By Anash.org Reporter
Some 200 family and friends gathered last week on Sunday, 20 Sivan, at the Lubavitcher Yeshiva on Crown Street to remember a community fixture whose loss is irreplaceable. Berke Raskin’s smiling face and happy demeanor was something you couldn’t miss, even if you didn’t enter the store and even if you never actually met him.
Mendel Raskin, a grandson of Berke, emceed the event b’tuv ta’am and began the gathering by reviewing the ma’amar that the Rebbe edited in honor of the Rebbetzin’s shloshim in 5748/1988.
Rabbi Dovid Green, son-in-law of Reb Berke and shliach in Rochester, Minnesota spoke about despite him being involved in business, Berke never missed an opportunity to influence another Yid and bring him closer to Yiddishkeit. One example he gave was how he convinced a recent immigrant not to c”v marry a non-Jew.
Then a letter from Berke’s good friend Reb Moshe Mendlowitz was read publicly.
Reb Shlomo Zarchi, mashpia in Tomchei Tmimim-770, reminisced very warmly, about his cousin Berke and how he remembers how his aunt Doba arrived with her 4 boys to America, and how they first stayed in the Zarchi home until they could get a place of their own.
Berke’s son Reb Aron Leib Raskin, editor of sifrei Kehos, and mashpia, first made a siyum mishnayos, connecting the siyum to the life of his father. He remembered the nigunim his father would sing at the Shabbos table when they were young, and shared it with the assembled.
After the official program ended, many said L’chaim and stayed to farbreng.
The full exclusive video can be watched here.
