In town to help dedicate a new building for a Chicago synagogue catering to Sephardic Jews, Israeli Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar also spent time visiting several Chabad-Lubavitch centers in Illinois.

Amar was the guest of honor at the Ohel Shalom Torah Center, which welcomed a new Torah scroll at its Oct. 25 building dedication. Other stops on the chief rabbi’s itinerary included the Lubavitch Girls High School, where he was greeted by staff and students and shared with them his memories of Rabbi Shlomo Matusof, a longtime leader of Amar’s native Moroccan Jewish community who passed away in November 2007.

Accompanied by a small entourage, Amar then proceeded to the Lubavitch Mesivta, where he led a short class for the institution’s high-school boys.

Later in the day, Rabbi Menachem Slavaticki, director of the Chabad Israeli Center of Greater Chicago, welcomed the chief rabbi at the regional headquarters of Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois. Regional director Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz provided Amar with an overview of Chabad activities at some 30 centers around the state and presented him with a booklet detailing the historic 1930 Chicago visit of the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory.

“Wherever I travel, Chabad has been doing wonders,” Amar told those gathered at the regional headquarters. “During my frequent visits to Chabad in Israel and around the globe, I have seen the tremendous blessings and institutions of the Rebbe blossom.”