A new youth center, library, and mikvah opened this week in East Thornhill, Toronto, serving the Russian-speaking Jewish community under the JRCC. The Kholodenko, Murad & Ressin JRCC Youth Center, Library and Mikvah was inaugurated with a dedication and mezuzah affixing ceremony, bringing together the donors, organizers and community members whose support made the project possible.

The center is directed by shliach Rabbi Mendel Zaltzman, who works alongside his father, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Zaltzman, founder of the JRCC. The new building will serve as a vibrant hub for youth programming, events, farbrengens and activities for teens and children, alongside a well-stocked library housing thousands of seforim and Jewish books.

The facility also includes, for the first time, an elegant and modern mikva, serving the thousands of families in the Thornhill community.

The dedication came just days after the shloshim of Rabbi Zaltzman’s father, Rabbi Chaim Dovber (Berel) Zaltzman, who passed away on 8 Tammuz at the age of 92. The new mikva was named “Mikvah Berel” in his memory.

Mikvaos occupied a special place in R’ Berel’s life. Born in Kharkov in 1934, he grew up under Soviet rule, where his family lived for a time in Dushanbe. The only mikvah at the time was a river, which could be used only during the summer months. In the winter, when the river froze over, his wife would sometimes endure a 36-hour train journey each way. With extraordinary mesirus nefesh, R’ Berel and his wife built a mikva for the local Jewish community.

After leaving the Soviet Union in 1971, R’ Berel came to the Rebbe in New York, and the following year settled in Nachalas Har Chabad in Eretz Yisroel. In 1980, at the Rebbe’s direction, he went out on shlichus to establish a Chabad center in Los Angeles serving Russian-speaking Jews. In 1992, he moved to Fair Lawn, New Jersey, where he founded Bris Avrohom and built it into one of the largest and most active centers serving Russian-speaking Jews in the region.

Wherever he lived, R’ Berel dedicated himself with unwavering mesirus nefesh to strengthening Yiddishkeit among Russian-speaking Jews.

At the dedication in Thornhill, the ceremony was attended by the project’s donors, R’ Eliyahu Kholodenko, R’ Marat Ressin and R’ Dovid Murad, together with their families. Mezuzos were affixed throughout the new building, after which Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Zaltzman addressed the gathering, speaking about the significance of the new center and its connection to his father’s legacy.