The Chief Rabbinate of Kazakhstan, headed by Rabbi Yeshayah Elazar Cohen, has welcomed an initiative by the Ohr Avner organization, run by Lev Leviev, to open a shul in a new district of Almaty.
The Rabbinate also welcomed Ohr Avner's representative, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Gershovitz, who opened the shul.
"We welcome this initiative, thanks to which Jews living far away from the Chabad Lubavitch shul can now attend services on the High Holy Days," said Rabbi Cohen. "This only shows an increase in the desire among the Jews of Almaty to grow closer to their Judaism as a result of the hard and dedicated work of the shluchim who have been here for thirteen years."
Rabbi Cohen added that this is the third Chabad shul operating in Almaty. Apart from the Jewish center, there is a shul in the Gershuni school, run by Rabbi Shevach Zoltopovsky, located in another neighborhood.
Rabbi Cohen is hoping that soon there will be so many congregants that the new shul will outgrow its premises "just like when we built the central shul and we thought that it was huge. But it did not take long before it became too small, and we had to extend it. I hope that this will also happen with this new minyan."
The building is the first to be given by the Almaty municipality to the community for the Jewish school. This was at the request of the Chief Rabbi of Kazakhstan, Rabbi Yeshayah Elazar Cohen, and the entrepreneur Arkady Gaydamek, who sponsored the renovation of the building in memory of his late father. The Chabad shluchim, headed by Rabbi Cohen, attended the official opening ceremony.
As the renovations were not complete by the time that the school year began, the students learned for three months in the Beis Menachem Chabad Lubavitch center. The offices were used as classrooms, and the shul itself was divided with screens into classrooms. Even the mikveh reception room was used as a classroom.
Mr. Gaydamek went on to purchase a larger building for the school, and the kindergartens were transferred to the building given by the city. The kindergartens have since been moved to the school building, which has been renovated again, with the funding provided by Ohr Avner.
