Simon Swerdlow, 33, says he owes his life to Chabad.
In 1990, he left Belarus at the age of 13, part of an airlift of 250 children from areas surrounding the doomed Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. That was the first flight operated by Chabad Children of Chernobyl, a Chabad-Lubavitch run organization designed to rescue those most vulnerable from the meltdown that left 
thousands of square kilometers uninhabitable.