After three years in a leased building on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, the oldest Chabad chapter in the Bay Area has temporarily relocated to a new location. Chabad of the East Bay is now housed at 2111 Vine St. in Berkeley, sharing space with Friendship Circle.

Rabbi Yehuda Ferris said Chabad of the East Bay, which traces its roots to 1972, had outgrown its previous spot. “We were bursting at the seams,” he said. “We need to purchase a place so we can serve the widest possible community.”

Meanwhile, Ferris says he loves “the million-dollar view” at Friendship Circle’s office, near Berkeley’s famed Gourmet Gulch. It is around the corner from both Saul’s Deli and the JCC of the East Bay. Friendship Circle is a national Jewish nonprofit that supports kids with special needs and their families.

“We’re holding classes there, holiday programs, Shabbat services and prayer sessions,” he said. “But we’re looking to purchase.”

Chabad of the East Bay had been leasing the bottom floor of a building at 2730 Telegraph Ave., near the Rose Garden Inn, since 2011. For 21 years before that, it was located in a humble house on College Avenue in Berkeley, between the U.C. Berkeley campus and the Elmwood district. — dan pine