{"id":441616,"date":"2026-10-29T16:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T16:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/441616\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T16:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T16:44:09","slug":"chabad-opens-14000-square-foot-jewish-community-center-in-downtown-st-pete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/441616\/","title":{"rendered":"Chabad opens 14,000-square-foot Jewish community center in downtown St. Pete"},"content":{"rendered":"

After years of holding services in trailers and renting venues for larger gatherings, the Chabad Jewish Center of Greater St. Petersburg<\/a> has a new downtown home.<\/p>\n

The two-story Chabad Center for Jewish Life and Learning<\/a> at 533 4th Street North brings worship, classes, community meals, and celebrations together in a 14,000-square-foot building with a sanctuary, social hall, classrooms, library, commercial kosher kitchen, and rooftop deck.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Alter Korf and his wife, Chaya Korf, celebrated the opening alongside hundreds of community members and supporters at a ribbon-cutting ceremony this past Sunday, October 25th. Programming began in the building in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we don\u2019t just mark the completion of the building but celebrate the beginning of a new era,\u201d Rabbi Korf said during the ceremony.<\/p>\n

The opening marks a significant change for an organization that has spent more than two decades working out of smaller spaces across St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n

The Korfs founded the local Chabad in 2002, initially operating from a stilt house along the bay. Hurricane concerns and the need for more room led to a move into a 1,000-square-foot storefront on Central Avenue.<\/p>\n

The organization later relocated to 4010 Park Street North, where multiple trailers totaling more than 2,000 square feet housed weekly services, Hebrew school, and other activities.<\/p>\n

As participation grew, larger gatherings, including High Holiday services and community challah bakes, required rented hotel and event space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After years of holding services in trailers and renting venues for larger gatherings, the Chabad Jewish Center of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-441616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}