Source: JTA
Hundreds are expected to attend this week's opening in Novosibirsk of the Beit Menachem Center. An open-air concert by Israeli musicians will be featured at the opening ceremony of what is being called the largest Jewish community center in Siberia, Russia.
According to Rabbi Zalman Zaklas, the city’s chief rabbi and emissary for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, the center cost approximately $5 million to build. The center, which has 37,000 square feet of floor space, has a synagogue, classrooms, a kosher restaurant and Jewish shops, as well as a computer corner, entertainment area and gym.
Approximately 20,000 of the 3.5 million residents of greater Novosibirsk are Jewish, according to Zaklas, an Israeli rabbi who has been living in Novosibirsk for 13 years.
Read more at JTA.