“Excuse me, sir, are you Jewish by any chance?” asked Rabbi Mendel Glazman on the corner of Bedford Avenue and North 7th Street during the afternoon rush hour this week.
Glazman was holding a lulav and etrog, the traditional symbols of Sukkot, a Jewish High Holy Day celebrating the feast of the harvest. He was encouraging Jewish commuters to take a few seconds out of their busy schedule to say a brief holiday prayer.
Unfortunately, dozens of pedestrians brushed Glazman away on their way to or from the L train. He might as well have been handing out flyers for a city comptroller campaign.
Fortunately, Chabad of North Brooklyn’s rabbis had a backup plan like they do every year: the 2009 Sukkah Mobile.
“I’ve been doing it for the last 20 years,” said Rabbi Shumly Lein, who runs the Williamsburg-based Chabad (132 North 5th Street).
Lein has been driving the mobile Sukkah unit around Williamsburg, which has been retrofitted on the back of a flatbed pickup truck.
“Right now I have a Toyota. It’s a rental. We get rentals usually, it’s much easier. I joined in (with a group of Chabad Lubavitch) in Crown Heights who arranged to get one with me in Williamsburg.”
Lein and his volunteers say the Toyota Sukkah has been effective, helping bring the holiday to hundreds of Jewish residents throughout North Brooklyn.
“The idea of the Sukkah Mobile is structural — to have it stand in one place,” said Lein. “It brings the Sukkah to the people. It’s a means of outreach to businesses, people’s homes and subway stops, where people are.”
So far, according to Lein, the response in the community has been welcoming. Instead of traveling to Lee Avenue and Rodney Street to buy a lulav and etrog, Williamsburg’s Jewish residents just wait until the Sukkah Mobile parks at a nearby intersection. It only takes about 12 seconds to say the traditional prayer and shake the lulav branch and etrog citrus fruit.
“You get up on the truck, do the bracha, even eat there. It’s a mitzvah to eat in a sukkah. The sukkah mobile is the best way to…” said Glazman, trailing off before noticing another passerby crossing Bedford Avenue. “Excuse me, are you Jewish by any chance?”