You may be wondering how Chabad QC literally bought the house next door. 

Well, it’s a long story that starts on March 17, 2006, with an $18 donation from Doris & Stanley Caplan of Connecticut.

Tzipah and I had been running Chabad in Queens for about a year and a half at the time. I didn’t know much about not-for-profit management, but I did know that one should send a thank you note for a gift.

Thus began my written and telephone correspondence with Doris. She would continue to send modest gifts and handwritten letters, and I would respond in kind, sending letters, essays I had written and so on. We would speak on the phone from time-to-time. This continued until December of 2016.


At the start of the pandemic, when all of NYC -- well, all of the world -- had shut down, I received a phone call from a Connecticut number. It was May of 2020.

"Hi, my name is Adam Caplan," the calm voice on the other line began, "my mother went to Queens College."

I remember the conversation word-for-word.

Without skipping a beat, I said, "Sure! Doris Caplan, class of 1948."

"How... how did you know that?"

"How could I not know?" I replied, unsure of where those words came from.

Adam explained that he was calling because his mother had recently passed away (Stanley passed in 2011), and my name and Chabad QC was mentioned throughout her journals.

He handed the phone to his sister Elizabeth. “Rabbi, we would like to make a gift to your Chabad House, in honor of our parents,” Elizabeth said with enthusiasm.

I never had the chance to meet Doris in person, but in the summer of 2020, Elizabeth and Adam came to Queens to visit – and the magic began.

Adam’s serenity was only matched by Elizabeth’s exuberance. Our friendship with the pair came so easily and naturally.

On that boiling hot summer day, the Caplan siblings sponsored a years' worth of “Shabbat 2Go” packages for the students, and we were able to distribute packages with homemade challah, chicken soup and more, to help the students celebrate Shabbos even at the height of covid restrictions.

By the following summer Adam was situated back in Queens and Elizabeth was visiting from Oklahoma. We told the pair about our dream to create a space for the students that was warm, inviting, creative and truly their own. We LOVE hosting students in our home but wanted them to really have their own independent space where the bar of entry was as low as possible. 

We took a walk around the neighborhood and Elizabeth asked us to choose a house that we wanted to buy. I had thought the conversation was a dream, a vision, a partial fantasy….  Elizabeth was thinking brick and mortar. She has true vision. All of a sudden the dream became an actual conversation at the table.

Over the course of the following year we looked at many properties. One in particular was very compelling. 

After giving Elizabeth and Adam a tour, they were in. And by “in,” I mean that they gave a lead gift that would enable us to put in a real offer.

Enter George & Pamela Rohr, who planted the seeds of this Chabad House back in 2004, and hundreds of others around the world. Mr. & Mrs. Rohr are the most generous philanthropists that I am aware of. And most of all, they are incredibly humble and caring people. Mr. & Mrs. Rohr invested in the vision immediately and before we knew it we were on our way to buying the property.

I’m sure you’re scrolling and you see that this email keeps going….  that's because the first property did not work out. Who does this happen to? Who has funding to buy a house but can’t find a house? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? “Hashem,” I asked, “I have funding to buy a house -- but there is no house!”

Looking back on it, it is a very big blessing that it didn't work out. It was a bit hard to see at the time; now it is crystal clear.

Finally, we got the call from the son of our longtime neighbor. I had approached our neighbor at least 10 years ago, telling him that one day we would like to buy his house. He had no intention of moving at the time, but was interested to hear how we intended to use his house. I would remind him every year or so that I was still interested in buying his home, if and when he chose to sell it.

It seemed that the time had finally come. “My father is ready to sell his house,” said the voice on the other line.

Just over a year later, we finally closed on the house next door!

This is not an ending – it’s only the beginning.

Your opportunity to help make this dream a reality starts now. You can help the students dream, you can literally help create this amazing space. Today.