New Montreal Chabad Center Nears Completion
The new Chabad center of Cote St. Luc in Montreal is near completion. The ceramic tiles from China for the lower level are due any day now, and a permanent Aron Kodesh for the main sanctuary upstairs will be ready soon, by Rosh Hashanah, IY”H; but 11 Torahs are in place, and for all intents and purposes, the tiles and the Aron amount to finishing touches.
Five years after digging first began, the Sephardi-oriented Beth Chabad Cote St. Luc, just across from Bialik High School on Kildare Road, is very close to completion, with an official opening planned for late this fall.
At 38,000 square feet, it is immense, dwarfing the size of the city’s next closest Chabad institution, the also very large, Ashkenazi-oriented Montreal Torah Centre, mere seconds away in Hampstead as the crow flies.
Beth Chabad CSL has a smaller hall for Ashkenazi services downstairs, while the main sanctuary upstairs is designated for Sephardi ritual.
But as was made very clear by its Moroccan-born director, Rabbi Mendel Raskin, 50, “every Jew is welcome” at Beth Chabad CSL, regardless of affiliation or level of religious observance.
Rabbi Raskin and his wife, Sarah, have overseen Beth Chabad CSL since 1986, when they were dispatched to Montreal as emissaries by the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, to establish a centre in Cote St. Luc.
Rabbi Raskin doesn’t know whether the new centre on Kildare is the largest Chabad institution in Canada, “but I think it would be accurate say it is one of the largest.”
When the Raskins first moved here, the centre ran out of a 5-1/2-room duplex on Earle Street off Baily Road.
It has had four other locations since then, before finding its current, permanent home. They included the Cote St. Luc Shopping Centre, Cavendish Mall, a series of temporary trailers and, for 19 months, the high school across the street.
The institution made headlines 12 years ago when its first planned permanent location next to Cavendish Mall was opposed by neighbours who felt it would be intrusive.
But “now I’m thanking those neighbours,” Rabbi Raskin said, because it ultimately led the centre – whose official name is Beth Chabad CSL Hechal Menachem – to move to where it is now.
The new building was designed by architect Maggie Cohen and constructed with $10 million raised through private as well as government and Jewish community sources, including the Jewish Community Foundation of Montreal.
Each level is 18,000 square feet, with a 2,000-square-foot mezzanine on the upper level.
The spacious lower level houses, among other things, administrative offices, conference and brides’ rooms, a kollel, and the Ashkenazi prayer hall, with plenty of room left over for a planned library, computer room, permanent youth hall and a home for the centre’s day camp, Ohr Menachem.
The lower level also contains two mikvahs – one for women and a smaller one for men – and a multi-purpose hall.
Upstairs, a 7,000-square-foot banquet hall with chandeliers imported from Morocco and a massive kitchen can accommodate hundreds of guests. The adjoining sanctuary for about 600 can be opened up to accommodate more worshippers.
The first minyan at Beth Chabad CSL was Rosh Hashanah 2011, and the centre has since hosted weddings, bar mitzvahs and other life-cycle events.
Last May, the banquet hall was inaugurated at an event marking Chabad CSL’s 26th anniversary.
Rabbi Raskin said Chabad CSL was a needed response to a burgeoning number of younger Jews and families establishing themselves in Cote St. Luc.
“When it comes to our youth, the Chabad-Lubavitch philosophy is simple… In today’s world it is imperative for our youth to have a strong grasp of Jewish practices, traditions, values and Hebrew skills,” the centre’s website, chabadcl.com, says.
“Our goal is to instil within our children and youth a sense of Jewish pride so that they love their Judaism and cherish it as their own treasure.”
Chabad at it-s best!
Reb Mendel is an emeser chasidisher yid.
Hey, all young and idealistic Shluchim (present and future): You do NOT to be “Cool” in order to be a successful Shliach! Please, keep those standards high! for the sake of YOUR SHLICHUS! for the sake of the Rebbe! for the sake of YOUR kids!
Mazel Tov
Mazel Tov!! to R’ Mendel $ Sara Raskin.
Best Shluchim ever alway there to help anyone anytime.
I agreat fully with comment #1 that shluchim dont have to have a long comb hair & the wife wear clothing 2 sizes to small. Look at R’& Mrs Raskin true example of what shluching should look like. Rhe Rabbi is having lot of naches from them.
wow wow wow
bs”d
the Rebbe’s koichos to an emesser chossid and chassidista
may you go m’choyil el choyil
Shliach
Go Sholom Ber!
Fff
http://Www.chabadcsldinner.com
A real amazing shliach
Rabbi Raskin is one of the most powerfull shluchim out there. He farbrenged in Montreal yeshiva (30 days before 10th shevat)for shnas 50, as a result he empowered the whoe yeashiva and younger school in an amazing hachna program, he then 10 years later by the ohel did the the same thing for shnas 60, this time he caused an amazing program in another country somewhere on the other side of the worls.
Hatslocha.
Maasei avois simon labonim
Rabbi Raskin literally follows in the footsteps of his father, Reb Leibke A“H. Some of the families in his community are people who joined because they wanted to continue where they left off as soon as they arrived in Montreal from Casablanca.
When I was in Morocco, Reb Leibke AH even pointed to a whole formerly Jewish neighborhood near one of his old moisdos and told me ”these people are in Montreal now, with my son.“
Sadly, Reb Leibke A”H left us far too early and is not physically with us to celebrate this opening.
A Chabad Csl Member
I am part of the Chabad CSL community, and I would like to say that there doesn’t exist a better jewish community. Rabbi and Rebetzin Raskin have made the impossible possible- and all for the good and jewish success in our community. Their focus- the young. And as a young adolescent they are doing an excellent job at keeping and elevating our faith and belief in the gift of being jewish! Thank you Raskin Family, Thank you for teaching us and implementing the precious teachings of the Rebbe, and making his wish of reunited all jew and not leaving one jew behind a reality!