Remote Diaspora communities are creating a tremendous demand for mikvo’os in their respective communities. Recently there has been a large rise in the number of requests by Jewish communities around the world, notes Rav Gedaliah Olstein, who heads the Congress of European Rabbis’ (CER) mikveh department. He says the increase stems from the wave of young Jews returning to their roots and accepting the yoke of Torah and mitzvas.

These young people are forming and renewing kehillos where they live and seeking to live in full accordance with halacha. The CER mikveh department is currently working to renovate and build mikvo’os, some of which are in their final stages of construction, including places like Lisbon, Tbilisi, Lorrach and Dortmund in Germany, Berno and Pilsen in the Czech Republic, Warsaw and Lublin in Poland, and Tabor and Tula in Russia.

CER Chairman Rabbi Abba Dunner repeated his commitment made during the conference in London to mark the 50 year anniversary of the CER that every community requesting a mikveh would receive assistance on condition the community had a rabbinical authority and a building where the mikveh could be housed. Rabbi Dunner said the CER was taking on this pledge because a kehilloh built on religious foundations has no permanence without a mikveh.

In Lisbon the mikveh pit and the water storage apparatus are soon to be completed. A joint committee made up of the local rov and the CER is supervising the construction. Rav Gedaliah Olstein first visited the Lisbon kehilloh four years ago when he was asked to come see the new mikveh being built as part of renovations sponsored by the municipality at the city’s ancient synagogue. Unfortunately the plan drawn up by a local architect did not meet halachic requirements. The pit had to be totally destroyed and re- laid, and funding raised for the project.

(Yated Ne’eman Staff for Dei’ah veDibur)