Rabbi Bentzion Schaffran (1937-1996) born in Chicago, was one of the first students to join the ḤaBaD movement in the early 1950s. Although he was accepted to the University of Chicago at the young age of 14, his parents chose to keep him in school with students his own age (at the Lubavitch Hebrew School headed by Rabbi Herschel Shusterman). After high school, he continued his studies at the Lubavitch Yeshivah in Brooklyn. At the instruction of the rebbe of ḤaBaD, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, he studied public speaking. During the early 1960s he became a lecturer at Chabad Houses and events on college campuses. Over the years, with the encouragement and support of his wife, Tzipora Heshkowitz, he took on many innovative projects on behalf of Lubavitch Youth Organization. In the 1970s, he headed a group of local community leaders to open dialogue between the African American and Jewish communities. He spearheaded programs to create job opportunities in the Crown Heights community and increase financial support to the schools and camps. (This short bio draws heavily from "Chabad Pioneer’s 20th Yahrtzeit" by Dovid Zaklikowski.)