Ohel (Chabad-Lubavitch)
The Ohel (Hebrew: אהל, lit., "tent") is an open-air structure and graves located in New York City, in which the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and his father-in-law Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn (the two most recent leaders of the Chabad-Lubavitch) are buried. The Ohel is visited by thousands of Jews and non-Jews each year. Approximately 50,000 people make a pilgrimage each year on the anniversary of Schneerson's death.
The Ohel is located at Montefiore Cemetery (Old Springfield Cemetery) in Cambria Heights, Queens, New York City. The cemetery is a remnant of the large Jewish community that once inhabited Cambria Heights. Today the area is largely African American.
The Ohel is situated at the northern edge of the cemetery, near the corner of Francis Lewis Blvd. and 121st Avenue, in a section designated for prominent Lubavitcher men and their wives. It is an open-air structure containing the side-by-side graves of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (1880–1950) and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994).
A row of small brick houses along Francis Lewis Blvd. abuts the cemetery. In 1995, Lubavitcher Hasidim bought one of these houses and turned it into a 24-hour visitors center. This center includes a video room, a library, a small synagogue, a quiet room for visitors to compose the prayers they will say in the Ohel, and refreshments. The entrance to the Ohel is through the back door of this house and down a pathway. Men and women enter the Ohel through separate doors.
Following the burial of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson in the cemetery in 1950, his successor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, would visit his father-in-law’s grave several times a week – even up to six days a week. He would read out the requests of people who came to speak with him, then tear the notes and leave them at the gravesite. After the death of his wife in 1988, the Ohel was the only place the Rebbe regularly visited outside Brooklyn. He suffered his first stroke at the Ohel in 1992.
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