Rabbi Sam Kassin and Rabbi Eliahu Shamoula and the Shehebar Sephardic Center (SSC) have announced the official opening of two new centres in China, located in Beijing and Shanghai.

Both will provide religious services as well as educational activities for the local Jewish communities and for tourists and business travelers.

The SSC will coordinate meals and hopes to open kosher restaurants and kosher shops in these locations in the future.
Rabbi Benjamin Cohen and Rabbi Ephraim Bezalel have been appointed as the spiritual leaders of Shanghai and Rabbi Asaell Haimov is the spiritual leader of the SSC in Beijing.

This has truly been an international effort, as the Torah scroll in the Shanghai SSC has been donated by the Tawil family from New York and Beijing SSC’s scroll has been donated by the Saada family in New Jersey.

The Shehebar Sephardic Center was started in 1980 in the old city of Jerusalem by Rabbi Sam Kassin and Rabbi Eliahu Shamoula. The primary function of the SSC is to train and place qualified rabbis in Israel as well as in the Diaspora. There have been 140 graduates from the centre since its inception. They now are practicing around the world.

_{(Issue April 2008)}