Commentary
A few months ago, for the first time in the history of La Canada, California, a city just west of Pasadena and the home of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a new branch of a renowned Jewish institution opened. La Canada had previously lacked a synagogue or any other Jewish institution for a simple reason: few Jews live there.
But that never stops the Jewish organization known as Chabad. They open their famous “Chabad Houses” all over the country (they are in all 50 states) and all over the world. Some years ago, my wife and I visited Chabad of Cambodia—a country in which there are no Jews other than visiting businessmen and tourists. Chabad, composed of ultra-Orthodox, but worldly, Jews, is the most dynamic Jewish movement in the world.