Spending Shabbos in Beijing

By COLlive reporter

The globe-trotting Lubavitch official Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky is spending this Shabbos, Parshas Shemini, with the Jewish community of Beijing, China.

Kotlarsky, Vice Chairman of Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch, is in town with other guests from around the world to inaugurate the new Beit Yaakov Chabad House building on Fang Yuan Xi Lu.

Conveniently located near many hotels, the new community center will house institutions run by Beijing Shliach Rabbi Shimon Freundlich and his wife Dini.

Among them are the Joseph and Stera Gutnick Shul, library and lecture rooms, offices, a kosher grocery, Dini’s Kosher restaurant, indoor kids playroom, Internet cafe for tourists and students and the Sino- Judaic Museum.

It will also include the new Cafe Miniature Dairy restaurant.

Another Chabad building in town is the Rohr Family Chabad Community Centre, at a separate location, home of the Ganeinu International School and MAc Middle School as well as the city’s Mikvah.

The Freundlichs are calling this Shabbos the “Grand Opening Weekend.”

On Friday morning there was a Torah Dedication of Beijing’s famous Challah Torah.

Shabbos will include festive meals and Kabbalas Shabbos and Mussaf led by Cantor Yitzchok Meir Helfgot of the Park East Synagogue in New York City.

On Sunday night, March 27, there will be cocktails and ribbon cutting of the Beit Yaakov Chabad House and the Joseph and Stera Gutnick Shul, followed by a gala banquet at the Renaissance Hotel.