Moroccan Jewish community loses one of the longest Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries to coronavirus

Rabbi Sholom Eidelman, the longest-serving Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries in the world and a member of the Moroccan Jewish community, passed away in a Casablanca hospital, April 10, after testing positive for the coronavirus.

According to Chabad.org, Eidelman «oversaw a dozen Chabad of Morocco Jewish schools and is mourned by tens of thousands of students he taught throughout the decades», for more than 60 years.

The 84-year-old «opened and ran a kollel (advanced study group) where he trained most of the rabbis and shochtim (ritual kosher slaughters) in Morocco».

As of Monday, 13 members of the Jewish community in Morocco have died because of the coronavirus, reports Israeli newspaper Haaretz, quoting Israeli official monitoring the developments of the Moroccan Jewish community.

The victims, according to the same source, are all from Casablanca, adding that the Jewish community of Morocco «has been one of the hardest hit, if not the hardest hit, in the world by the coronavirus – at least in relative terms».