New Shliach Will Serve His Home State of Connecticut

Ahead of the upcoming holiday of Chanukah, Rabbi Nochum Zalman and Chani Eisenbach from Brooklyn, NY, are set to establish a new Chabad Jewish center to serve the growing needs of the Southbury/Oxford community.

The Chabad center will be “an address for everything Jewish,” providing services to Jews of all denominations and backgrounds in the greater Southbury/Oxford area. Prayer services, Hebrew school, Shabbat dinners, holiday programs and community events will all run out of the center.

“We hope to provide every Jew in Southbury/Oxford with the opportunity to connect with their heritage and with Jewish tradition,” said Rabbi Nochum Zalman and Chani Eisenbach, a native of Litchfield, whose rabbinic studies took him to Paris and Brooklyn, and who was ordained in the central Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbinical Seminary in Brooklyn, N.Y. “My family has been servicing this community since 1996. I recall our family doing the first Public Seder In Southbury over 15 years ago, many of those who attended are still friends of ours today. There was a growing need to expand and enrich Jewish life in the Southbury/Oxford community and after visiting and meeting with the wonderful people here, we decided to make Southbury/Oxford our new home!”

The Eisenbachs come to Southbury/Oxford with a history in Jewish leadership roles and outreach. Nochum Zalman has served as a student rabbi in communities across the globe, including Montego Bay, Frankfurt and Litchfield, where he has led holiday programs and Shabbat services. Chani, originally from Philadelphia, has served as a teacher in Chicago, and has served in communal leadership roles including program director at Chabad centers in Brighton Beach.

Nochum Zalman and Chani say that they were inspired by the teachings of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. In a time when more and more people are searching for meaning and fulfillment in their lives, the Rebbe taught that the Torah is the blueprint for a meaningful life, and its relevance to every aspect of life continues in the modern era.

The new center is part of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement—known for its active and all-inclusive approach to Jewish outreach—and seeks to provide services to Jews of all denominations, regardless of affiliation, specifically those who live in areas where there is little or no Jewish institutional presence. To date, Chabad runs more some 3,500 educational, religious and social service institutions in 100 countries around the globe.

For more information on the Chabad Jewish center, contact Nochum Zalman and Chani at www.jewishsouthbury.org. southbury@chabadnw.org