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Cornerstone Ceremony
of the new, bigger & better Shabbos House
Jewish Student Center
On Sunday, September 14th /
Elul 14, under sunny skies (despite the forecast for thunderstorms), friends of
Shabbos House gathered together on the construction site at 320 Fuller Road to
celebrate the dedication of the cornerstone of the new building. The crowd
(between 200-250 people) was a nice mix of students and alumni, neighbors and
community, and University representatives.
Speakers included
Christine Bouchard, UAlbany Vice President of Student Success; Rabbi Israel
Rubin, regional director of Capital Region Chabad Centers and founder of Shabbos
House; Sheryl Hoffman, President of the L’chaim Student Group; Harriet Roffe,
alumni representative Class of 2004; Rabbi Nomi Manon, new executive director of
UAlbany Hillel, MaryLou Connolly, Albany County Legislator.
The ceremony climaxed
with the sounding of the Shofar by alumni Baruch Daniel Gurwitz and student
Jonathan Dickens. “The Shofar’s shape
symbolizes our growth,” said Rabbi Mendel Rubin, co-director of Shabbos House
with his wife Raizy since 1997. “It starts off narrow at the mouthpiece, but
becomes broader toward the top. While the Shofar brought the walls of Jericho
tumbling down, we look forward to this Shofar blast heralding the construction
of the new Shabbos House going up!” Just after the Shofar-blast, alumni Rachel
Commer and Mitch Greene, both of the class of 2000 and long-time Shabbos House
friends, unveiled the cornerstone.
Following the ceremony on
the construction-site, there was a buffet lunch at the old Shabbos House, with
table set-up on the deck and in the tent, under hot, sunny skies. There were
handpainted rocks with Shabbos House logos as event souvenirs, and a sign-in
board for participants to leave their thoughts and wishes.
Pictures below were taken
mostly by the University Photo Service, and they took a video as well. When we
get the edited copy, we will post a link to the video here as well.
See our
frontpage coverage
in The Jewish World Newspaper, Albany NY (PDF format).
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Rabbi Mendel served as
emcee for the Cornerstone Ceremony. You can view his
introductions to the cornerstone ceremony speakers here.
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Raizy had a
long list of thank you's to the many people who helped Shabbos House get
to this point. When the new building is dedicated, these people and many
others will all be recognized.
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UAlbany Vice President of
Student Success, Christine Bouchard shared greetings and congratulations of
behalf of the University and spoke highly of Shabbos House as an wonderful
asset to the University community.
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Mary Lou Connelly, our
Albany County legislator delivered greetings on behalf of Albany County
(Fuller Rd is County Route 156 to be rebuilt in Spring 2009) and recognized
Albany County and Town of Guilderland officials present at the ceremony.
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Nomi Manon, the new
executive director of the University at Albany Hillel shares a greeting
based on Moses' blessing to the Jewish people when the tabernacle was built
in the desert.
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Rabbi Israel Rubin,
regional director of Capital Chabad and dean of the Maimonides School,
founded Shabbos House in 1976 and recalled the early trials and
tribulations, as in Psalms: "the stone which builder's scorned, later
became the cornerstone." |
Baruch Daniel Gurwitz,
who's been with Shabbos House since Mendel and Raizy arrived in 1997 until
his recent moved to Boston, sounded the Shofar together with Jonathan
Dickens (class of 2009).
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Sheryl Hoffman (Class of
2009), President of L'chaim, speaks as student representative. She ended her
speech, about Shabbos House being like Abraham and Sarah's tent, with an
exclamation of "L'chaim!"
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Harriet Roffe (Class of
2004) speaks as alumni representative. Harriet recalled her college years,
and the empowerment she felt as L'chaim President, which extended into all
areas of her college experience.
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Mitch Greene and Rachel
Commer, both of the Class of 2000, unveil the cornerstone, which will be
later placed in the front of the new Shabbos House building.
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Jenna and Heather get
comfortable in their construction gear.
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Moshe & Rivka Losice,
President of Capital Chabad, and Cong. Shomray Torah on New Scotland, owner
of Modern Carpet on Broadway, and pillar of the local community.
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Neighbors, community and
government officials pictured seated above.
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First group of students to
sit outside under the tent with food from the lunch buffet.
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And the group grew...
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Rabbi Mendel and Raizy with
alumni Rob and Elana Klein, who came up from New York for this occasion.
Behind is Marc Gronich, class of 1983.
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Rivka Kochman baked this
huge cake shaped like Shabbos House.
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Shabbos House logo cookies.
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"Shabbos House Rocks!"
Raizy handpainted 300 of these blue river rocks with the Shabbos House logo
as a souvenir from the Corner-STONE event.
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Michael Issacson (a
student), Mitch Greene (an alumni, class of 2000) and Aron Cepler (graduate
student at UAlbany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering).
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Representatives from the
governments of Albany County and the Town of Guilderland.
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Sara wears many
(construction) hats.
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The Rosens. Hy was a
political cartoonist for the "Times-Union" for many years. He drew a Torah-Mazal-Tov
cartoon on the Cornerstone Poster signing-board.
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We regret that the scheduling of the ceremony was a conflict for quite a
number of Shabbos House friends and supporters. We look forward to
additional milestone events as we construction moves forward and completion
is expected in the Spring or Summer of 2009.
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About the new Shabbos
House:
Shabbos House, the Chabad
Center serving Jewish students at UAlbany since 1976 has long outgrown its
current facility at 316 Fuller Road. Too many participants is a wonderful
problem, but see
"Good Problems, Better Solutions" (pdf) for ways the new Shabbos House
building will be bigger and better. The "little house that could" can do better
with an appropriate facility. (see
floor plans here (pdf). See these PDF pages for
why so many
people are investing in Shabbos House (pdf). (Please note that large PDF files may
take a minute or two to load).
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To follow the construction
progress, visit the "320
Building Blog" or click on the months below:
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Shabbos House Chabad Jewish
Student Center has been serving students at the University at Albany (SUNY) since 1976.
"A Home Away From Home - where every Jew is family!"
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