Vassar, a small Upstate New York college of 2,400 students, offers a boutique, curated campus experience. Now, Vassar’s estimated 600 Jewish students have a space that reflects that atmosphere: a timber-frame Chabad House designed not as a synagogue, but as a home.
Since moving to Poughkeepsie thirteen years ago, Rabbi Daniel and Dalia Sanoff have been building connections with Jewish students at Vassar, hosting Shabbat meals, classes, and programs in their modest-sized Chabad House. Despite being a challenging environment to Jewish life, over time, the crowds grew.
“After October 7th, engagement soared,” Rabbi Sanoff said. “Students wanted that sense of community and home.”
The house they lived in — and used as a base for Jewish life at the college — could no longer contain it. In 2023, backed by a lead gift and a grant from the Rohr Family Foundation, they began the $3 million project: an 8,000-square-foot, timber-frame, carbon-neutral Chabad House — the first of its kind anywhere in the world.
“Vassar is incredibly thoughtful and relationship-driven,” Rabbi Sanoff said. “Here, students don’t connect through institutions — they connect through personal relationships.”
The new building echoes that philosophy in every detail. “The timber and beams of the building are not just aesthetic — they’re the structure’s integrity,” Rabbi Sanoff said. “In the same way, Judaism is both our beauty and our integrity.” Verses from the Torah are carved into the beams of the multipurpose room, and the oversized kitchen is designed for teaching and cooking side-by-side — because for many students, Jewish memories start in the kitchen with a grandmother’s recipe, not in a sanctuary.
The building offers a variety of spaces for studying and socializing: booths and couches in the multipurpose room, a custom-built black walnut library that can function as a synagogue, an 800-square-foot deck, a basement game area, and upstairs guest rooms for alumni and visiting parents — all designed to maintain a home-like atmosphere.
Sustainability was another priority. Students rallied around the idea of creating the world’s first carbon-neutral Chabad House. The structure is tightly insulated, equipped with European triple-pane passive house windows and doors, with mini-split condensers and a circulation system to regulate temperature. For the energy it does use, Chabad buys into local solar farms — so every kilowatt consumed is matched by clean power produced elsewhere.
The grand opening on Sunday, November 2nd, carried the theme of the Chabad House as a lighthouse for Jewish life on campus. Speakers included Rabbi Yitzchok Raskin of Chabad of Burlington — Rabbi Sanoff’s mentor from his days at college in Vermont, where he discovered his own Jewish heritage — and Rabbi Mendel Rubin from Chabad of University at Albany.
Students and alumni shared their reflections on what the space means to them. “Vassar’s Chabad is a structure with the strongest beacon of light that helps me find my way as I navigate college, adulthood, interpersonal relationships, and my Jewish identity,” said student Reese Feldberg. “In the height of the intense experiences of a post-October 7th world, the only place I could feel safe to take a deep breath and regroup was at Chabad.”
“During my time at Vassar, I always knew I had a place where I could just show up exactly as I was,” added former Chabad co-president Maya Horowitz-Adler, class of 2016. “I never had to earn my place at the table. It was given freely, generously, and joyfully. Vassar’s Chabad has been a beacon for me — a place to pause, connect, and just be myself. It’s more than a center or a synagogue; it’s a home. And in that home, every student can find their light.”
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