In the drawn-out struggle to build an improved Jewish community center, I am often humbled by the dedication that hundreds of volunteers bring to that effort. Their hands will open the door not merely to a new JCC, but to a future strong and rich in Jewish values.
Throughout history, and around the world, Jewish communities have created institutions for the support, protection and nurturing of Jews. Jewish community centers were first established in America in the 1880s and 1890s to meet the urgent needs of waves of Eastern European Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in Europe.
In these early JCCs, often called “Settlement Houses,” newcomers learned to speak English. They learned about American standards of etiquette, about marrying for love and about the countless other new demands, customs and adaptations of their new home.
At the same time, the newcomers met socially and politically and held activist meetings. The early JCCs helped acculturate Jewish immigrants to their new American homeland. Later, JCCs helped meet the urgent needs of immigrating Holocaust survivors.
As new generations of Jews were born to the new American reality, they often found the doors of social, professional and athletic clubs closed to them. So the JCC undertook an additional role: offering social and athletic clubs that were open to Jews.
As anti-Jewish discrimination decreased in America, the original missions of JCCs — providing acculturation, athletic and social opportunities denied to Jews elsewhere — were no longer as critical. JCCs, though, were still fulfilling a crucial role: strengthening Jewish identity, helping find Jewish meaning and providing both formal and informal Jewish education.
Today, few of us need the JCC to introduce us to America or to furnish opportunities discrimination once denied. The mission fulfilled by the modern JCC, though, is no less vital: meeting the ever-changing needs of the entire Jewish community for strengthening Jewish identity, finding Jewish meaning and enriching the quality of Jewish life.
From antiquity through today, from the Temple in Jerusalem to the synagogue and beyond, wherever Jews congregate, God is present. Today, Jewish community centers largely fulfill the role of a place of assembly, as a resource and convener for the larger overall Jewish community. Increasingly, JCCs also serve as houses of study, and, with synagogues, help to provide for a wide spectrum of Jewish needs: spiritual, educational, social and communal.
Six pillars
The Judaic mission of the Jewish community center is defined to a great extent by the six basic religious elements, or pillars, that pervade Judaism: spirituality, learning, culture, Jewish life, peoplehood and pluralism. These are the foundations of the JCC’s programs and its striving to be an all-inclusive Jewish institution that focuses on education, learning and celebration of Jewish culture.
The JCC has significantly increased its role in the areas of Jewish education, culture and promoting identification with Judaism. This new and increased role was prompted by the national movement in the early 1980s to increase Jewish learning, including recommendations for the appointment of Jewish educators in JCCs and the promulgation of standards for Jewish education there.
The JCC also strives to foster pluralism, in its role as a place where Jews can discuss political, religious and social issues that affect them as Jews, regardless of their varied ideologies. Because all Jews are part of the Jewish community, no matter their personal religious or social beliefs, the JCC strives to reach the entirety of the Jewish people, making this discourse vital to our well-being.
Over the course of time, JCCs have become the Jewish neighborhood and gateway to the Jewish community. Unlike in the past, when Jews, through their own design or because of oppression, lived in Jewish quarters or Jewish neighborhoods, today’s Jews no longer feel restricted to what were once predominantly Jewish areas. Democratic and social development in America has brought a decline in the sense of a Jewish neighborhood in virtually all cities in America.
Today’s JCCs are non-threatening in a way that encourages affiliation. They provide Jews the opportunity to learn about themselves and their communities. They help bind the Jewish community and invite intermarried couples to explore their part in it.
Most often, JCC members affiliate with synagogues and other institutions within the Jewish community as a result of their involvement with the JCC. In addition, the JCC helps build community and neighborhood by acting in partnership with synagogues and other Jewish community institutions.
JCCs also play a central role in the Jewish religion’s focus on continuity and survival. They respect Jews of all ideologies, encourage Jews to learn about themselves and their people, foster discussion and debate within the community, strengthen the community and all its elements, increase our sense of meaning and create a vehicle for social action and interaction with the larger, non-Jewish community. In doing all these things, JCCs relate powerfully to the six pillars of Jewish life.
Our plans to renew the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center include appealing rooms, a welcoming design and modern amenities. Look closer, though, and you’ll find we’re building something far more important: a place where our shared heritage and values are renewed and enriched.
Jay Roth is executive vice president of the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center.
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