New Center for Cape Coral

News Press

A ribbon was cut and a mezuzah was affixed to a doorway Sunday to officially dedicate the Chabad Jewish Center of Cape Coral.

The mezuzah, a small case containing verses from the Torah that hangs in the doorways of Jewish homes, was the final touch that helped culminate the Chabad’s eight years of development as a much-needed center for the Cape’s Jewish community.

Services the Chabad will offer include an outreach center, a school, a synagogue, a family center, hospital visitations, winter and summer camps and a child care facility.

“It is an unbelievable thing,” said Rabbi David Labkowski, brother of the center’s leader, Rabbi Yossi Labkowski.

“This is a new beginning for the local Jewish community,” he said.

Those of the Jewish faith who attended the opening also attested to its importance.

“It is a home for religious Jews, non-religious Jews and just to Jews, period,” said Ruthie Amoyal of the Cape. “You can feel at home here, you can feel safe. You can come here to pray, to learn, to make friends and to grow in the faith.”

David Labkowski, who runs a similar center in Oakland, Calif., said the Cape’s new center would administer to all Jews, regardless of age, gender or fervor.

“This community never had such a place,” he said, but added that the local Jewish community has been growing and needed the center.

Yossi Labkowski and his wife, Rivky, came to the Cape eight years ago on a mission to open the center. It was a calling made to the Labkowskis when it was evident that the Cape’s Jewish community had grown enough to sustain such a center he said. He added that the reactions to the couple were varied — from shock to excitement.

“Rabbi, we waited 15 years for Chabad to come to Cape Coral,” he said Cape Jewish residents told him. “And then they said, ‘Rabbi … Cape Coral?’”

Chabad is part of a worldwide organization that administers to Jews; the word is a Hebrew acronym for wisdom, comprehension and knowledge.

The movement’s philosophy guides Jews to refine and govern their acts and feeling through wisdom, comprehension and knowledge, Rabbi Yossi said.

For the rabbi and his wife, the Chabad, at 1716 West Cape Coral Parkway, is more than that.

“It is more than just a synagogue or a school,” he said.

Yossi Labkowski acknowledged organizing the Chabad here was an arduous task, made more so by funding issues and a lack of a starting organization.

“We had to build it from the start, from grass roots,” he said.

The importance of the opening to the area was evident in those who attended the ceremonies. Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott; state Reps. Gary Aubuchon and Paige Kreegel; and Cape Mayor John Sullivan all welcomed the Chabad.

Rivky Labkowski said the couple have been working diligently to make the center a reality.

“We started in our living room and it grew and grew,” she said. “And every day when my husband and I walked by this building he’d say, ‘Someday this building will be ours.’”