Holocaust. Divine providence guided her throughout the war and she survived seven concentration camps.
At the end of the war, she had lost nearly her entire family, but her father, who had also survived and had escaped to Ireland, found her name on a list of survivors of Auschwitz. He contacted the international rescue agencies who brought her by military plane from Germany to Ireland where she was reunited with him.
Her husband, R’ Nachum Yosef, was born in 1923 in Bobroisk in Belarus and he spent his childhood being persecuted by the communist government. His father, R’ Yerachmiel, was one of the ten great Chassidim and mekusharim whom the Rebbe Rayatz gathered and made swear that they would not veer a hairsbreadth from their commitment to spreading Torah and Judaism in Russia and would fight for Judaism and Jews.
When he was four, his father was appointed to serve as rav in Zhlobin, where he founded a network of shuls, mikvaos, chadarim, melamdim, and shochtim. The KGB kept an eye on him and he was once arrested. If not for the commotion raised by the Jews of the town who loved their rav so much, who knows what would have happened to him. Rav Benjaminson and his family began looking for a way to leave Russia.
It was at this time that his wife contracted an eye ailment, and since the best doctors were in Riga, this was a good reason to submit a request to leave. The Rebbe Rayatz worked on his behalf to obtain a visa to Riga, while the rav went to Moscow to attempt meeting the president of Russia, Kalinin. Whoever was able to personally hand the president a request to emigrate had a great chance of success. Miraculously, he met Kalinin, and when he asked the rav why he wanted to leave Russia, he said he loved “Mother Russia,” but his wife needed medical care. Three weeks later he got a positive answer and the family left the Iron Curtain behind.
After his wife underwent an operation, Rabbi Dubin suggested that he remain in Riga as rav of a shul and said he would pay him half his salary. To his great fortune, he was unable to find an additional half pay position and so he decided to emigrate to London. This is how he ended up saving his family from the bitter fate of the Jews of Riga who were decimated in the Holocaust.
R’ Nachum Yosef was nine when the family moved to England in 1934. After completing his studies in yeshivos in London, he helped his father in his rabbinic work.
A wonderful person by the name of R’ Moshe Meisels, who was a regular in the home of R’ Yerachmiel in London, would sometimes travel to Ireland where he was hosted by the family of R’ Boruch Wertzberger. He saw young Zlata and thought that a shidduch between her and R’ Nachum Yosef would be a good idea. The wedding took place in Ireland in 1946 with hundreds of participants, community members who rejoiced with them.
Two years later, in 5708, R’ Yerachmiel became sick with asthma. The constant rain and fog in London made breathing difficult for him and after receiving the Rebbe Rayatz’s bracha, he moved to Montreal. There he was appointed rosh yeshiva in Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim and rav of the Lubavitcher community.
After the passing of the Rebbe Rayatz, R’ Benjaminson became mekushar to the Rebbe and had the utmost bittul to him. He did much to press for the Rebbe to accept the nesius. He even spoke about this directly with the Rebbe and when the Rebbe firmly refused, R’ Benjaminson maintained: We elders are one thing, but what about the youngsters?
The Rebbe said, “I never withheld myself from the young ones; I hold them and will continue to hold them.”
R’ Benjaminson left the room with tremendous excitement and exclaimed, “We have a Rebbe!”
On 15 Elul 5710, R’ Benjaminson arranged for ten elder Chassidim and himself to go to the gravesite of the Rebbe Rayatz. There, he read the pidyon nefesh klali on behalf of all of Anash in which they asked that the Rebbe Rayatz exert his influence on the Rebbe so the latter formally accept the leadership.
PART IV
In 5711, his son, R’ Nachum Yosef, decided to move to Montreal too, to live near his elderly father. He asked the Rebbe for a bracha, the Rebbe having just recently accepted the nesius.
To his great surprise, the Rebbe told him that before moving to Montreal, they should try their luck in the United States. Since, in order to get a visa for the U.S., a company or institution had to guarantee them a job with a salary, the Rebbe told his secretary, Rabbi Chadakov, to take care of it.
R’ Chadakov arranged a job for R’ Nachum Yosef with a k’hilla in the Bronx which was looking for a rav and sent all the necessary documents to England. Armed with the letter from the congregation and their commitment to pay a salary, the couple sailed for the U.S.
They arrived at Ellis Island, where new immigrants were processed. After presenting their documents, they were given a visa in the form of green cards with their pictures on it. Little did they dream that the day would come when this green card would turn out to be very valuable.
Even though, over the years, these cards are no longer green, the name “green card” stuck. However, unlike the past many decades in which the card is conditional upon an extended period of residing in the U.S., back then, fifty years ago, this card was good for life, with no limitations, and gave rights of almost a full citizen.
The young couple lived in the Bronx, next to the shul where R’ Nachum Yosef Benjaminson was the rav. But after a few months, he felt it wasn’t the place for him. After writing to the Rebbe and receiving his blessing, he moved to Montreal to be near his father as in the original plan.
After living in Montreal for decades, they forgot that brief period of time when they had lived in the United States, and they completely forgot about the green cards they had been given. Fortunately, R’ Nachum Yosef was careful about not throwing away any official documents, but nobody else aside from him remembered and knew about the green cards hidden among numerous documents.
It was only after his passing, when his wife was getting ready to move to Crown Heights and needed a residency permit in the United States, that the green cards were discovered. They saw how far-reaching the Rebbe’s vision was, that fifty years earlier, he had told them to go to the U.S. first, and even helped them get the green cards.
PART V
When Mrs. Zlata Benjaminson arrived with her son, R’ Sholom Dovber, at the immigration office, there were hundreds of people seeking visas who were waiting on a long line. He went over to one of the clerks and asked whether consideration could be given to his elderly mother. The clerk asked to see his documents and when she saw the green cards she shouted in amazement at the ancient, original green card.
All the employees came over to see what she was excited about and said that in all their years working there, they had never seen the original cards which were actually green.
Of course, they did not have to wait on line and the manager of the office herself expedited the process and said that within a few days they would get an updated green card. She also arranged all the medical benefits for Mrs. Benjaminson on the spot.
That is how Mrs. Benjaminson was able to live out the remainder of her life near her children in Crown Heights, all thanks to the Rebbe.
PART VI
I heard this special story from the Benjaminson brothers, after the passing of their mother on 15 Teves of this year. During the Shiva, they noticed the following amazing fact. In the HaYom Yom for 15 Teves it says, “Hearken and hear Israel, this is the time marked for the redemption by Moshiach. The sufferings befalling us are the birth-pangs of Moshiach. Israel will be redeemed only through teshuva. Have no faith in the false prophets who assure you of glories and salvation after the War. Remember the word of G‑d, ‘Cursed is the man who puts his trust in man, who places his reliance for help in mortals, and turns his heart from G-d’ (Yirmiyahu 17:5). Return Israel unto the Eternal your G-d; prepare yourself and your family to go forth and receive Moshiach, whose coming is imminent.”
This impassioned cry from the Rebbe Rayatz was very familiar to the Benjaminson family, because it was taken from a letter that the Rebbe Rayatz sent their grandfather, R’ Yerachmiel, during the Holocaust. At the beginning of the letter (which is printed in the Igros Kodesh of the Rebbe Rayatz, vol. 6), he blessed him and his wife, and their son, R’ Nachum Yosef: “May Hashem strengthen your health and the health of your wife and the health of the student Nochum.”