About Us
About Chabad Chai Center
Chabad Chai Center is a warm and welcoming home for Jewish life in Boca Raton, a place where every Jew can connect, learn, celebrate, and feel at home.
Founded and directed by Rabbi Arele and Chaya Gopin, Chai Center welcomes people from every background and level of Jewish knowledge or observance. Through meaningful prayer services, engaging classes, holiday celebrations, children’s programs, community events, and personal connections, our goal is to make Judaism accessible, joyful, and relevant to everyday life.
Everything we do is guided by the belief that every person matters, every mitzvah has meaning, and every Jew deserves a place where they truly belong.
Meet Our Team
Chaya Gopin
Chaya was raised in Boca Raton with a deep commitment to Jewish education and community life. She has taught young children in preschool and founded and directed the Chabad Hebrew School, which grew to serve more than 100 children.
Chaya is passionate about creating meaningful and joyful Jewish experiences for children and families. Through her warmth, creativity, and personal attention, she helps make Judaism feel relevant, welcoming, and alive. She also leads educational and social programming for women and families throughout the community.
Rabbi Arele Gopin
Rabbi Arele was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, as one of ten children. He pursued his rabbinical studies in France and Israel and received his rabbinical ordination in 2011. During his training, he served as a rabbinic intern at Chabad of Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2013, Rabbi Arele and Chaya moved to Boca Raton to serve the local Jewish community. For the past 13 years, Rabbi Arele has taught, led services, developed community programs, and helped individuals and families connect more deeply with their Judaism.
Rabbi Arele is dedicated to meeting people wherever they are and making Jewish life approachable, meaningful, and personal. Together, Rabbi Arele and Chaya founded Chabad Chai Center to create a genuine home for Jewish connection, learning, celebration, and community in Boca Raton.
About Chabad
Chabad-Lubavitch is a philosophy, a movement, and an organization. It is considered to be the most dynamic force in Jewish life today.
Following its inception 250 years ago, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement—a branch of Hasidism—swept through Russia and spread in surrounding countries as well. It provided scholars with answers that eluded them, and simple farmers with a love that had been denied them. Eventually the philosophy of Chabad-Lubavitch and its adherents reached almost every corner of the world and affected almost every facet of Jewish life.
The origins of today’s Chabad-Lubavitch organization can be traced to the early 1940s, when the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn of righteous memory (1880–1950), appointed his son-in-law and later successor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, to head the newly founded educational and social service arms of the movement.
Motivated by his profound love for every Jew and spurred by his boundless optimism and self-sacrifice, the Rebbe set into motion a dazzling array of programs, services and institutions to serve every Jew.