It is very seldom that Milwaukee’s Jewish community feels a need to communicate about its issues with the general community of southeastern Wisconsin. “We usually keep ‘within the family,’” said Judy Segall Guten, president of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
But this week, the MJF has begun doing exactly that with a campaign on television mounted as the pre-trial process begins in a lawsuit that the MJF is bringing against the Village of Whitefish Bay.
The MJF has commissioned a one-minute public information film that on Wednesday began being aired on all network affiliates and cable in the Milwaukee direct market area, which covers nine counties.
Guten said the film is “an informational tool” to “elevate to consciousness” the reality of the situation and to prevent the issues from going “dormant in people’s minds.”
Moreover, the situation at the campus does not only affect the Jewish community, but also the members of the JCC who are not Jewish and who live within and outside Whitefish Bay, Guten said.
At issue in the suit are plans for renovation and new construction on the MJF-owned Karl Jewish Community Campus that the Bay Village Board has discussed for more than two years and this past spring pared down beyond a point that the MJF and the Harry & Rose Samson Family JCC, the largest of the seven Jewish agencies housed on the campus, can accept.
Jerry Benjamin, a member of the MJF legal team in charge of the public relations for the effort, added that the Village Board “has been able to communicate its side to the press and village citizens. We felt it was very important to make sure our message got out” in the most effective way.
“Our intent is to make certain that no one in the village is unaware how frustrated and deeply concerned we are about the arbitrary and capricious way the village trustees treated the expansion of the JCC and how troubled we are as a community that they have chosen to treat the expansion of the campus differently than similar projects done by Christian churches and schools,” he said.
The film describes the Karl campus and the space constraints it faces. It summarizes MJF’s struggle with the Bay Village Board, stating that “no other religious institution has faced this kind of resistance or scrutiny, so we are preparing to defend our rights in court….”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an article Wednesday quoted Bay Village Attorney Christopher Jaekels denying that the Karl campus was being singled out. Jaekels claimed that when Dominican High School, a Catholic parochial school, was built in the Bay in the 1950s, approval also required a “supermajority” vote of the Village Board, as did the plans for the campus.
Guten, however, denied that the cases were similar since the Karl campus is the only planned unit development in the Bay, with rules that don’t apply to Dominican.
Todd Robert Murphy, whose public relations firm produced the film, said Jaekel’s attempt to make this analogy is “irrelevant” and “comparing apples and oranges.”
Jaekels also was quoted saying that discussions between the MJF and the village are continuing. Guten clarified that legal teams from the two organizations have been in communication, but MJF representatives have not spoken to or appeared before the Village Board since April.
Murphy said the film will air for “several weeks.” He also said it will be shown throughout the broadcast day, with some emphasis on time around newscasts to reach “people who are socially and politically involved.”
Guten said she was “very pleased” with the film. “It was done with dignity” and “no grandstanding,” presents “just the facts” and embodies “the values we ought to be projecting out,” that “all we want to do is provide good service to our community.”
Both Guten and Benjamin emphasized that the funds for creating the film and buying the time for its broadcast did not come from the MJF annual community campaign, but from a loan from the Jewish Community Foundation, MJF’s endowment development program.
This loan will be repaid via a capital campaign for campus construction once the necessary approvals for the project are obtained, they said.
The film can be viewed on MJF’s Web site at www.milwaukee jew ish.org.
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