Third Chabad Center Opens in Shanghai

Shanghai’s Jewish community turned out en masse to celebrate the formal opening of a new Chabad center in the heart of the city’s downtown area, Sunday, November 6.

It is the third Jewish center to open in Shanghai under the direction of Chabad’s chief representatives to Shanghai, Rabbi Shalom and Dinie Greenberg.

“The necessity for a third location is a wonderful reflection of Jewish pride here in Shanghai, and evidence of the lively growth of the Jewish community,” Rabbi Greenberg told lubavitch.com.

Rabbi Shlomo and Anael Aouizerat, Chabad representatives to the new center have been serving the French Jews of “Asia’s Paris,” as the area is known, since arriving to Shanghai four years ago.

At first, the Aouizerats shared space with the Greenberg’s Shanghai Jewish Center, hosting activities for French speaking members, with Rabbi Shlomo officiating as the Center’s Sephardic Rabbi.

During the Shanghai Expo 2010, Rabbi Shlomo officiated at the historic Ohel Rachel Synagogue which Chinese authorities allowed the community to use for Shabbat services and dinner. Ohel Rachel is located in the center of Downtown Shanghai.

The area’s numbers of young Jewish professionals swelled over that period, and when the synagogue was closed again at the end of the Expo, Chabad continued to host activities and services in a nearby location, eventually drawing nearly 100 people to Friday evening Shabbat services.

“As the community simply kept growing, it became obvious that a new Jewish Center was in the making,” said Rabbi Greenberg.

A rented facility renovated to comfortably accommodate all of Chabad’s local programs and services, the new center includes a synagogue, Beit Midrash study hall and KosherMart, where Jewish residents and visitors can purchase kosher products. The synagogue was sponsored by the Benchetrit and Taieb families. The Teboul family underwrote the Bet Midrash.

Located near the Ohel Rachel Synagogue, the new center “offers us the opportunity to be more integrated with the historic landmark that we have worked so hard, over so many years, to keep functional,” said Rabbi Greenberg. “We still wait for the day, hopefully soon, that Ohel Rachel will once again be used regularly by our community.

Community members took their turns with the scribe filling the final letters in a new Torah scroll dedicated to The Downtown Jewish Center.