A New Home for Chabad: East of the River

Glastonbury, CT — Six years ago, Rabbi Yosef Wolvovsky and his wife Yehudis ran the fledgling Chabad: East of the River from their small two bedroom apartment in Glastonbury. As demand for their programs grew, Chabad events were held in rented spaces at local schools or banquet halls.

Now the Wolvovskys are set to formally open and dedicate Chabad’s new home east of the river n The Benet Rothstein Chabad Jewish Center in Glastonbury, a 5,000-square-foot community center that will house all of Chabad’s programming- from services and holiday observances, to adult education classes, to social events, like bar mitzvahs, engagement parties, etc.

More pictures in the Extended Article!

The grand opening of the new Chabad Center will be held Sunday, June 3 beginning at 1 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Local and state dignitaries are set to attend the family-friendly event which will feature outdoor activities like moon walks and arts and crafts projects for the kids and refreshments by kosher caterer Margery Gussak.

“We invite every member of the community to celebrate this great milestone,” said Rabbi Wolvovsky, executive director of Chabad: East of the River. “Our doors are open to everyone.”

Dr. Carl Mandell, principal of the Solomon Schechter Day School in West Hartford, who is also a member of Temple Beth Sholom in Manchester, and his wife Cruz have participated in several adult education and holiday programs with Chabad: East of the River. Cruz Mandell is very involved with the Center’s Women’s Touch group, run by Rabbi Wolvovsky’s wife Yehudis.

“My feeling is that we can’t have enough Jewish opportunities,” Carl Mandell said. “For us, being east of the river, often we have to travel west of the river. It is nice to have, in addition to Temple Beth Sholom’s programming, other synagogues including the Chabad synagogue.”
A permanent home

Two years ago Chabad: East of the River purchased the former Glastonbury Market building on Harris Street in Glastonbury when it was decided that they needed a permanent home.

“The whole building was basically one room,” said Rabbi Wolvovsky as he recently gave a reporter a tour around the newly completed building. “It was an old building and it was also a little run down. When we purchased it, we had to come up with a plan for what we needed to do with the space, so we hired an architect, and for all practical purposes, everything is new, except literally the outside walls.”

The building now features a brand new stone façade that was designed by the local architectural firm of Russell and Dawson.

“The architect never worked for a Jewish organization before, so he googled ‘Jewish temple’ and an image of the ancient temple in Jerusalem came up,” Wolvovsky said. “So he made an archway to resemble that archway.”

The building has three separate areas: one dedicated to education, with one room for adult education classes, a bright children’s room and a room that will eventually house a library, multi-media center and conference room; another houses the receptionist and rabbi’s offices and the kitchen; and the final area is the large multi-purpose main room that will be used as both sanctuary and for larger social functions. Local interior designer Rita Brownstein worked on the interior layout of the building.

Original artwork lines the walls of the building and Rabbi Wolvovsky’s plan is for the “whole building to be a revolving art gallery, so every six months we will have a new theme.”

The theme of the art work on the walls now, created by a Russian artist, is apples n whole apples, sliced apples, and apples and honey.

“We did apples because we eat apples and honey on Rosh Hashanah, but also because we wanted something that somehow is associated with Glastonbury, which has the Apple Festival. It has a Jewish twist, but also has a secular twist that anyone would be interested in.”

The purchase of the building and renovations cost a total of $1.2 million, one-third of which has already been raised by local donors, led by Harold Rothstein, who will name the building in honor of his son, Benet. Other donors include Gene Rosenberg of Bob’s Discount Furniture, Alan Lazowski of LAZ Parking, Ilya Tsvok (who will name the sanctuary in memory of his son, Mark, who died in a tragic car accident); Jeffrey Hoffman of the Hoffman Auto Group; David Chase of Chase Enterprises; The Gelles Family; Bruce and Roberta Singer of Puritan Furniture; Stuart Cohn; Dr. Steve and Nancy Hershcopf; Attorney Bruce Beck; caterer Margery Gussak of Margery Gussak; Catering; Drs. Peter and Emily Buch; The Balaban Family; and Mr. & Mrs. Marvin Selsky.

Rabbi Wolvovsky said that another important supporter has been his father-in-law, Rabbi Joseph Gopin of Chabad of Greater Hartford.

“It is truly heartening to see how much the people and supporters of Chabad in Harford care about the entire region,” he said.

The grand opening of the Chabad Jewish Center is on Sunday, June 3, 1 p.m., at 25 Harris Street in Glastonbury.

For more information on the Chabad Jewish Center, call (860) 659-2422, email Rabbi@ChabadER.com.

or log on to www.ChabadER.com.