The board of directors of the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center on April 24 approved two resolutions. These state, according to texts furnished by JCC executive director Mark Shapiro:
• “The JCC’s opening time on Saturdays shall be 8 a.m.”
• “The JCC shall explore, create, and implement programming on Saturdays consistent with the mission and vision of the JCC, while respecting the unique role of other Jewish institutions.”
However, as Shapiro emphasized in a telephone interview with The Chronicle on April 25, this does not mean the JCC soon will be changing its Saturday opening time from noon to 8 a.m. or will be creating any new Saturday programming.
“No changes will be implemented related to the board’s decision until the JCC has opened the process to the entire community for their input,” Shapiro said.
He added that the JCC has “no deadline, there is no timeline, there is no time frame” for implementing these decisions. “We feel that if there is a deadline or time frame, we’d be sending a message to the community that this had already been done. It is not done,” he said.
“We accepted the input from the entire community leading up to the vote, and we will work even harder to welcome as much input as people want as we move forward in designing what’s next,” said Shapiro.
Rabbi Jacob Herber of Congregation Beth Israel was one of the opponents of these proposals. He was one of ten congregational rabbis who signed a letter dated April 8 expressing “strong opposition to the proposed opening of the JCC on Shabbat morning.”
Herber said in a telephone interview April 25 that he feels “very sad, both personally and professionally,” about the vote. “I think it’s a mistake for the Jewish community.”
However, Herber added that he feels “delighted to know” that the JCC “will not take any action” on these decisions “until they have gotten input from the very broad Jewish community.”
“I admire the fact that [JCC leaders] recognize that there are other points of view and that those other points of view need to be taken into account and need to be heard before they decide to implement that programming,” Herber said.
Shapiro said these issues of Saturday opening hours and programming have been a long-standing discussion at the JCC.
“If you were to ask past presidents of the JCC board of directors going back 15 to 20 years, each of them will tell you this conversation has been on their agenda,” he said.
“Our membership and our community have been asking for this for a very long time,” he continued. “Where there are members of our community that don’t want it, there are also members of our community who do.”
The JCC, Shapiro said, “is always trying to balance accommodation. Whether it’s in our single sex swimming hours or kashrut in our café, we are trying to meet the needs of the entire Jewish community, from the highest level of observance to the unengaged and unaffiliated.”
Out of recognition of the importance of this decision and “as a statement to the community that this is not being taken lightly,” the JCC board, which has 31 members, imposed on itself the requirement that the approving vote had to be by a supermajority of greater than 67 percent, Shapiro said.
Shapiro said “there is no specific plan yet” for how the JCC will receive community input on the board’s decisions. He did mention the idea of “a series of focus groups” to which “anyone in the community,” both JCC members and non-members, “would be invited to share their thoughts and vision for how we continue to meet the ever-changing needs of the community.”
Herber provided to The Chronicle the text of the April 8 rabbis’ letter that he said had been given to the JCC board.
In addition to Herber, the other signers were: Jessica Barolsky and Marc Berkson of Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun; Steve Adams of Congregation Emanu-El of Waukesha; David Brusin of Congregation Shir Hadash; Noah Chertkoff and Ron Shapiro of Congregation Shalom; David B. Cohen of Congregation Sinai; Wes Kalmar of Congregation Anshe Sfard Kehillat Torah; and Gil-Ezer Lerer of Temple Menorah.
The letter argued against the JCC’s expanded Shabbat hours and programming on three grounds:
• “The unique role of the synagogue on Shabbat” and its “essential role” in “educating the Jewish people about their faith, tradition, and values.”
• “The inevitable risk of mission creep” whereby “missions of respective institutions begin to overlap and compete.”
• “The importance of the core Jewish value of Shalom Bayit” — literally, peace in the house — “in the Milwaukee Jewish community.” This set of JCC changes “pits congregant against congregant, JCC board members against each other, and rabbis against agency executives. Further, it forces engaged and involved Jewish families … to choose between their synagogue or the JCC on the holiest day of the Jewish week.”
In fact, the issue of Shalom Bayit surfaced before the JCC board vote. Opposing rabbis and JCC leaders were so troubled by the tone and tenor of community debates on this matter, that on April 12 Herber, Cohen, Shapiro, and JCC chair Moshe Katz wrote and issued “Eilu v’Eilu: A Joint Statement on Debate within Our Jewish Community.”
“While we disagree strongly over the proposal, we have the deepest respect for each other personally and professionally and know that each other’s motivations and positions come from a place of love and concern for the welfare and future of our Jewish community,” the statement reads in part.
Herber emphasized that while he is the current president of the Wisconsin Council of Rabbis, he was taking his positions and speaking to The Chronicle as an individual, not as council president.
He said the council has not taken an official position on this subject because the council has one member who is on the JCC staff, “and out of deference and with sensitivity toward that member, we did not want to take a public stance.”
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