Shifra Sharfstein and her husband, Shlomo, run Georgia Tech Chabad House with the help of their children. (photo from Shifra Sharfstein)
My parents invited countless people into their home over the decades and fed them on Shabbat and Passover. Little did we know that their acts of kindness would inspire one of their grandchildren to bring Shabbat dinners to hundreds of Jewish students at Georgia Tech in Atlanta each year.
Shifra Sharfstein grew up in Vancouver until she was in Grade 7, going to school at the local Chabad House and also learning about Judaism with her parents, Tzvi and Nomi Freeman, and grandparents, Joyce and Bernie Freeman.
“We went every Wednesday night for a special dinner,” Shifra recalled. “Grandma would spoil us with our favourites each week. She would read us a book and chat with us. She would listen to us talk and let us help make desserts in the kitchen. It was a space that was just all love, pure unconditional love.”
Shifra also gives credit to her grandfather, who supported my mom’s efforts to bring what seemed like the entire Jewish community into our house to feed them.
My mother grew up in India and her parents were from Iraq. Shifra remembers the Sephardi tomato soup with potatoes and meatballs, which took Mom a whole day to make.
“My cousin Ariella and me would talk all night about how much we loved that soup!” she said.
When Mom passed away, Shifra compiled a recipe book for family and friends called With Love from Joyce.
She remembers Mom’s international food.
“Baked Alaska coming out of the oven with cold ice cream inside always seemed like magic,” she said. (And then there was the cherry pie, which I can still taste.)
She remembers gathering together with her cousins before every Jewish holiday, making hundreds of hamantashen.
“I do the same with our college students, today,” she said.
Shifra runs Georgia Tech Chabad House with her husband Shlomo, and with the help of their eight children.
“I could go on forever talking about how much my grandmother and grandfather inspire me,” she said. “Whenever I’m in the kitchen for awhile, especially the week before Pesach, which is grandma’s yahrzeit, I feel her there with me. Sometimes, the powerful work we do is overwhelming, especially when we’re helping students deal with tragedy, and I close my eyes and see Grandma’s smile and feel the beautiful love she had channeled through me, her granddaughter.”
Recently, the couple threw a dinner for 500 Jewish students and dedicated it to the memory of Shifra’s grandparents. It was the first time so many people had dined there.
“Thank G-d we have lots of help and an amazing community of beautiful Georgia Tech students!” she said. “But we keep it all homemade at Chabad and I always incorporate Grandma’s flavours in it.”
Shifra said she also was inspired by the way her grandparents had so many guests who were welcomed like family.
“Grandma always said that what mattered was that we all got along,” Shifra explained. “She told us stories of Jews from different backgrounds and how what was most important is that we all came together, no matter our differences, with love … she truly loved every Jew with zero judgment. I think I absorbed that from her. She looked past the outside and saw that each person has a beautiful soul. She taught me how to do the same and I truly try to make that my focus every time I meet someone new.”
Shifra considers herself a feminist, running the Chabad House they live in and taking care of her children side by side with her husband. She is an accomplished speaker, as well.
“Knowledge is power,” she said. “I grew up being taught to always ask questions. My father and mother spent time learning with me as a young girl in Vancouver and the more I learnt and [the more] I asked, the more I realized how much I could accomplish.”
She added that she is inspired by the late Lubavitcher Rebbe’s teachings about women.
“As a Chabad leader, I know my Rebbe taught me that Jewish women in leadership have a unique power as nurturers who can change the world with love,” she said. “It’s the same message [now] and I intend to take it with me and change my part of the world with that feminine loving touch.”
Chabad Georgia Tech has seven Jewish classes each week, a weekly BBQ, social events, events where they counsel students and, of course, the highlight of their week is Shabbat, with anywhere between 80 and 130 students who come and then stay, chatting late into the night after dinner.
All this activity has had an impact. For example, there have been three weddings in the last 14 years and, right now, another couple is engaged to be married.
Shifra says their success is due, as well, to their dedicated team of students, who run many of the events. There are about 1,000 Jewish students on campus.
Cassandra Freeman is a freelance journalist and improv comedy performer living in Vancouver.