A “Chabad House” for Jewish tourists has opened in the popular tourist town of Sapa in northern Vietnam, in the mountains of Lao Cai province near the Chinese border. This new center has a very close connection to the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, as Rabbanit Giti, the wife of the director of this Chabad House, Rabbi Akiva Scheinberger, is the daughter of respected activists of the Dnipro Jewish Community and emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Moshe Leib and Shoshana Weber.
The Scheinberger family departed from Israel for their mission shortly after receiving the assignment from the Chabad-Lubavitch emissary center led by Menachem Mendel Kotlarsky to establish the Chabad House in Sapa, Vietnam. A farewell ceremony held at Ben Gurion Airport was attended by the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel, David Lau, and the Chief Rabbi of Ben Gurion Airport, Nissim Elmaliach.
“Our dear Akiva and Giti, along with their little daughter Musya, have already arrived in Sapa, rented premises, and this coming Shabbat will host their first large meal, for which many people have already registered,” said Rabbi Moshe Leib Weber. “Substantial assistance in opening the Chabad House in Sapa was provided by Jews from Dnipro. A Torah scroll for prayers was provided by Rabbi Menachem Hartman, Head of the Chabad emissaries in Vietnam. Primarily Israelis and Jews from other countries can now find almost everything necessary for Jewish life in Sapa, and construction of a mikveh has already begun, which will open even more possibilities for observing Yiddishkeit. I want to thank everyone who has supported our dear children and contributes to the spread of Judaism in all places where Jews live or visit, even in such remote corners of the planet as the Vietnamese town of Sapa.”
