To celebrate 13 years of bringing Jewish traditions and holidays to the area, Chabad of NW Metro Denver is threw itself a bar mitzvah Sunday.

Chabad of NW Metro Denver, a Jewish outreach organization that serves Broomfield and Westminster, will hosted a gala and recognized three couples who have been critical to the growth of the organization.

The event was Sunday at aLoft Broomfield Denver.

Dr. Phil and Pam Rosenblum of Broomfield, Harlan and Donna Kamen of Westminster, Edward and Robin Rothschild of Arvada were recognized.

The event included heavy hors-d-oeuvres, a charity auction and entertainment by guest cantor Leib Hurwitz from New York City.

When they first came to the area from New York nearly 14 years ago, Rabbi Benji Brackman, director and rabbi of the center, and his wife Leah, co-director of the center, met with more than half a dozen local Jewish couples, including the Rosenblums.

“They were very excited we were moving out here,” Brackman said. “They have been engaged with us ever since at various different levels.”

Rosenblum, a family practitioner who lives in Broomfield and works in Thornton and Westminster, has been in the area for about 20 years.

“When we first got started in Broomfield, we went to the store and tried to buy challa bread for Friday night dinner and they didn’t have a clue what we were talking about when I went to King Soopers,” Rosenblum said. “There was no Jewish culture at all between Denver and Boulder, and we were living in between.”

He and his wife’s three daughters, who range in age from 15 to 21, grew up in the center and spent summers with the rabbi and his wife at the summer camp. Now, some of them have acted as counselors at the camp.

He’s seen the center grow over the years.

Chabad of NW Metro Denver was founded in September 2003 and has become the “one-stop” center to meet needs of the Jewish community.

A bar mitzvah is celebrated when a 13-year-old boy comes of age in the faith, so the organization is borrowing that idea.

There are hundreds of chabad centers across the nation, he said, and for most of them the focus is outreach.

People who attend the one in Westminster might not have any connection to organized religion, Brakcman said, so the center tries to bring a level of participation and Jewish observance to their lives.

Chabad is an acronym of the first three initials of the Hebrew words: Hokhmah, Binah, Daat which stand for wisdom, understanding and knowledge.

The thinking behind Chabad is acquiring knowledge in the divine, and to further the service of the Almighty, Brackman said.

“It is based on a lot of mythical and cataclysmic teaching available at the time in the 1700s,” Brackman said. “They began this Hasidic group to be more in touch with their faith and with the Almighty.”

Outreach has been a slow process, Brackman said, but he feels the center has put Judaism on the local map. The center just celebrated Purim, which celebrates the saving of Jewish people from Haman, who was planning to kill them.

“Today people here in the community we have a greater awareness of those holidays,” Brackman said. “Our goal is to allow people to feel, locally, they have an option to celebrate the religion.”

Another primary role of the Jewish community is to be available for the needy, Brackman said, which they do for people who have lost a loved one, are facing illness, need family counseling or are facing poverty. That care comes with a “Jewish” flavor and adds a different dimension.

“We make weekly visits to people, whether they’re in a senior living center, hospital or assisted living center,” Brackman said. “It’s comfort food and more than anything else, there’s something coming and visiting.”

The center also offers adult classes, Hebrew school for youth, and summer day camp opportunities. All major holidays have an activity, including a Passover at Front Range Community College that draws more than 100 people.

Brackman said the center meets non-Jewish people in the community, such as workshops in Home Depot where children come and make a Passover plate or a culinary workshop at Whole Foods.

“The idea is to prepare the community for the holidays with fun ideas, fun activities,” Brackman said, “and also try to meet them in their spaces. That’s something we feel very strongly about.”

He believes those outings feed the relationship between the center and community.

“If you don’t feed a relationship it tends to go sour. We believe the same thing with religion.”

Brackman said they don’t expect people to become an Orthodox Jew, even though they would be welcome, but realistically are looking for people to further their relationship with Judaism.

“It’s a wholesome religion,” he said. “It has great morals, great ethics and the more one’s engaged in it, we believe the better a person can be as an individual.”

Their youth camps offer children a chance to volunteer at animal shelters, food banks, senior centers and by going into a local hospital to gift new mothers with a gift bag in their “Newborns in Need” program.

“The programs (the Brackmans) put together are really well planned and thought out,” Rosenblum said. “It’s really involved everybody.”

Rosemblum said he’s not used to receiving this type of recognition and is humbled by the attention.

“I feel honored, but at the same time I feel like I’m not old enough,” he said.

Jennifer Rios: 303-473-1361, riosj@broomfieldenterprise.com or Twitter.com/Jennifer_Rios