JTA.org reports:
Hundreds are expected to attend the opening in Novosibirsk of what is said to be the largest Jewish community center in Siberia, Russia.
The Beit Machem Center, which is due to open Wednesday, will feature a synagogue, classrooms, a kosher restaurant, Jewish shops, computer corner and entertainment area as well as a gym, according to Rabbi Zalman Zaklas, the city’s chief rabbi and emissary for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
The new structure has 37,000 square feet of floor space and cost about $5 million to build, Zaklas told JTA on Tuesday. The money was raised in donations on three continents, he said, and the city of Novosibirsk donated the land for the center.
Approximately 20,000 of the 3.5 million residents of greater Novosibirsk are Jewish, according to Zaklas, an Israeli rabbi who has been living in Novosibirsk for the past 13 years.
“Many of them are descended from Jews who were exiled here in communist times, when Judaism was strongly repressed, and in recent years they have been retracing and reconnecting to their Jewish roots,” he told JTA.
The dedication ceremony will include an open-air concert by Israeli musicians and the Novosibirsk Academic Symphony Orchestra, and will be attended by Berl Lazar, a chief rabbi of Russia and senior-most Chabad emissary in the country.
“The timing of the opening means that the community will be able to celebrate the High Holidays already in the new center, which will help bring children closer to the Jewish faith and people,” Zaklas added.
20,000 Jews?I do understand this ‘edifice’ is to open…but previously wherever Chabad had a ‘shul’ there… how many of these Jews avail themselves to come to daven? on Shabbos/ during the week? on Yom Tovim and how many came during the past year ‘to study’ courses that I assume were offered? May you have much mazel…but hopefully not to make it ‘so comfortable’ that these Jews will want to ‘remain’ in a country that is till this date very anti semitic…there was no mention of a mikvah? is there one? Will this place be close on Shabbos and Yom Tovim?… Read more »
THATS VERY NICE
So heartwarming to see this, in the center of Communist activities 30 years ago!!
amazing and beautiful building, a big yasher koach!!! Hashm protect them too!!
I just said the same thing to my children!
May it be used to bring more and more light into the world!
hatzlacha raba!
anything comparable in the US? love the fountain at the entrance
איזה יופי! עלו והצליחו.
ח.ו. בלוס אנג’לס
Much hatzlacha to all the Shluchim!!!
wow & wow! no words….
Siberias a nice place…
Boruch Hashem! May they only go from strength to strength
The very place where chassidim sat for years for spreading yiddishkiet! And which Jews remains? The children of the prisoners ! Truly the days of Moshiach! Chazak!!!
My Zeide would have made a lot use of this center during his ten years in the Gulags..
thats amazing!!!