After 22 years in operation, the Chabad Israeli Center of Rockville (Chabad) will soon expand into an Israeli community center, taking over the building that previously housed Makom.
The new center on East Jefferson Street will feature a place of worship, classrooms and a social hall. It will serve as an educational center for people of all ages and a hub for community and social events, according to Steven VanGrack, an attorney who is closely involved with the Chabad Israeli Center of Rockville.
“It will be a Jewish institution of pride for the Jewish and Rockville communities,” VanGrack wrote in an email he forwarded to Washington Jewish Week.
“We want this to be a home away from home,” Rabbi Shlomo Beitsh of Chabad told Washington Jewish Week.
He added that this decision comes after years of searching for “the right building.”
Chabad will host a gala dinner featuring Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter on Sept. 7 to fundraise for the new building. Community members’ donations will contribute to the $750,000 in renovations that are needed to turn the existing office space into a synagogue and social hall.
“We took an office building and we[‘ll] tear [all of the interior] down,” Beitsh said. “One floor will be the education wing, which will have classrooms, and we have to put up little bathrooms in every classroom and [build] a teachers’ room. The bottom floor will have the social hall, the sanctuary, the lobby, bathrooms and kitchen.”
The education wing will house a Hebrew school and preschool classrooms, the latter being a longtime dream for Beitsh.
Each of these amenities will be new, Beitsh said. He estimates that with the additional cost of furniture, the building itself and hiring an architect, engineers and construction workers, the total cost of the project will be nearly $1 million.
Local philanthropist Zion Avissar assisted Chabad financially on the day of closing: “He’s a pillar in our community and [has been] involved with supporting us since day one,” Beitsh said.
The building is named for Avissar and his wife, Cookie. Many members of Chabad have also already pledged their support, with the opportunity for major donors to dedicate a classroom or space.
“I feel this will bring a major increase in our activities for the community, [between] new opportunities at this preschool and having our own place to host events and lectures, so we will be able to do much more than before,” Beitsh said, adding that Chabad used to rent classrooms for educational use.
But renting out classrooms limited the group to a few hours at a time, and Beitsh couldn’t keep materials or hang educational posters in the rented rooms.
“Now we have the space to do it,” he said.
Beitsh added that Rockville and its surrounding areas have a large population of Israeli Americans who will benefit from the addition of the Israeli community center. The building’s locale is convenient for many Orthodox Jewish Rockville residents, in particular.
“Where it’s located is very important because many Orthodox members of this Chabad have purchased properties close to where they were praying before, and this is maybe a block and a half away,” VanGrack said.
He added that the Israeli community center’s proximity to a Metro station could boost economic development in the area: “This has great potential to have growth in Rockville.”
Though this Chabad primarily serves the local Hebrew-speaking and Israeli communities, Beitsh said Chabad’s doors are open to “every Jew.”
“I am very happy that we reached this stage, and we[‘ve gotten] a lot of feedback from the community, because this is not my project — it’s a community project,” Beitsh said. “A lot of people are involved and excited, waiting for the day [the new center] opens.”
The Chabad Israeli Center of Rockville saw its start in 2002, when Beitsh and his wife moved from Brooklyn to Rockville. The two lived in a townhouse in the Rollins Park Apartments, dubbed “the kibbutz” by local Israelis.
The following summer, they bought the current Chabad house on Rollins Avenue.
“We were looking for a house [where] you can separate living space and synagogue space, and that was a very right fit,” Beitsh said.
He and his wife lived upstairs, while the synagogue operated downstairs. They hosted services every Shabbat and on holidays and launched the Hebrew school. In 2006, Beitsh purchased the adjacent house to live in, leaving the entire original house for Chabad’s use.
But the journey hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Chabad was subject to eight years of litigation and legal proceedings — even ordered to shut down by a court judge in 2010 — due to neighbors’ concerns about traffic, noise, occupancy and fire safety.
Chabad eventually won in 2016.
“This is the synagogue that had to fight the city for eight years for existence,” said VanGrack, who represented Beitsh and Chabad.
For now, the two are optimistic about Chabad’s future.
“People want to have a center to celebrate and connect,” Beitsh said. “People want to have a place for their kids for their education. It’s people who see that as a very vital part of Jewish life.”
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