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Morgantown is a small college town in North-Central West Virginia and is home to West Virginia University. It is also home to Mylan, a generic pharmaceuticals company. The Jewish community in Morgantown has approximately 200 families, mostly migrants from other states who have come to study or teach at the university. The university is home to about 1,200 Jewish students, mostly from the Northeast. The town’s Rohr Chabad Jewish Center was established in the summer of 2007 and the building that currently serves as the Chabad House was purchased in April of 2014.
Morgantown is also home to one of the top-rated federal prison camps, where Rabbi Gurevitz teaches a weekly Torah class and leads services on Shabbos and Yom Tov. The Jewish prison population can sometimes be as great as 30 or as low as just 12. Even with its small numbers there are times where the only minyan in town is at the prison camp.
State Capital: Charleston
State Nickname: The mountain state
State Motto: Mountaineers are always free
State Flower: Big Rhododendron
State Bird: Cardinal
First Shul: Temple Shalom, founded in 1849 in Wheeling, West Virginia