The 27th annual Kinus Hashluchim of France was held Sunday at Beis Chaya Mushka in Paris, with over 450 shluchim, rabbis, and guests from across the country.

The kinus was chaired by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Azimov, shliach to Paris, with Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky of New York, chairman of the international Kinus Hashluchim, in attendance. Among the guests of honor was Mr. Besnainou, along with shluchim and rabbis from across France.

Rabbi Berel Kesselman, shliach to the 16th arrondissement of Paris, shared how he came to acquire a large space for his Beis Chabad while starting with a negative bank balance.

It began two years ago at the kinus, when a fellow shliach spent hours sharing stories of open miracles. The next morning, he walked into an empty Franprix near his center and thought: This could be ours.

Not long after, someone who otherwise refused to invest anything in France pointed him toward a larger space across from the post office. Rabbi Kesselman figured he had nothing to lose and went to look. Another person told him to make an offer. He made the offer. A third told him to drop the financing condition. He did. At every turn, a different person appeared and moved the project one step forward.

The funds came together through 30 donors, each covering one square meter. “The moment I started doing the math in my head,” he said, “I told myself: it’s the Rebbe who’s running this.”

Rabbi Yosef Celnik, shliach to Longjumeau, described how his community’s mikveh came to be. On the very same day he learned his application to the Merkaz’s 120 mikvaot program had been accepted, a colleague urged him to build a mikveh, and a friend in Israel called to offer funding.

When the time came to raise the remaining funds, he wrote to the Rebbe and came across a letter in which the Rebbe, writing to a rav about mikveh construction, wrote that he would personally cover half the costs. A campaign launched four days later raised 135,000 euros in three days — exactly half the project’s 270,000-euro total.

Rabbi Levi Goldberg, shliach to Arcueil, spoke about a shliach‘s responsibility when a Jew in need lands at his door with no one else to turn to.

Rabbi Binyamin Mergui spoke in honor of 58 years of shlichus by Rabbi Shmuel Azimov, the founding shliach to Paris.

A raffle was held during the program, with Rabbi Yosef Katan announced as the winner.

Following the kinus, a farbrengen was held at Beis Chaya Mushka in the 19th arrondissement, featuring Rabbi Shabtai Slavatitzky, shliach to Antwerp, Belgium, and Rabbi Levi Azimov.

Photos: Mordechai Lubecki