Chabad Jewish Family Center Opens

SALT LAKE CITY, UT — With the sounding of a shofar, the celebration of an expanded facility for Jewish Family Services was held Wednesday near 3300 South and 1100 East.

Rabbi Benny Zippel of Chabad Lubavitch of Utah opened the ceremonies by blowing a ram’s horn or shofar — a signal to observant Jews of past, present and future, and their need to be always connected with God.

He and Carol Einhorn, executive director of JFS, hung a mezuzah — a small box containing a tiny Torah prayer scroll — on a door post leading into the agency’s newly expanded offices at 1111 E. Brickyard Road. Rabbi Zippel asked God’s ongoing presence to be with all those who serve the agency’s elderly and low-income clients.

First established in Salt Lake City in 1872, JFS has served “countless transients, counseled thousands of stressed individuals and families and resettled hundreds of refugees,” according to board president Julie Jacobson. Last year, while operating out of “two cramped and widely separated offices,” the agency counseled more than 220 people, managed care for 400 seniors (200 of whom were refugees), taught “life skills” classes to dozens of elementary school students and educated more than 800 parents and grandparents on substance abuse prevention, she said.

The expanded facility will allow the agency to “operate more efficiently and help more clients,” as well as to provide support groups, for which there previously was no space, she said.

“We are enormously grateful to Bernie Schochet, of blessed memory, a quiet and religious man, for making this possible,” she said.

Officials anticipate that the number of people over 65 seeking out their services will grow dramatically in the coming years, and the new offices and large common area will allow them to better practice Tikkun Olam, a Hebrew phrase that means “mending or healing the world,” Jacobson said.

Rabbi Tracee Rosen of Salt Lake’s Congregation Kol Ami said the agency honors God’s creation in the diversity of human beings by reaching out to those in need as they recognize dignity of all. She recalled how two JFS officials were among the first to help minister to the hundreds of Hurricane Katrina refugees who were housed for weeks at Camp Williams two years ago.

“You are a blessing to the Jewish community, the Salt Lake community, and to the world,” she said. JFS is a nonprofit agency that provides services to people of all faiths.

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon attended the event and offered brief remarks, thanking the agency for supplementing government efforts to help the disadvantaged.

For information about Jewish Family Services, see the Web site at www.jfsutah.org or call 746-4334.