This High Holiday season, residents of the small Jewish community in Cambodia—and those who are visiting—will have one more reason to celebrate: It will be their first year in a brand-new, eight-story Chabad center.
“It’s just fantastic,” enthuses Elli Bobrovitsky, who divides his time between Cambodia and Australia. “Many of us, including me, doubted whether our community was big enough to warrant a center like this. But we were so wrong. This has become a home for Jewish people in Cambodia, most of whom are expats or backpackers just passing through.”
He credits the new facility to the hard work of Rabbi Bentzion and Mashie Butman, who moved to the capital city of Phnom Penh in 2009. “They saw potential here where others did not,” says Bobrovitsky, who works in the garment manufacturing industry. “It is now clear to me how important it is for us to have a center of our own.”
The ground floor of the complex houses a reception area, industrial kitchen, restaurant and mikvah. The synagogue is on the first floor, and the Butmans are now working on completing a social hall on the second floor. The third and fourth floors serve as the family’s residence. The fifth floor will eventually become a cluster of hospitality suites, and the sixth and seventh floors house a preschool, storage and offices. (Eventually, an elevator is in the works.)
The rabbi expressed his hope that the social hall would be ready to host the 120 guests expected for Rosh Hashanah feasts, but he has also made arrangements to celebrate at the nearby Himawari Hotel, just in case.
Located in the Daun Penh district’s Chaktomuk commune—minutes away from the confluence of the Mekong and Tonlé Sap rivers—it will be a short walk from the Chabad House to the riverfront for the traditional Tashlich prayers, the ceremonial casting of sins into the water.
Noting that the Tashlich procession and accompanying shofar-blowing is one of the highest-profile Jewish celebration in the predominantly Buddhist country, the rabbi says it has become increasingly popular with local Jews and has even led to some surprising revelations.
“As I blew shofar on the waterfront a few years ago for those who did not make it to services, I noticed a man looking down from his hotel balcony,” relates Butman, who grew up in Israel. “He came down, and I made sure to greet him warmly. The man revealed that his mother was Jewish and that he felt drawn by the sound of the horn. He did not know that he was Jewish and was so far from Jewish traditions that he did not even know the term ‘shofar,’ but his soul was touched deeply enough that he felt the need to come down and be with us, his fellow Jews.”
A Regular Minyan
Discussing the eclectic crowd that forms his community, the rabbi notes that they represent a cross-section of the Jewish nation. “We have judges and lawyers who are here for the ECCC [Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia] war-crimes court [Khmer Rouge Tribunal], backpackers, retirees who are stretching their savings to remain in the balmy weather, business people and all others,” says the rabbi, who conducts the traditional Hebrew services in English.
In fact, it is the special mix of people that enticed the couple to move to Cambodia in the first place, according to Butman. “We had gone for a pilot trip for Passover. At the seder, they ‘stole’ the afikoman and demanded that we move permanently to Cambodia in exchange.”
Over the years, he says the country has modernized, skyscrapers and shopping malls have taken the place of shanty towns, and acquiring “luxuries” like aluminum foil is no longer the challenge it once was. Yet the biggest change for him has been the increase in Jewish engagement.
“In the first year, we rarely had a minyan,” he recalls. “Now we have 30 to 40 people on Friday night, and minyan every Shabbat day as well. The numbers are tenfold from when we first came.”
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