Jewish Russian Congregation Expanding in Sunny Isles Beach

SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL — In a small storefront synagogue in Sunny Isles Beach, Rabbi Alexander Kaller leads a Jewish-Russian congregation that is bursting at the seams.

The 65 seats at the Chabad Russian Center surely are an upgrade from the rabbi’s living room, where the synagogue humbly started off in 2002, or the meeting room at the Oceania condos, where they moved to after a few months.


But the space is not enough. With more than 2,000 families, the congregation has grown in the past five years as Russian immigrants have flooded Sunny Isles Beach and surrounding cities.

Kaller, 31, who was born in Moscow, once worried about finding members. Now he worries about where to put them, and a 1,000-square-foot space in a strip mall at 157 Sunny Isles Blvd., tucked between Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Million Dollar Nails, is not cutting it anymore.

”Clearly, we outgrew it already,” he said. “I didn’t know the numbers before I came, but over the last five years there was a tremendous amount of people that moved here.”

Immigrants from all over the former Soviet Union — most of whom call themselves Russian, regardless of nationality — made up almost 10 percent of the city’s population of about 15,000 in 2000. But the inflow has intensified, and Jewish Russians, Ukrainians, Moldovans and Georgians, just to name a few, have picked the Orthodox Chabad Russian Center as their home away from home.

For many of them, it’s not just about the worship; it’s the only way to unite a fragmented community.

”We’re not very religious,” said Odessa-born Larisa Frid, 37, as she stood next to her husband, Erik Frid, who was born in Minsk. “We didn’t understand it, we were always afraid of it, but you don’t feel stupid going.

Now, ”it’s just part of our lives,” she said.

For a Hanukkah celebration Monday inside a Hallandale Beach nightclub named Tatiana, 350 tickets were sold before the doors even opened. It was standing-room only and filled with children.

Building up the congregation from scratch wasn’t easy for Kaller, who came into town in 2002 with a 1987 Saab and a mission.

”This was already Russian ground zero,” he said.

He walked the streets talking to anyone with a hint of an Eastern European accent. The strip mall where he eventually settled was on its way to becoming the ”Russian Plaza,” as it is informally known today. Among the stores: Moscow Video, a Russian real estate agent, and a Russian-owned restaurant.

As his group grew, Kaller had to grapple with the fact that religious suppression in immigrants’ homelands had erased their knowledge of Judaism.

”We literally were robbed of our ability to embrace our religion and our culture,” he said.

North Miami Beach resident Eve Rayns, who came from Russia as a 2-year-old, personifies that loss. Her grandparents were forced to study Judaism in a basement so no one would find out. Rayns and her husband, a Russian-born real estate agent, came to Kaller with little religious education and hopes that he would be able to understand their dilemma.

”For him to reteach everything right now, it’s very difficult,” Rayns said.

But something must be working: ”I started eating kosher because of the rabbi,” she said.

That’s the case with many members of the Chabad Russian Center, Kaller said. It’s a gradual process. Some start walking instead of driving to the synagogue on the Sabbath, when operating machines or other work is prohibited. Others hang up a mezuzah — an encased piece of parchment with verses from the Torah — on their door.

”These people are rediscovering their roots, their traditions, slowly but surely,” he said.

The center, which already offers Friday night and Saturday morning services in Russian and English — Kaller also speaks Hebrew — is expanding its programs. In August, the center opened a Jewish-Russian preschool in North Miami. A bilingual magazine, in Russian and English, is published monthly with a circulation of 3,500.

During the High Holidays, the center rents out hotels and nightclubs. Someday, Kaller hopes, they will be able to fit the crowds into their own space.

”Our dream and our plan is that one day we’ll have a home of our own,” he said.