Chabad to open new student centers

Ten new Chabad Houses for Jewish students will open on college campuses during the 2010-11 school term.

The new centers announced Tuesday night at the annual conference of the Chabad on Campus International Foundation in upstate New York will bring to more than 150 the number of campus Chabad Houses around the world.

The specific campuses were not made public. The expansion will include schools not traditionally served by Jewish programming, foundation president Rabbi Menachem Schmidt said.

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 the growth 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.”