Chabad West Hills, CA to Buy Building, Double Size

After a blow up with his parents over a fender bender, Matt DeRose, 16, peeled out of the house on foot and disappeared.

A few hours after he vanished, Matt called home on his cell. When he finally phoned his mom Robin was relieved. When Matt revealed where he ran to, Robin was proud.

“Pick me up. I am at Chabad.”

Even though three years have passed since Matt studied intensively for his bar mitzvah with Rabbi Avi Rabin, co-director of Chabad of West Hills, Matt “loves Rabbi. He respects Rabbi,” said DeRose. That her son considers Chabad his place of refuge spoke volumes. “Matt’s Jewish soul is in place.”

To give more children in the bedroom community of West Hills the chance to experience Judaism as “meaningful, spiritual and fun,” Rabbi Avi and Dena Rabin announced to their intention to buy a property that will double Chabad’s existing space.

“We’re doing it for the children,” Rabbi Rabin said. “We want them to be comfortable and enjoy coming to shul.”

When Matt was waiting for his mom to arrive, he was sitting on the curb of Chabad’s 1200 square foot storefront. In its four years in the strip mall, near karate dojos for first grade fighters, nail salons, and pasta-pizza joints, Chabad of West Hills has been pushing along the momentum that is changing this sleepy corner of the San Fernando Valley into a center for Jewish life.

West Hills is one of those LA county cities that blends, like a watercolor painting left out in the rain, with its neighbors. Carved from Canoga Park on land once owned by a pioneering oil geologist, West Hills has lower housing prices than neighboring Agoura and Calabasas. Young families priced out of the market in other areas have flocked to West Hills, where a median priced home arrives with a $450,000 price tag, a steal of a deal in the pricey valley.

Real estate prices dropped this year over last by about another 2.5%, according to real estate site Trulia.com. This latest dip pushed the Rabins to speed their property hunting, before mortgage rates and housing prices rebound. Searching for the right place took the Rabins to Valley Circle, a busy street in the hub of West Hills’ life. Their pick: a 2,600 square foot building with a garage and backyard.

“A lot of blessings have to align to secure a loan in today’s economy,” said Rabbi Rabin. But he’s going for it.

When the jackhammering and wallboard work is done, the proposed Chabad of West Hills will have a spacious synagogue, social hall, offices, and the Rabins’ favorite: a children’s room and play space. They envision hosting their 100 Hebrew school students, which now meets at the nearby JCC, for special class-by-class family Shabbat experiences.

Amatsia Merom, an Israeli who’s lived in California for 23 years and had little affiliation until he met the Rabins, expects his son Shawn, 11, to enjoy the new location. “My son comes with me every Friday night to shul, and he loves going there.” Shawn is part of a pack of pre-bar mitzvah age boys that hangs out at Chabad on Shabbat, a clique so tight that one boy showed up to attend services even though his father was out of town. “With his good, not pushy ways, Rabbi Rabin has changed West Hills. We can sense Jewish life here now.”

Amatsia Merom, an Israeli who’s lived in California for 23 years and had little affiliation until he met the Rabins, expects his son Shawn, 11, to enjoy the new location. “My son comes with me every Friday night to shul, and he loves going there.” Shawn is part of a pack of pre-bar mitzvah age boys that hangs out at Chabad on Shabbat, a clique so tight that one boy showed up to attend services even though his father was out of town. “With his good, not pushy ways, Rabbi Rabin has changed West Hills. We can sense Jewish life here now.”

Adults have their own programs at Chabad of West Hills, too. Dena Rabin’s Women’s Circle attracts enough women to fill three banquet tables at each event and is “a whole lot of fun, a girls’ night out with a Jewish touch,” according to DeRose. DeRose also is an avid student of Rabbi Rabin’s Jewish Learning Institute classes. Inspired by the rabbi’s JLI class on the spiritual aspects of Israel, she took her son Matt on a ten-day trip there two summers ago.

Community members call Rabbi Rabin a natural teacher. Jonathan Burstein, 44, met Rabbi Rabin when his wife’s family was mourning the loss of an uncle. “Rabbi Rabin came to shiva every night, and I got the Rabin-Chabad bug.” At Burstein’s request the two have been studying Tanya, the central work of Chabad philosophy, every week. Rabbi Rabin “has the ability to translate deep knowledge to a level of understanding. He is very talented,” Burstein said.

Rabbi Rabin grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, attended Jewish schools there and in Australia. Ordained at the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, NJ, his first at bat as a Chabad representative was in Tzfat, Israel, and teaching at Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.

Co-director of Chabad of West Hills, Dena Rabin grew up a freeway drive away from her current home in Encino, CA, the daughter of Chabad of the Valley executive director Rabbi Joshua and Deborah Gordon. Her in-born knowledge of Chabad community life was honed in a Jerusalem Chabad seminary and as a teacher and youth leader in Alaska. The couple has two children, Menachem Mendel and Kressa Toba.

Their young family and Chabad’s new building will add visibility to the Jewish population of West Hills.

Numbers are wobbly, but locals estimate that it is sizable and ballpark the neighborhood public school population at 40% Jewish. In 2002, the pluralistic New Community Jewish High School gave teens an alternative to public school or braving freeway traffic for Jewish education. This spring, the area’s first full kosher grocery and cafe Heavenly Fresh Market opened, taking the hassle out of purveying kosher food from Encino or Tarzana, several cities away.

Their young family and Chabad’s new building will add visibility to the Jewish population of West Hills. Numbers are wobbly, but locals estimate that it is sizable and ballpark the neighborhood public school population at 40% Jewish. In 2002, the pluralistic New Community Jewish High School gave teens an alternative to public school or braving freeway traffic for Jewish education. This spring, the area’s first full kosher grocery and cafe Heavenly Fresh Market opened, taking the hassle out of purveying kosher food from Encino or Tarzana, several cities away.

DeRose believes the time is right for Chabad of West Hills to expand. “Rabbi Rabin shows you how easy it is to connect to G-d. And there are a lot of us here who have never been taught that. That’s why we are supportive of Chabad.”

Article from (Lubavitch.com)