$6M Center Opens in Puerto Rico

By Eric Berger, Chabad.org

Back in 1998 when Rabbi Mendel Zarchi was in a Kollel Institute for Advanced Studies listening to graduates talk about where they might land, someone mentioned a place that had not always been hospitable to Jews: Puerto Rico.

Zarchi was aware of its history—Jews had been prohibited from practicing their religion on the island, which was controlled by Spain and influenced by the Spanish Inquisition for hundreds of years. The numbers didn’t change until the 1950s, when Jews started moving to what had become a U.S. territory.

In 1999, he and his wife, Rachel, decided to take on the challenge and move there, starting the Rohr Chabad Lubavitch Center of Puerto Rico.

“The Chabad mission of bringing the Jewish experience to every area in the world presented an especially unique opportunity in a place where people could not historically live an open Jewish life,” says the rabbi.

The emissaries have since faced a host of obstacles—most notably, a local economic collapse—but they got get to see the fruits of their efforts when a new center was inaugurated on Sept. 13.

“It presents a great opportunity and a resource for the community at large—for those who live here or are visiting—to enhance their Jewish experience, whether spiritual or physical. It’s a place to spend some time,” says Zarchi.

He estimates that about 3,000 Jews live in Puerto Rico.

An Island ‘Oasis’

Zarchi and community members started planning and fundraising for a new facility in 2008. Since then, the Puerto Rican government has slipped into a debt crisis. After corporate tax breaks expired in 2006, companies started to leave the Caribbean island—a development widely reported in the media. The government now is more than $70 billion in debt, and the poverty rate exceeds 40 percent.

“Many of our potential donors had great losses or lost income, and they just couldn’t live up to their previous commitments. And it does take money to build a new center,” acknowledges the rabbi.

A groundbreaking for the new facility took place in December 2013, but construction did not actually begin until a year later.

The 11,000 square-foot-building, including the purchase of land, cost $6 million, according to Zarchi. It features a synagogue, kosher dining hall, study room, classrooms and the island’s first mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath. That addition alone, he states, makes the center “all the more meaningful and special.”

The interior is white, open and airy—typical of a place that gets plenty of natural light—with rich wood tones.

Amenities also include those for young families, including space for Hebrew school, children’s activities and the annual Gan Israel summer camp.

Attending the grand opening were Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Alejandro Javier García Padilla, Merkos Vice Chairman Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky and 3 Holocaust survivors.

The rabbi notes that Chabad was able to complete the center because of the generosity of the very diverse Jewish community there. “It’s only through dedication and devotion of so many,” he insists, “that this was able to come to fruition.”

Video: Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, Vice Chairman of Merkos, speaks at the opening event