A New Home for Jewish Students at University of Chicago

by Ellen Braunstein – chabad.org

Amid a week-long, anti-Israel encampment at the University of Chicago, the Jewish community proudly showed up to the groundbreaking ceremony for a $3.2-million expansion of the Rohr Chabad Center on campus.

“We believe that when Jewish students are in a crisis like this, the best thing to do is to build and to grow,” said Baila Brackman, who has directed Chabad-Lubavitch at the University of Chicago and Hyde Park with her husband, Rabbi Yossi Brackman, for the past 22 years.

Chabad’s humble beginnings were in a two-bedroom apartment and then a home acquired near campus. In 2010, the organization purchased their current center at the corner of Woodlawn Avenue and 57th Street.

The new expansion will include a large multi-purpose room that can comfortably seat 150. There will be dedicated study spaces, a student lounge, extra bathrooms and an enlarged kosher kitchen. In addition, the new basement area will include a mikvah, the first ritual bath in Hyde Park since 1976.

The student lounge will be named for Ilan Naibryf, a rising senior and Chabad student board president who died in 2021 in the tragic collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium building in Surfside, Fla. He was 21 years old.

The plans and fundraising were three years in the making. Construction is expected to be completed in 14 months.

The Chabad Center serves 800 Jewish undergraduate students and 1,000 graduate students, representing 10 percent and 12 percent of the student body, respectively.

A cornerstone was laid during the May 2 ceremonial groundbreaking. About 80 students, professors and friends of Chabad attended, including Provost Katherine Baicker.

“It was very special for students and community members to see because of the important role that Chabad plays on our campus in terms of supporting students, and really everyone in the Hyde Park community who is Jewish,” said Eliza Ross, a senior economics major from New York City who serves on the Chabad student board.

Ross acknowledged the Brackmans as pillars of the Hyde Park and university community: “To see them be able to achieve this goal and expand their life’s work, it’s such a blessing.”

Programming is expanding with the addition of Rabbi Mendel and Mussie Rapoport to their staff to support the Jewish graduate student community. With the larger space, Chabad will be able to accommodate multiple programs simultaneously.

Meanwhile, Chabad has been one of the primary supporters of Jewish students on campus, especially since the terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, and the hatred towards Jews that has come to the fore since. “At no point have they shied away from that,” Ross said. “It is so important given the climate that we’re living in right now.”

Baila Brackman said the Chabad House is a block from the main quad where there had been large and virulent anti-Israel protests. The encampments were disbanded on May 7.

She added, “We won’t let anything pull us down. We will always just plow forward and we’ll expand”

It’s a message that the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, relayed in times of challenge.

“We want the students to know that we will always be there for them and will always be their source of strength.” Baila Brackman said.

At the Chabad Center, they will find their connection to Judaism and their eternal heritage, said Brackman. “The encampment they recognize as something temporary. We’re planning a permanent place for them.”