Rabbi Avremi Lapine may have grown up in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., but he always had a soft spot in his heart for the Midwest. After all, his father, Dennis LaPine, grew up in Overland Park and his grandparents, Erwin and Janice LaPine, still live in the area. So he was considered the perfect match when it came to selecting the Lubavitch emissaries who would run the new Chabad of MU and Mid-Missouri, located in Columbia, Mo. The 25-year-old rabbi and his wife, Channy, serve as co-directors.
The couple, who were married in 2010 and have a 10-month-old son, Mendel, moved to Columbia and began getting settled in a rented two-story house about a month ago. They hosted their first official program, a Shabbat dinner for 10 students.
Rabbi Lapine is eager to begin programming in earnest when the students return to Columbia for the spring semester in January. He believes there are about 750 Jewish students among the 26,000 undergraduates and 6,000 graduate students at Missouri’s flagship public university. He guesses there are also close to 100 Jewish students attending nearby Stephens College and another handful at Columbia College.
“We’re still getting our feet wet,” he explained in a telephone interview this week. For instance the website, www.jewishtigers.com, is up, but local content isn’t available yet. And he’s meeting the students slowly but surely.
“We’re finding them and they’re finding us by word of mouth,” he said. “I learned about one student from the rabbi in Oklahoma City. Lots of students are attracted to MU and come from out of state because of its journalism school.”
The local Chabad House, headed by Rabbi Sholom Wineberg, who is also the regional director of the Chabad Lubavitch Headquarters for Kansas and Missouri, was instrumental in selecting Rabbi Lapine for this particular post and paving the way for the Columbia location.
“This was the next logical location for us. We like to spread Jewish awareness and identity wherever we see the need,” said Rabbi Mendy Wineberg, Chabad House’s program director. Two other Chabad Houses are also based in the Kansas-Missouri Region, Chabad Lubavitch of Midtown and Downtown Kansas City and Chabad Center for Jewish Life Serving KU & Northeast Kansas Communities.
“Rabbi Lapine was the perfect candidate for the Columbia position,” Rabbi Mendy Wineberg said.
The young rabbi has studied in New York, England and Australia. He was ordained in 2010 in New Jersey. They checked out the Columbia area while they were here during Passover visiting the rabbi’s grandparents.
“Channy and I always wanted to join the Rebbe’s army,” he said, referring to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the late Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, who began sending rabbinical students to campuses to serve as a resource for students more than 50 years ago. Now Chabad on Campus is a home-away-from-home for tens of thousands of Jewish Students. Chabad Student Centers are active on more than 165 campuses and Chabad offers varied activities at an additional 150 universities worldwide.
Chabad Centers are sponsored by the Rohr Family Foundation, which has helped to establish Jewish centers around the world, including in the countries of the former Soviet Union and even in Israel, according to the Chabad on Campus website.
“When we got married, we decided we wanted to dedicate our lives to helping other Jewish people,” Rabbi Lapine pointed out.
The Chabad website states that its campus centers anticipate and serve the needs of the campus community on a social, educational and spiritual level. As such, Rabbi Lapine said he and his wife like to think of their Chabad House as “as the students’ home away from home.”
“We want to make sure that all the student feel comfortable here. We will always feed them and they can always talk to one of us. The boys can feel comfortable talking to me and the girls can be comfortable talking to Channy,” he said.
“No matter what, we want them to feel comfortable being Jewish and experience their Judaism whichever way they feel comfortable.”
Channy stressed that the atmosphere at Chabad House will always be warm and welcoming.
“We’ll have programs and Shabbat dinner. Most importantly we want the students to feel Jewish. They will be able to feel good about themselves and feel like they are at home where they can be themselves here,” she said.
Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel of KU Chabad said KU students were excited to learn that a Chabad had arrived at MU.
“Many of them have friends across the border who have been greatly anticipating their arrival. We believe it was surely divine intervention that just one day after the arrival of the Lapines, MU announced it will be moving from the Big 12 to join the SEC. The Jewhawks and the Tigers will now be breaking challah together,” Rabbi Tiechtel said.
While MU’s defection from the Big 12 has officially ended the rivalry between the two schools, at least for now, Rabbi Lapine said it will still exist in his family.
“My father went to KU. We’ll have a special room for him in our basement to keep up the rivalry,” he laughingly said.
Those who have students in Columbia who wish to contact Rabbi and Channy Lapine can do so at 573-442-5755.