Over the coming year, 10 new Chabad Houses will open for Jewish students around the world, bringing the total number of centers represented by the Chabad on Campus International Foundation to more than 150.
As the organization’s annual conference of Chabad on Campus emissaries kicked off in upstate New York, Rabbi Menachem Schmidt, the foundation’s president and executive director of the Lubavitch House at the University of Pennsylvania, said the expansion will include schools not traditionally served by Jewish programming.
“As more and more emissaries take up positions at campuses across the globe,” said Schmidt, “we are strengthening our mission in reaching Jewish students wherever they are. So too, training sessions at the conference will provide emissaries with tools to maximize their efforts on campus.”
Planning discussions took place at the annual conference, which brought Chabad on Campus emissaries to the Hudson Valley Resort in Kerhonkson, N.Y., for three days of workshops and presentations looking at innovative approaches and best practices in providing Jewish students a “home away from home” on campus.
Repeating a charge he’s echoed many times in the past, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, chairman of the Chabad on Campus International Foundation and vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch, said that the growth – while inspiring – must continue.
“While Chabad on Campus has grown to almost 150 campuses, and individual Chabad Houses on campus are bursting at the seams,” said Kotlarsky, “we have to go beyond that and break our own boundaries by exponentially increasing attendance at programs, students' participation at Shabbat dinners, Torah classes and holiday celebrations.”
Philanthropist George Rohr, whose generosity has underwritten most of the expansion of Chabad on Campus, as well as funded new non-campus Chabad-Lubavitch centers and Torah learning programs around the world, echoed Kotlarsky.
“I came to tell you first and foremost how very proud I am of each of you, how proud I am of your children who are part and parcel of your work, and how proud I am of your accomplishments,” he said. “The era of Chabad of Campus is only beginning. We are really only at the threshold of what needs to be accomplished.
“Yes, the growth has been breathtaking,” he continued. “But we shouldn’t be satisfied. We need to increase across the board in both the quantity and more importantly the quality of all we do.”
Reflecting that message, Rabbi Yossy Gordon, executive vice president of Chabad on Campus, said that in spite of continuing economic hardships, Chabad Houses were doing remarkable things in making Jewish students feel welcome, connected, and empowered. On an organizational level, Chabad on Campus was doing the same thing.
“All of our emissaries can benefit from continuing professional training and support,” he said. “As these centers grow in their scope and sophistication, we are creating more support for them on many levels.”
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