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Completion nears for Basking Ridge Chabad’s new educational complex
by Enid Weiss
NJJN Bureau Chief/Central
Preschool and Hebrew classes at the Chabad Jewish Center of Basking Ridge are expected to move into their new rooms in roughly six weeks.
The $3.5 million classroom and office building at 3048 Valley Road is the first phase of a complex designed by Stephen W. Schwartz of SWS Architects in Livingston and built by the S. Seltzer Construction Corp. of Kenilworth.
 Center officials are so pleased with the construction process they are honoring the builder and his wife, Saul and Sylvia Seltzer, at the annual founders’ dinner on June 6.
The building, set into a hill, has eight classrooms on two floors, both with doors to the outside. Two of the classrooms double as kindergarten rooms that divide to serve as four rooms for Hebrew school. The building also includes a 50-foot by 50-foot indoor play area, a synagogue library, offices for executive directors, teacher rooms, rabbi offices, and other staff offices.
By contrast, classes are currently held in a smaller, older building, once a single family home, that sits directly in front of the new structure.
 The new school wing has its own, scaled-down entrance instead of a grand-sanctuary style front door, said Malkie Herson, the center’s educational director. That’s so children feel more comfortable walking in, she explained. She spent a year researching the school building, exploring child development, environment, and indoor pollution. To ease the strain of florescent lights, for example, diffusers were installed in the overhead. Each of the rooms has several large windows, which means most days teachers will use natural sunlight instead of turning on the classroom lights.
“The building was built in accordance with our philosophy,” she said. “Physical environment affects child development. They love to touch things.”
The design also includes a living room setting where parents will be encouraged to linger after dropping off their children.
It’s part of the center’s approach to include the entire family in Jewish education and programming, according to Malkie and her husband, Rabbi Mendy Herson, executive director of the center, part of the Chabad of Greater Somerset County. The couple gave NJ Jewish News a preview of the building as workers applied the finishing touches.
The sensory experience begins when children walk in the door and are greeted with an indoor waterfall, slabs of a wood tree, and leaves imbedded in the floor. They then walk down a hall covered with a twig banister and arches to classrooms containing a water play and clean-up area with pint-sized sinks. The two, almost identical, classrooms for three year olds, designed by Judy Fosshage of Demarest, include a raised “cozy corner” that looks like a play house, which will be used for reading and dramatic play. The room also features small windows for children to peek into the next classroom and wave to friends, active play areas, and an art center. A real tree, treated and preserved, soars in the middle of the room.
“Nothing is contrived,” said Malkie Herson. “It’s all natural. We believe the way children learn comes from within.”
 As the physical shape of the Jewish Center changes, so too does its staff. Rabbi Yossi Lazaroff and his wife Manya Lazaroff have been serving as the Basking Ridge outreach center’s administrator and program director, respectively. Now Rabbi Yitzchok and Batsheva Moulli will join the team as youth directors. He originally is from Australia and she grew up in Toronto. The couple will organize bar and bat mitzva clubs, a teen program, and a Shabbat youth minyan.
The 12-year-old synagogue has operated out of the current building, Herson’s home, and venues around town, which were rented for large crowds for special events such as High Holy Day services.
The new building is typical of successful Chabad “houses,” staffed by rabbis who are followers of the Brooklyn-based Hasidic movement but located in areas that often as not lack a large Orthodox community. The Chabad Jewish Center describes itself as “a place for all Jews — no labels, no affiliations,” and many if not most of its students and congregants are non-Orthodox. According to the center’s Web site, it does not charge for synagogue membership, although voluntary donations “are appreciated but not required.”
Construction plans began two years ago and suffered a setback last summer when a microburst (a sudden, powerful wind) hit the area and knocked down trees and covered the property in debris. No one was hurt nor did the building, still under construction at the time, suffer severe damage, said Malkie Herson.
Chabad officials hope to begin work on the second phase — knocking down the old Chabad Jewish Center building and erecting a new 13,000-square-foot sanctuary, social hall and additional classrooms as soon as the move is complete. Rabbi Mendy Herson expected the second phase to cost at least $2.25 million.
Enid Weiss can be reached at [email protected].
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