Rabbi Shalom Paltiel, Chabad of Port Washington, Neighbor

Rabbi Shalom M. Paltiel is spiritual leader of Chabad of Port Washington. He moved to Port Washington in 1991 to direct the local Chabad Center at the request of Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. Under his inspired leadership, Chabad has grown into a well established synagogue, preschool, summer camp, youth center and community center.

After graduating at the Oholei Torah College in Brooklyn in 1986, Rabbi Paltiel spent two years as an emissary of the Rebbe at the Rabbinical College of Australia in Melbourne, where he served as a rabbinic intern. He later went on to do graduate work at the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, NJ, and was ordained in 1990 at the Central Yeshivah Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch in New York. As part of his rabbinic training, he has also visited remote Jewish communities in Canada, the Orient and the former Soviet Union, where he was part of the group who established the Yeshiva for higher learning in St. Petersburgh (then Leningrad), Russia.

Rabbi Paltiel is an excellent speaker who touches his audiences with his blend of wisdom, warmth and passion. He possesses the ability to teach Torah and traditional ideals in a modern context, making them relevant to the modern mind and heart. He is sought after as a guest lecturer for Chabad House groups and Shabatons across the country.

He recently completed the new Chabad gymnasium to add to the impressive 2 acre campus in Port Washington which is home to the various Chabad House activities.  Rabbi Paltiel lives in Port Washington along with his wife Sara and their 10 children.