Jewishcenter Caters to College Students

Community leaders, including FIU President Modesto Maidique and Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger, joined in the dedication ceremony of a new Jewish student center March 11.

Generations of families joined in the small living room of the Tabacinic Chabad House on March 11, watching as community leaders stood by scribe Rabbi Moshe Klein while he finished the year-long process of writing the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew bible, by hand.

More pictures in the Extended Article!

It was a celebration not only of the Torah but of the home it would sit in as well. The Tabacinic House is meant to cater to the estimated 3,000 Jewish students attending nearby Florida International University.

”The main objective is to provide a place for all students to feel comfortable and learn about their culture and have a place that feels like home where they can talk to someone,” said Rabbi Levi Friedman, the center’s director.

The center was previously operating from a town home west of the school since 2004. According to Friedman, various community leaders were approached about donating to the project that cost an estimated $500,000.

The center’s programs include classes on the Jewish faith as well as Shabbat dinners, social gatherings and on-campus events teaching Judaism.

”It gives the youth in this area a place to get together among the Jewish community,” said Kelly Scavone, 22, a University of Central Florida graduate who also attended the UCF center, one of eight in Florida.

”[Some students] like it for social reasons, but it’s more than that,” she said. “It’s more emphasized on developing the student on the inside.”

FIU junior Mike Chervony, 22, said he began attending the center’s dinners after recently joining a Jewish fraternity.

”It fulfills the need for spiritual growth,” he said. “There are more people like me; it’s nice to have supporters.”

The center certainly brought together a combination of tradition and modernity as the crowd filled in to the center’s dedication ceremony, attended by FIU President Modesto Maidique and Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger. The older men, largely rabbis, stood in their long black coats as students received their complimentary kippah, the traditional Jewish cap, and young children sat on their mothers’ laps.

Maidique joked that he had a genetic study done that proved 75 percent of his closest genetic matches were Jewish.

”We’re working to make FIU a great university, and every great university has a [strong presence] of Jewish students and faculty,” he said. “I think that this home will bring a home away from home for many students.”

Chief Rabbi Metzger expressed a similar sentiment.

”This is one place, a home for a lot of students. They know others here. They found the Kiddush, everything that is basic to us, is new to them,” he said, adding that he hopes they will need a bigger center by his next visit.