A glistening, curved building of blue tiles and panels in metallic hues, the Pears Jewish Campus (PJC) will be Germany’s biggest Jewish educational and cultural center when it opens its doors in Berlin on Sunday.
Hailed as symbolic for Jewish families in the country, the dream behind the PJC “was and is to guarantee a long-term future for Jewish life and tolerance in Germany,” Berlin Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, head of the local Chabad, told CNN.
Chabad is a Hasidic Jewish movement known for its outreach mission.
Located in the center of Berlin, the new campus guarantees this future as “the foundation that will enable a path of tolerance and awareness,” he said on Friday.
The €33 million (around $36 million) campus spans 8,000 square meters (more than 86,000 square feet) across seven floors, on the site of the Chabad Jewish Education Centre, according to the company that managed construction, Kondius AG, and will be a “cross-religious and cross-age meeting place.”
Built with three main principles in mind—education, sport and culture—the PJC will be open to everyone, and will include schools, a daycare center, a cinema and a gym.
Outside, there is a wall adorned with graffiti by the artist Tobo, aka Tobias Friesike, German newspaper Jewish Allgemeine reported.
“It should be a house open to everybody—whether it is a cultural event, whether someone wants to visit the music studio or the art atelier or watch a film or visit an event or hear a book reading, or come to an educational program,” Teichtal told CNN.
