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Jamaica Chabad staff locked Torah scrolls in mikvah room to protect them from Hurricane Melissa
The local rabbi and his family are safe after being left unable to evacuate the island
October 30, 2025 11:40
The local rabbi and his family are safe after being left unable to evacuate the island
October 30, 2025 11:40Described as the “storm of the century”, Melissa has wrought significant damage the local community, with its rabbi and family reportedly safe but with access to only intermittent communication.
The Category 5 storm, which hit the island with 185mph winds and more than 40 inches of rain on Tuesday, is the most forceful hurricane to ever make landfall in Jamaica, and one of the most powerful in Atlantic history.
The total number of fatalities across the Caribbean has not yet been confirmed by authorities, but reports vary from 25 to the high 30s, with at least eight in Jamaica. The storm’s relatively slow pace made it even more destructive, dealing significant damage to the vulnerable islands.
The Chabad House in Montego Bay, Jamaica, established in 2014 by Rabbi Yaakov and Mushkee Raskin, was better shielded by its mountaintop location than lowland communities, but was still battered by high winds and torrential rain.
The rabbinic couple and their children, who are now safely sheltered, took refuge in a small bathroom in the centre of the house as it was the only room without windows.
The family has access to only one mobile phone and, with electricity supplies limited and the internet failing, they have only been in sporadic communication with the outside world since the worst of the storm hit.
In a post on Instagram on Tuesday, the couple revealed they had secured their Torah scroll and themselves in the mikvah room, which is “fully sealed”.
Large parts of the family’s home ended up flooding, and extreme winds ripped air conditioning units and solar panels from the roof.
“Our hurricane-proof doors buckled under the force of Hurricane Melissa,” the couple posted on Tuesday with a video showing shattered windows.
https://t.co/hhnTRXLpft pic.twitter.com/uS6ZOHyrXo
— Rabbi Yaakov Raskin (@Jamaicasrabbi) October 28, 2025
Recently renovated in 2023, the building was equipped with supposedly hurricane-resistant doors and windows, but Melissa’s unprecedented force “blew the main glass door off its hinges and shattered most of the windows,” according to a post on Chabad.org.
Rabbi Raskin told the site that his daughter’s room is “gone”, along with freezers packed with kosher food, provisions which were meant to serve the Jewish community in the storm’s aftermath.
Originating as a tropical wave near West Africa, Melissa quickly gained traction on Sunday and Monday and blew westward towards Jamaica and the Caribbean.
The storm underwent extreme and rapid intensification thanks to warm sea-surface temperatures and favourable atmospheric conditions, escalating from a tropical storm into a hurricane and then into its catastrophic Category 5 level in less than 36 hours.
However, it is now moving into the open Atlantic and is expected to lose momentum over cooler waters.
The Raskins have withstood numerous storms and natural disasters since 2014, most recently with Hurricane Beryl in 2024, when the Chabad House sustained $30,000 in damages.
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