Jerusalem – A rabbi who is said to have changed the landscape of Judaism in France was buried in Jerusalem Thursday.
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Thousands attended the funeral of the Head Shliach of Paris, Rabbi Shmuel Azimov obm, at the Shamgar funeral home, reports COL Live (http://bit.ly/1AsNRs8). He passed away Nov. 5 at the age of 69.
Hundreds of people flew in from France after a funeral in Paris.
According to Chabad.org, (http://bit.ly/1xl6Tep) the rabbi, who was director of Beth Lubavitch in Paris, was known worldwide for his educational influence and for heading a Jewish revival in France. There are more than 450 emissaries in 115 Chabad-Lubavitch centers in 95 cities in France today as a result of Azimov’s work.
Outside of France, he was a member of the executive committee of Agudas Chassidei Chabad, the umbrella organization of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement, and served as a mentor to innumerable emissaries worldwide.
Video below: Funeral. Credit COL
Rabbi Azimov was born in 1945 in the former Soviet Union. After leaving the Soviet Union for Paris, his father, Rabbi Chaim Hillel, became the principal of the network of Chabad Hebrew schools in Paris. Azimov also studied in the Central Chabad Yeshivah in Brooklyn.
Azimov built up dozens of Jewish communities and influenced many lives. Today, Beth Haya Mouchka brings in approximately 1,500 girls, making it the largest Jewish school in France.
After suffering a debilitating stroke in 1998, he continued to teach Torah and oversee a multimillion-dollar budget that continued to grow year after year.
Azimov also published a weekly La Sidra de la Semaine, which contained Jewish information and inspiration to thousands in the French-speaking world.
Rabbi Azimov was predeceased by his wife, Bassie, in 2011, and is survived by his children: Rabbi Mendel Azimov, a Chabad emissary in Paris; Mrs. Esther Marasov, also a Chabad emissary in Paris; and Rabbi Levi Azimov, a Chabad emissary in Neuilly, France; and his grandchildren.
A true Chasid, as was his late wife. This is a great loss not only to French Jews but to all of us.
While everything in this article is true, it hardly begins to tell the story of this great man… We have so much to learn from him. Chaval Al D’avdin.