Rabbi Hershel Fogelman

Rabbi Hershel Fogelman, the longest serving Chabad-Lubavitch emissary, who led the growth of Jewish life in Massachusetts, died on June 2 at the age of 91.

Fogelman immigrated to the United States from Poland, and in the early 1940s was sent to Worcester, Mass. on shlichus – the term for a Chabad posting or mission — by the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, z”tl. There, in 1942, he founded the Yeshiva Achei Tmimim Academy and synagogue, and subsequently served as director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Western Massachusetts.

The rabbi and his wife, Rochelle Fogelman, ran a Chabad House that became so successful that it prompted emissaries to settle in vicinities east of Worcester, towards the growing suburbs of Boston, including the communities of Framingham, Milford, Natick, Sudberry, Wellesley and Westborough. His son, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Fogelman, has taken over as spiritual leader of his father’s Chabad center in Worcester.

In addition to his wife and son, the rabbi is survived by his children, Bassie Levin of Worcester, Mass., Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Fogelman of Natik, Mass., Rabbi Shmuel Binyomin Fogelman of Los Angeles, Calif., Sheva Liberow of Worcester, Mass., Rabbi Mordechai Fogelman of Crown Heights, N.Y.; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his oldest son, Rabbi Chaim Yosef Fogelman of New York.