Close to 400 people were on hand for a community-wide sendoff of the Chabad-Lubavitch yeshiva high school in the Stamford Hill section of London, which is moving to a new location in nearby Golders Green after 38 years.

Joining locals, parents, supporters and leaders of other Jewish organizations in the city were Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar and Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch.

“This is an occasion of great importance,” Lazar told the crowd at the new building in the northwest part of the city. “This expansion and growth of education should be … duplicated around the world.”

After the Dec. 22 event, Rabbi Nachman Sudak, regional director of Chabad in the United Kingdom, presided over a Chasidic gathering in honor of the occasion.