Rebbetzin Channah Hecht and her husband, Rabbi Sholem Ber Hecht, are the head Chabad emissaries in Queens, New York, where they have served the Sephardic community for the past fifty years. They are the proud parents of fourteen children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was interviewed in December 2025.

I was born and raised in Australia, where my father — Rabbi Chaim Gutnick, a Chabad chasid — served as the chief rabbi.

When in 1965 I graduated Mount Scopus High School — a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school in Melbourne — my father felt that my education in Yiddishkeit needed a boost and that I should spend a few years in a seminary. He consulted the Rebbe, proposing a list of possible options for me from which the Rebbe selected the Jewish Teachers’ Training College in Gateshead, England, where my older sister Penina had been sent the year before.

This was a controversial choice for several reasons:

First, at that time, even boys were not sent overseas to yeshivahs, and to send a young girl half-way across the world was unheard of. That my father would ship off both his daughters must have seemed to people like a crazy thing to do.

Second, my mother missed Penina very much, and to have both daughters so far from home would be very difficult for her. But she realized that they had to treat us equally, so if Penina got to go abroad, I was entitled to the same.

And third, while Gateshead had an excellent reputation academically, it was not a chasidic school, and some of the faculty seemed to hold a somewhat negative view of Lubavitch. However, several Lubavitcher girls were enrolled there, and the school was respectful of their customs.

On my way to Gateshead, I stopped off for a few months in Kfar Chabad, Israel, where a wonderful lady named Mrs. Yehudis Lison took me in, housed me, fed me and learned chasidic teachings with me every day.

I came to love her and also the community in Kfar Chabad, and so I wrote to the Rebbe about it, telling him what a beautiful and spiritual place Kfar Chabad was, asking if perhaps I should stay there. He replied that my description of the village brought him much nachat ruach — pleasure, but he did not answer me directly about staying there. He only wrote, “A person should learn where their heart desires.” I took that to mean that I could stay in Kfar Chabad, but my father felt that since I had applied and been accepted to Gateshead, I needed to follow through.

So off I went to Gateshead — which was then considered the best girls’ seminary in the world — and I got an excellent education there.

While at Gateshead, I did not write much to the Rebbe, but one of the teachers, Mrs. Chana Kievman, did write, and the Rebbe responded to her that he frequently hears from Penina, but very little from Channah. He added, “Please take good care of her.”

It just goes to show how the Rebbe cared about everybody. I was just a young girl, one among many children of his chasidim, yet he inquired about me and told Mrs. Kievman to take care of me. That, I have to say, is astounding. I only found out about this years later when my daughter married Mrs. Kievman’s son.

After completing the three-year course of study at Gateshead, I traveled to New York, where I had my first audience with the Rebbe.

During that meeting, the Rebbe quizzed me about my education and how I was treated at the school. He asked me: “What is the attitude of the administration of Gateshead toward Lubavitch?”

The question took me aback. I had a great deal of gratitude to the school for the wonderful education I received there, so I didn’t want to say negative things about it and the administration’s criticism of Lubavitch. After all, they came from the Lithuanian tradition of misnagdim, who had been opponents of chasidim in the 18th century. And, although critical at times, they were also respectful — for example, they allowed us Lubavitch girls to get together and read chasidic teachings on days that were special to Lubavitch.

So, choosing my words carefully — because I did not want to make the Rebbe feel bad — I answered: “If we didn’t do anything against the administration of Gateshead, everything was good.”

“Against?!” the Rebbe exclaimed. “The word misnaged means against. Lubavitch is only for.”

When the audience was over and I was walking out, he repeated: “Remember — misnaged means against. Lubavitch is only for.”

We are only for. Who are we against? Nobody. Instead of standing in opposition, Lubavitch is for spreading Torah and its mitzvos and everything that is good in the world.

While in New York, I began dating for marriage, and I had a firm idea of what I wanted in a husband — he had to be a talmid chacham, a Torah scholar.

I had picked up this attitude at Gateshead, where Talmudic learning was considered the be-all and end-all, and where I often heard disparaging remarks that Lubavitchers are not sufficiently dedicated to Torah study because they are too busy with their outreach campaigns. The implication was that if you marry a Lubavitcher, you’re a lost cause.

Lubavitch, of course, had a different point of view. The Rebbe often described Torah learning as the most important thing, and urged his followers to study Torah night and day. But he also felt very strongly that nowadays we don’t have the luxury of sitting in a yeshivah indefinitely while people are out there drowning — we have to get up and do something about it. In addition to studying Torah, we have to devote ourselves to saving Jewish souls.

However, coming out of Gateshead, my top priority was marrying a talmid chacham, and when I was introduced to my future husband, Rabbi Sholem Ber Hecht, I wrote to the Rebbe that I had my doubts about him because, in my opinion, he hadn’t studied in yeshivah long enough. He was clearly a brilliant man, but I wasn’t certain that he was as big a Torah scholar as I wanted my future husband to be.

The Rebbe replied: “Work for Pegisha and you will come to learn the truth.” Pegisha — which means “Encounter” — is a Chabad program where Jewish college students are invited for a weekend in Crown Heights to be exposed to the beauty of Torah observance and to chasidic teachings.

I worked very hard as a volunteer for Pegisha, and I did learn the truth. I learned the importance of outreach, how crucial it was to save Jewish souls. And, perhaps in the merit of the effort I devoted to this task, I also recognized that my future husband was, in truth, a big talmid chacham.

When we got engaged, the Rebbe gave us his blessing on the condition that my husband would initially learn Torah in a kollel for married men. And so, after our wedding, we went to Israel for three years while my husband studied in a kollel in Kfar Chabad and Nachlas Har Chabad. The Rebbe cared that I wanted a Torah scholar, and he made sure that I was completely satisfied.