Mrs. Rivka Kravitsky, a woman of legendary self-sacrifice, passed away on Monday, October 19, 2026 (8 Cheshvan 5787), at the age of 90. She raised a Chassidic family under Communism in the face of great danger and spent more than half a century in Kiryat Malachi feeding the community's elderly and lonely.

From Leningrad to Samarkand to Moscow

Rivka was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in 1936 to Reb Avraham Mendel and Nechama Rubashkin. She grew up in a home full of Chassidic warmth and steadfast loyalty to Torah and mitzvot.

As the siege tightened around Leningrad during World War II, the family left on one of the last trains out, traveling across war-torn regions to Samarkand, Uzbekistan, which had become a refuge for thousands of Chabad chassidim.

After the war, they moved to Moscow and became an integral link in the Chabad underground.

Growing Up in the Underground

Speaking to her grandchild for a heritage project, she recalled living in a single small room. Few Jews lived nearby, and even fewer openly declared themselves faithful to Torah. Nevertheless, her father never shaved his beard, and the family observed Shabbat and kept kosher, despite the risks.

Employment was precarious, since anyone who refused to work on Shabbat was dismissed at once. One factory director agreed to hire her father despite his Shabbat observance, on condition that no one find out. Some weeks, the family did not know whether he would make it home in time, but he never let them down.

Young Rivka was often sent to bring home kosher meat from the secret kosher butcher. She had to be vigilant so that no one saw her and the authorities would not discover the existence of the kosher slaughterhouse.

This same vigilance extended to her schooling. A teacher warned the family that a hostile new teacher was coming. When trouble followed over Rivka's absence on Shabbat, her parents obtained a doctor's note certifying that she was seriously ill.

Almost Caught at the Matzah Bakery

She also recalled the secret matzah baking in the Moscow suburbs, when she and the other children played on the sidewalk, serving as lookouts. One day, the girls spotted a woman in a headscarf pacing the street and recognized her as the wife of the local police chief. They quickly alerted the adults, who hid everything within moments. When the woman knocked at the door, the homeowner went out with a bribe in hand.

The woman brushed him off. "I didn't come here to cause you trouble."

"So what do you want from us?" the man wondered.

The woman cast fearful glances in all directions, lowered her voice, and said, "Look, every year, at this time of year, there are eight days when my husband eats nothing! He asks me to get him matzahs."

The man looked at her with increasing bewilderment, and the woman continued: "In previous years, I got the matzahs from another place, but this year they no longer bake them there, and they gave me your address. Could you sell me enough matzah for one person?"

The homeowner heaved a great sigh of relief. No one had imagined that the police station commander was a Jew who made a point of eating matzah on Passover!

The woman's request was granted, but the following year several precautionary measures were taken. The bakery was moved to another secret location.

Building a Home in Secret

Ten days before Passover 1961, Rivka married Naftali Kravitsky, a brilliant scientist and deeply devoted chassid. He was known in Russian as Anatoly, but she affectionately called him Toli.

He attended university in Moscow, where it was forbidden to wear a religious head covering. But he found a law that permitted people to follow their family customs, so he wore a large Bukharan-style cap, citing his ancestors' tradition. While the rest of the students ate breakfast each morning, he locked himself in a classroom and prayed.

Together, in the suffocating atmosphere of Soviet surveillance, they built a home grounded in the highest standards of Torah values. With rare wisdom and inner steel, Rivka took the extraordinary risk of keeping her children, Shmuel and Sarah, out of the Soviet public school system, defying the law at great personal peril.

Each Shabbat, services were held in a different home. Rivka walked there with her children. At one point, authorities started going house to house every Saturday to check that everyone was either at work or at home. Rivka asked a trustworthy non-Jewish neighbor to sit in her home during the inspections while she and the children were at shul. The neighbor agreed without hesitation.

One Shabbat, the family came home to find the house completely empty. They were heartbroken, certain that the neighbor had taken advantage of their absence. Then they opened the bedroom door and found all their belongings piled inside. The neighbor explained that soldiers might take whatever they pleased from a home during an inspection, so she had hidden everything in the bedroom. Relieved, the family thanked her for her forethought and consideration.

Settling in Israel

In 1971, the family was finally permitted to leave the Soviet Union. They had planned to settle in Kfar Chabad, but a chassid at the airport relayed the Rebbe's instruction to live in the new chassidic enclave of Nachalat Har Chabad in Kiryat Malachi. When the immigration clerk urged them to settle in Jerusalem, offering an apartment and a university post for Naftali, they held firm.

When they arrived in Kiryat Malachi, dozens of chassidim were waiting to welcome them, and Mrs. Kravitsky made her home there for the next 55 years.

In Israel, they had two more children, Avremi and Shifra.

Naftali fought during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and later served in the reserves. For long periods, the family did not know his whereabouts and anxiously awaited word.

A Life of Chesed

For many years, Rivka devoted herself to the community's elderly and lonely, cooking hot, nutritious lunches each day and serving them personally.

In 2018, she took part in the "Intergenerational Connection" program with her granddaughter Bracha, recording her life story for the national heritage archive. Looking at her family, she said: "Today, thank G‑d, we are privileged to keep Torah and mitzvot openly, and to see our children and grandchildren as chassidic Jews."

She is survived by her children—Rabbi Shmulik Kravitsky of Crown Heights; Mrs. Sarah Reichman of Rehovot; Rabbi Avremi Kravitsky of Nachalas Har Chabad; and Mrs. Shifra Cohen of Bnei Brak—and by many grandchildren and great-grandchildren following in the path of Torah and Chassidus. She was predeceased by her husband, Naftali.