Chana Schneerson


Chana Schneerson was the wife of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, a Chabad Hasidic rabbi in Yekatrinoslav, Ukraine and the mother of the seventh Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
She was born Chana Yanovsky in 1880, on the 28th of Tevet, in Nikolayev, Ukraine, to Rabbi and Rachel Yanovsky. She was the eldest of four children, having two sisters, Gittel and Ettel, and a younger brother, Yisrael Leib, who died as a youth. Rabbi Meir Shlomo was chief rabbi of Nikolayev.
As a teenager, she was educated by her father, and when a maamar would arrive from Lubavitch, she would meticulously and faithfully transcribe it, making it available for other Chasidim.
In 1900, she married Levi Yitzchak, a great-great-grandson of the third Rebbe of Lubavitch, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, also known as the Tzemach Tzedek. The wedding took place on the 13th of Sivan, in Nikolayev. The couple produced three sons, Menachem Mendel, Dovber, and Yisroel Aryeh Leib. Their eldest son, Menachem Mendel was later to become the seventh Rebbe of Lubavitch.
Levi Yitzchak was arrested in 1939, and exiled in 1940 for his religious practice. Schneerson joined him in exile. Levi Yitzchak died in 1944. Widowed, Schneerson left the Soviet Union in 1947. She illegally transported Levi Yitzchak's religious writings, focused around the Kabbalah, upon moving. That year she went to Paris, France, where she met with her son, Menachem Mendel. They both immigrated to the United States.
She lived near her son Menachem Mendel, until her death in 1964. During those years, she held extensive interviews with journalist Nissan Gordon, which have been published in Di yiddishe Heim.
In 2012, her memoires, which she penned during the years 1947 until 1963, were published by Kehot Publication Society.

Schneersohn family tree