Devorah Krisnky

(JNS.org) Devorah Krinsky, wife of Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky — the current public face of the Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic movement and former secretary to the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson — died Nov. 23 after a brief illness. She was 74.

Born into a prominent founding family of the Chabad movement in the U.S., Krinsky was among the first women to study at Beth Rivkah, the Lubavitch girls’ school, in the 1940s. Shortly after her marriage in 1957, when her husband worked in the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s office, she “shared in the day-to-day developments of the phenomenal growth of Chabad-Lubavitch under the Rebbe’s leadership,” according to a Chabad press release. Many regarded Devorah Krinsky as a warm intelligent family-oriented woman who opened her home to the thousands of international visitors and dignitaries who visited the Chabad headquarters over the years.

She is survived by her husband Yehuda — who remains chairman of Chabad’s educational and social services organizations — and her children. In 2010, Yehuda Krinsky was voted the most influential rabbi in America by Newsweek.