'Roving rabbis' spread across Montana on kosher mission

HELENA, Mont. -- Two young Orthodox rabbis have traded their studies in Brooklyn for the back roads of Montana, where they are teaching the far-flung faithful to keep kosher in Big Sky Country.

Eli Chaikin, 23, and Dovid Lepkivker, 25, call themselves the roving rabbis. Their mission is to reach as many of the state's approximately 3,000 Jews as they can in a month.

Their message is a gentle one -- more of a nudge than a push -- in what are at best loosely organized Jewish communities where relatively few people strictly follow the dietary laws.

"Any step you take is a positive step," Chaikin said. "It's not all or nothing."

Chaikin and Lepkivker are affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavich movement. Chabad's Bozeman, Montana-based rabbi, Chaim Bruk, said he invited them to help honor the 40th anniversary of a worldwide campaign to promote observance of the kosher laws by the influential Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, known by his followers as the Rebbe.

"We're celebrating a 40-year milestone when the Rebbe started this idea," Bruk said. "I decided to rock Montana with that."

The roving rabbis have visited more than 60 homes in Montana since July 7, many of them cold-calls to people they had only learned about by asking around town or from someone the next town over.

On a recent visit to Helena, they sat in Beth Pagel's living room as she told them about the traditional meals and snacks she prepares for her grandson's classmates on Jewish holidays. She said she hasn't made many Jewish friends since moving to Montana's capital city from Florida seven years ago.

Pagel readily offered that she is not kosher but told them she knows the rules: "I'm not going to offer you a cheeseburger," she said.

The rabbis were polite, but they kept on message.

"I would venture to say you're much more kosher than you think," Lepkivker said.

The rabbis handed her a pamphlet on keeping kosher and pointed out the listing of all the certification symbols found on food products. They ventured into the kitchen, where the rabbis scrutinized everything, the spices, bread, wine and the canned goods.

Then they delivered their request: Just change one non-kosher brand she regularly buys to a kosher one.