By Adam Kramer
A world-famous Michigan rabbi was killed early Sunday in a car crash while on his way to LaGuardia Airport after a visit to the Laurelton grave site of the spiritual leader of the Lubavitch movement, police said.
Rabbi Yitschak Meir Kagan, 59, of Oak Park, Mich., was driving northbound on 227th Street in Cambria Heights when his car collided with a commuter van traveling eastbound on 119th Avenue, said Detective Eugene Canapi, a Police Department spokesman.
He said Kagan was unconscious at the scene of the accident at 6:53 a.m. and was rushed to Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, where he was declared dead a half hour later.
The driver of the commuter van, Glenroy Hunter of 119-20 201st St., St. Albans, was cited for speeding, Canapi said.
Hunter was taken to Franklin Hospital in Valley Stream, L.I., where he was treated for minor injuries and released, Canapi said.
Kagan was buried Sunday night in the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Laurelton, where the spiritual leader of the Lubavitch movement, Grand Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, who died in 1994, is buried.
“He was a prolific writer and noted orator,” said Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a spokesman for the Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section. “He lectured to large audiences around the world.”
Shmotkin said Kagan was the “catalyst and architect” for the Jewish revival in Michigan and had set up outreach centers in places in the state such as Grand Rapids and Flint.
“He was an exceptional man whom tens of thousands considered their spiritual leader,” Shmotkin said. “He was very humble and the greatest thing in his own life was to be a Lubavitch rabbi.”
The Lubavitch are a branch of the Hasidic movement, which stresses outreach and acceptance.
Shmotkin said Kagan was in New York City to mark his own birthday, which is considered a holy day, and had addressed a group of 50 Jews from Montreal.
The rabbi visited Schneerson’s grave Sunday at 5 a.m. to pray before heading to LaGuardia Airport to catch a flight back to Michigan, where he was the director of the Lubavitch Foundation in Farmingdale.
According to the Detroit Free Press, Kagan was in the process of developing a 40-acre site for a multimillion-dollar religious and educational center in West Bloomfield Township. Kagan had been working on the center — The Campus of Living Judaism — for more than 10 years and it was to be completed later next year.
Kagan is survived by his wife and seven children.
Reach reporter Adam Kramer by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 157.
