{"id":35078,"date":"2017-03-02T23:54:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T05:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=35078"},"modified":"2017-05-23T02:38:28","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T08:38:28","slug":"chabad-leader-tulane-professor-david-kaufmann-dies-in-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/chabad-leader-tulane-professor-david-kaufmann-dies-in-houston\/","title":{"rendered":"Chabad leader, Tulane professor David Kaufmann dies in Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DAVID KAUFMANN, a Tulane professor and leader of the Chabad Lubavitch community for the past four decades, and considered a shaliach (emissary) died on Thursday morning in Houston, where he had been living \u00a0while receiving continuing medical treatment at M.D. Anderson Clinic for the past two months.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_35079\" style=\"width: 234px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Kaufmann_David.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-35079\" class=\"wp-image-35079 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Kaufmann_David.jpg\" alt=\"Kaufmann_David\" width=\"224\" height=\"264\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 224px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 224\/264;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-35079\" class=\"wp-image-35079\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Kaufmann_David.jpg\" alt=\"Kaufmann_David\" width=\"224\" height=\"264\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-35079\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Kaufmann, a Tulane University professor, who specialized in Jewish studies and English, expired on Thursday. (Photo by Chabad Lubavitch)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Kaufmann, considered a shaliach (emissary), was a professor of English and a member of the Jewish Studies department at Tulane University. He was involved as a youngster in the Boy Scouts. His father of blessed memory, Ray Kaufmann, was a Scoutmaster for a short time for Troop 48, charter-partnered with St. Andrew&#8217;s Episcopal Church. Following his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of New Orleans, Kaufmann received his Ph.D from Tulane University and continued his long association there.<\/p>\n<p>He was noted as a great storyteller and a competitive chess player. Kaufmann was always studying Torah or else teaching others. Following his marriage to his wife Nechama, the two joined the staff of Chabad as schulchim (emisaries) to New Orleans. For years the pair directed Camp Gan Israel and were the first directors of Chabad\u2019s activities on Tulane\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n<p>Kaufmann spearheaded the highly popular Chanukah at Riverwalk program and coordinated it until recent years when his health began to fail and he sought treatment in Houston in December of 2015. Kaufmann underwent a protracted surgery at that time and, following removal of a large tumor, \u00a0he went into remission during 2016. He was looking forward to returning \u00a0to coordinate the Chabad at Riverwalk event this past December, but was unable to follow through due to the recurrence of his illness. At the event, Morris Bart and Rabbi Zelig Rivkin both asked that prayers for healing be sent on Kaufmann&#8217;s behalf.<\/p>\n<p>Kaufmann was especially influential in the growth of Torah Academy in Metairie and served the board in many different capacities over the years. He was a noted Chess Club instructor, and led the club all to the top of the city&#8217;s rankings. Kaufmann was the author of many books spanning several genres. He was also a translator and an editor. Kaufmann pioneered the use of the Internet and email for Jewish outreach, through which he developed a relationship with the legendary online Jewish figure, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Kazen. For years, Dr. Kaufmann authored the Slice of Life section in the weekly L\u2019chaim Newsletter published by Lubavitch Youth in New York.<\/p>\n<p>The graveside funeral was held today, Friday, March 3, at 10 a.m. in Houston at the Beth Jacob Cemetery, 2300 Almeda-Genoa Road.<\/p>\n<p>Survived by his wife of more than four decades, Kaufmann leaves behind children, Saadya (Chaya Sarah), Rachel (Mendy) Traxler, Shmuel (Rivky), Chaya (Berry) Silver, Yosef (Chana), Chana (Yaakov) Hellinger, and Devorah Leah and numerous grandchildren. The family will sit shiva in Houston through next Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Chabad%20leader%2C%20Tulane%20professor%20David%20Kaufmann%20dies%20in%20Houston\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19],"tags":[8377,8790,8795,3045],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35078"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36518,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35078\/revisions\/36518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}