In the fall of 1996, Chabad Rabbi Shmully Hecht arrived at Yale University to spread Judaism. He had recently returned from Melbourne, Australia, where he received his rabbinical ordination. On his first day in the Elm City, Shmully was given a tour of Sterling Library by his cousin, Rabbi Binyomin Katz, o.b.m., a frequent cataloguer of the Judaica Collection at Sterling.

By Divine Providence, Oliver Benjamin Karp, a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department, was simultaneously ambling through the library when Rabbi Katz introduced the two.