In the UK, a Focus on Safety and the Work of Emissaries - Annual conference renews and inspires, but also homes in on national concerns

It’s been anything but an ordinary summer in the United Kingdom.

On June 23, its citizens voted to withdraw from the European Union in a move known as Brexit, with its implications and possible consequences still being debated. Europe continues to be on the alert after a series of terror attacks, and even locally, the Golders Green underground station, in the heart of London’s Jewish community, was closed Monday following a security alert.

In more positive news, 84 Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries gathered to catch up, converse and plan for the coming year as part of the annual UK Kinus Hashluchim, the conference of Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis. It took place last week on the 13th day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz, the anniversary of the release date of the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory—from exile in Soviet Russia.

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Conference coordinator Rabbi Yehuda Pink noted that a record number of young emissaries—20 percent of them under the age of 30—attended this year “against the backdrop of horrifying events in Europe and around the world.”

By getting together as a group from different cities and rural areas, the Chabad representatives become inspired by each other “to continue their work with redoubled strength, secure in the knowledge that a little light can dispel an enormous amount of darkness,” he said.

Learning was a significant part of the program, with lessons, presentations and workshops on a variety of topics—from Jewish law and financial planning to enhanced communication and increased safety measures. To that end, several members of the Community Security Trust, or CST—the leading organization in the United Kingdom that deals with security in the Jewish community—held a safety training session for those assembled last week at the Normandie Hotel in Bournemouth, South England.

A gala dinner included a keynote address by Rabbi Yitzchok Schochet of Mill Hill, a suburb of London, who recalled and retold inspirational lessons from his father, Rabbi Dr. Jacob Immanuel Schochet, a congregational rabbi, professor of philosophy, devoted Chabad Chassid and world-renowned lecturer. Scholar-in-residence Rabbi Levy Wineberg, rosh yeshivah of the Hama’or Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, offered Torah insights, stories and personal recollections of growing up in the presence of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—with whom his father, Rabbi Yosef Wineberg, enjoyed a special relationship.

The two-day conference was “packed with excellent programming, camaraderie and inspiration that equipped us all to go back to our communities reinvigorated,” said Rabbi Bentzi Sudak of Chabad Lubavitch UK Headquarters, whose father, Rabbi Nachman Sudak, spearheaded Chabad growth in Britain as head of Chabad in the UK. “We leave with new ideas and renewed energy.”