SukkahMobile Makes The Rounds Of Skokie

By Pam DeFiglio

As people drive around Skokie this week, which happens to be the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, they may want to keep an eye out for the SukkahMobile.

Jews celebrate the holiday by spending time in, or living in, sukkot (the plural of sukkah), impermanent backyard shelters which have only branches on top, in place of a proper roof.

Not everyone may have a yard or the resources to build a sukkah, so Rabbi Yochanan Posner of Lubavitch Chabad of Skokie drives around a mobile one on a trailer.

"Being in the sukkah with only flimsy foliage above helps bring awareness of man's vulnerability and close relationship to nature," he emailed to Patch. While other congregations have mounted sukkot on pickup trucks, Posner says it's easier for the elderly to step onto a trailer, which is only about a foot and a half off the ground. 

He also says the vehicle is the largest mobile sukkah in Illinois, and "possibly the world."

The SukkahMobile was parked outside a bagel restaurant on Skokie Boulevard Monday. Yaacov Smith and two children whose dad preferred not to give their names, pictured, were eating their lunch inside it.

It was scheduled to arrive at Niles North High School in Skokie around the time classes were dismissed, so high school kids could visit.

For more information, call 847-677-1770 or email info@skokiechabad.org.

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