Binghamton Alumni Pack Ballroom for Jewish Center’s 25th Anniversary

Hundreds of candles glinted off wine glasses while a burnished chandelier hanging from a 70-foot-high ceiling cast a rosy glow over the packed marble-clad ballroom of New York City’s Gotham Hall.

By all accounts, the Oct. 17 celebratory dinner – a tribute to Chabad-Lubavitch of Binghamton’s 25 years serving students, faculty and community members at Binghamton University – and its gilded air would have been unthinkable in the organization’s early days.

When Rabbi Aaron and Rivkah Slonim first arrived to the school in 1985, “it was all new and uncharted territory,” she revealed as the crowd of 600 people filed in. Nothing could have predicted the revolution the Slonims’ arrival would set in motion among thousands of Jewish students, their families, communities back home, and future pursuits.

“What the Slonims offer is genuine,” alumna Lori Ben-Ezra, Class of 1987, one of the dinner’s many honorees, announced after taking the dais with her husband and fellow honoree, Marc Ben-Ezra, who also graduated in 1987. It’s a “genuine and incredible love for and understanding of people, a genuine love for Judaism and a genuine home away from home that students can turn to and find leadership and guidance.

“There is no doubt that their work is successful and that it becomes multiplied after students graduate and continue to nurture their Jewish heritage within their own families and communities,” continued Ben-Ezra, who met her future husband at Binghamton’s Kosher Kitchen. “It’s plain and simple. An investment in Chabad of Binghamton is an investment in the future generations of Jews, in better citizenship and in our communities.”

When the Ben-Ezras were undergrads, the Slonims first reached out to students from an information table at the student union and through Shabbat dinners in the young couple’s tiny off-campus apartment. But before they knew it, the dinners took off; they were so popular and the apartment became so crowded each Friday night that they moved to a house. The basement of that home also became overcrowded, and developer Barry Newman was called in to create an extra fire door.

“When I saw them crammed into that room like sardines, I realized what they needed wasn’t a new fire escape,” Newman deadpanned for the crowd at the Gotham. “They needed a new building.”

And they got one. Several years later, the center expanded again, and then again.

Newman, who today serves as the organization’s president of the board, assisted the Slonims through three separate expansions. The latest project, the $3.5 million Chabad Center for Jewish Student Life, opened its doors two years ago.

The Slonims – with the assistance of their son and daughter-in-law, Rabbi Levi and Hadasa Slonim, who serve as program directors, and Rabbi Zalman and Rochel Chein, who head up Bingamton’s Chabad on the West Side – reach thousands of students each year. More than 500 take part in classes and assorted activities at the center each week.

“Every year the number grows,” said Aaron Slonim.

Brian T. Rose, Binghamton’s vice president for student affairs, noted that Chabad’s mission dovetails with the university’s quest to produce future leaders.

“Chabad aims for each student that comes through its doors to be not only a better Jew, but a better person,” said Rose. “The essence of a Binghamton education is that we want each student to become not only a better chemist, economist, engineer, or musician, but also a better person.”

Article continued (chabad.org)