August 19, 2008
Ukraine: Construction Begins On World's Largest Jewish Community Center

Straddling two blocks, a $60 million, 400,000 square foot Jewish Community
Center and Holocaust Museum now under construction in Dnepropetrovsk will be
a city within a city, a showcase for a Ukrainian industrial backwater waking
up to boom times in Jewish and civic contexts.

The seven-tower, twenty-story museum and center multiplex will stretch
around the existing Golden Rose synagogue is sweeping in its scope of
programs.

“Any Jewish person, any age and every time of the day will have a reason to
spend quality time at the center,” said Dnepropetrovsk’s Chief Rabbi and
Chabad-Lubavitch representative, Shmuel Kaminezki. At maximum capacity, the
center will hold over 10,000 people, a chunk of DnepropetrovskÂ’s 50,000
Jews.

Funded by Gennady Bogolubov, president of the Jewish Community of
Dnepropetrovsk and partner in the international industrial firm Privat
Group, the center will cement the cityÂ’s Jewish renaissance.

A Jewish mall in the center will offer easy access to kosher food and
lifestyle necessities on a level unfathomable in the lean days of the
communist and immediate post-glasnost era. Kosher restaurants, coffee shops,
fast food joints, an Internet café, a bookstore, Judaica store, supermarket
and pharmacy will line the first two floors of the center. Currently, ten
tons of kosher meat products are produced in Ukraine, including ten
different kinds of deli meats, per month. When the center is completed,
demand is expected to grow further.

Above the mall, floors of auditoria and suites will become home to programs
for children, children with special needs, womenÂ’s groups, adult education
and seniors. A wing is reserved for Jewish courses offered to the
communityÂ’s college students and for its on-site business school. Teachers
at the school and community workers will live in the 30 apartments within
the complex.

Weddings will be held under the stars near a permanent rooftop tent. Festive
receptions and banquet will take place in the plush catering halls a short
elevator ride away. A massive commercial kitchen will provide all the kosher
catering.

In an adjacent space, the museum, planned with direction of Yad Vashem in
Israel, will be more than UkraineÂ’s largest Holocaust memorial. It will also
house one of the worldÂ’s finest collections of contemporary Jewish art and a
museum of modern Jewish life. Igor Kolomoysky, Privat Group partner, is
funding the museum complex and collecting the art that will form the nucleus
of the museumÂ’s collection.

“The project will provide resources for the Jewish community, but it plays
an important role in the development of the entire city,” said Zelig Brez,
executive director of the Jewish Community of Dnepropetrovsk. While the
centerÂ’s stores, hotel rooms, restaurants, and clinic will be open to all
residents, Brez is especially committed to seeing all Ukrainians visiting
the museum. “Today’s generation has a very limited understanding of the
Holocaust, and we must change that.”

Plans for the center received enthusiastic reception from local officials.
Mayor Ivan Kulichenko brought the plans along with him when he attended a
conference of mayors in Belgium. He shared architectural drawing of the
center with Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski to promote positive ties between
the two cities.

For its aesthetic appeal, the center drew approval from the cityÂ’s
architectural planning board. The outermost of seven towers stand five
stories high and climb to ten, fifteen and finally twenty stories at the
center. Atop each building is a large spotlight fixture that will give the
complex the look of a free form menorah. DnepropetrovskÂ’s municipal chief
architect Julia Saenko saluted the building as “good for the image of the
city,” a step forward for democracy, freedom of religion and revitalization.

City planners were quick to approve plans for the Menorah center. Ukraine
won hosting rights, together with Poland, to the 2012 Union of European
Football Association (UEFA) championship games. Doubts about UkraineÂ’s
readiness to host tens of thousands visitors has placed pressure on
municipalities to improve infrastructure and increase hotel room capacity.
Menorah center and all of its amenities, on track for completion within two
years, is a feather in UkraineÂ’s UEFA readiness cap.

Officials also recognized the job growth potential inherent in a project of
this magnitude. Restaurants, stores, food providers, the hotel and catering
hall will be managed by independent business owners to provide
self-sustaining funds for the centerÂ’s endowment. Hard numbers are not
available yet, but the service and management sector jobs required to run
Menorah center and Holocaust museum are expected provide a boost to the
cityÂ’s middle class.

Now experiencing a boom, as evidenced by the number of cranes perched atop
the steel skeletons of growing high rises, Dnepropetrovsk is faced with a
widening gap between rich and poor. Menorah center stores will offer help to
financially struggling families and seniors. A discount card will allow them
to purchase groceries and prepared food at near or below wholesale costs.
Medical clinic services will be provided on a sliding scale, and
prescriptions for low-income residents will be subsidized.

To get a sense of how huge the Menorah Community Center and Museum will be,
it helps to hear that its seven lights will be viewable by airplane
passengers on their way to the international airport. “The largest menorah
in the world,” according to Rabbi Kaminezki. Inside the hulking structure,
will be programs that keep the spiritual and physical needs of those in need
at the forefront.

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