I came back to Ottawa in 1976, and had just become frum through Lubavitch. Working on a University Campus made me feel like I should try to do something for the Jewish students, but I had no idea how. Luckily, Rabbi Motty Berger moved to Ottawa about 6 months after I did. In time, we came up with the name Havurah 613 — the 613 playing on Ottawa’s telephone area code and the number of Torah mitzvahs.
Motty made all the speaker and program arrangements, and I made flyers, newspaper ads, campus room arrangements, etc. I also sometimes used my own phone number as a contact for information. [No cell phones yet, but I had a cassette-based answering machine on my home land line]
The very first program on campus faced difficulties. Some people in the “established” Jewish community didn’t like that newcomers were making “unofficial” programs! They tried many ways to block it, including a last-minute lounge cancellation that forced me to book a different room and quickly post signs re-directing people. Amazingly, two students who showed up that first night later became Lubavitchers!
One flyer that I made was — just for fun — designed by me on the University computer, and printed entirely on a graphics plotter. This very crude flyer by today’s standards was likely the very first Chabad ad to be completely drawn by a computer! It required equipment worth hundreds of thousands in those years!
Some of the ads and flyers are attached below. The “Chanukah Dreidel” ad is the one drawn by computer. I was especially proud of my concept of the USSR hammer&sickle design “morphing” into the bais-hay in the flyer for Dr Rabkin’s talk 🙂
