Letters

process. I then decided to
take my business else-
where.
If the JCC is truly inter-
ested in keeping and adding
members, it should realize
that customer satisfaction
is paramount, and that in
today's market it is impor-
tant to be both price and
service competitive. While
support for the "Jewish"
part of the JCC is impor-
tant, it's not enough.
After my membership ex-
pired, the JCC sent me a sur-
vey and asked me to fill it in
and send it back. I wrote a
careful and detailed response
to the survey, and stated that
I would consider returning to
the JCC if someone would
call me to discuss my corn-
ments. No one ever called or
responded.
Bert J. Green
Farmington Hills

Making Case
For Book Fair

Dan Davis at the JCC West Bloomfield Health Club.

No Response
From The JCC

I wish to respond with some com-
ments regarding your story about
the JCC and its recent troubles.
As a Health Club member from
1993-94, I experienced firsthand
many of the concerns expressed
in the article, but it was really a
lot worse than portrayed.
I would notice the overall con-
dition of the showers, saunas, and
hot-tub area of the men's locker
room. It was often quite dirty,
with hair in the drains, towels
and water everywhere and some-
times a foul smell. Many times
my laundry was not returned,
damp, misplaced or lost. Often
the toiletries would be spilled,
empty and not in order. The car-
pet was often dirty, and the
lounge area was also rarely clean.
I would complain, both ver-
bally and in writing. My verbal
complaints were often met with
rude defiance and charming com-
ments like, "It's not my job," or "I
only work here." I wrote four
notes and left my name and lock-
er number and gave them to the
staff at the Health Club desk. I
never received any response.
While some of the staff was
helpful and pleasant, others were
curt and rude. At times, I felt the
staff was more interested in flirt-
ing with members and taking
breaks than in helping us.
The final straw came when it

was time to renew my member-
ship. I had paid $640 for an indi-
vidual Men's Health Club
membership in September 1993.
I was- shocked to find my renew-
al for '94-'95 would be $865, al-
most a 40 percent increase. When
you account for the JCC's fre-
quent (and sometimes unneces-
sary) "holiday" closings, limited
hours, poor service and increased
competition, the amount seemed
excessive.
At this point, I went to a few
local clubs, and they were de-
lighted to show off their facilities.
They were more modern, had
much better hours and services
and genuinely seemed interest-
ed in getting my business.
I then went to the JCC mem-
bership office to see if they were
willing to negotiate the fee, and
if they would address my com-
plaints. I spoke with a woman in
the office. While she was friend-
ly, she said that there was no way
that she could or would reduce
the membership dues, but that
she could add a "few" days onto
the end of my year to compensate
for the holiday closings.
I told her that there is a lot of
local competition for health-club
dollars, but that I wanted to stay
at the JCC to help support it (and
be in Jewish surroundings), but
not at a $225 increase. She was
unwilling to work with me on the
fee, and denied that there were
any cleanliness or staff problems,
and was quite unapologetic in the

The editorial in your Jan.
27 issue titled "An Ac-
countable Plan for JCC" in-
cludes the following
sentence which could easi-
ly be misinterpreted by
many of your readers: "Who
needs to concentrate Jew-
ish book-buying power for a
once-a-year book-fair when
the mega-booksellers along
Orchard Lake Road provide
year-around discount prices
for the same up-to-date books by
Jewish authors?"
To understand the answer to
this question, it would be well to
get a little historical background.
When the Center started the
community's annual Jewish Book
Fair 43 years ago, you could
rarely find a Jewish book in a
general bookstore — even at
Hudson's Northland, in the heart
of the Jewish community. Even
Jewish bookstores carried few
books of Jewish interest except
for prayer and reference books.
Within three years after our
first Fair, the shelves in both the
general and the Jewish book-
stores began to include increas-
ing numbers of books of Jewish
interest. Over the last 40 years,
the fact that Jewish books could
be (and were) increasingly avail-
able at these outlets never de-
tracted from the enormous
popularity of our "once-a-year"
event.
Could it be that the success of
the annual Jewish Book Fairs
was one of the reasons why the
mega-booksellers decided to lo-
cate themselves on Orchard Lake
Road?
It is important that we under-
stand the difference between the
role of the Center and the role of
the booksellers. This can best be
explained by means of another
piece of history.
In 1956, I attended the annu-
al meeting of the National Jew-

ish Book Council in New York. In
describing our Book Fair to this
group, I made it a point to stress
the emphasis we placed on the
selling of books in addition to
their display and the presence of
their authors.
One member of the audience,
Dr. Joshua Bloch, head of the
Jewish Division of the New York
Public Library, questioned the
value of this emphasis by asking,
"Mr. Shaw, what guarantee do
you have that even if they buy a
book, they will read it?"
I admitted that I couldn't guar-
antee it, but what I could guar-
antee was that if they didn't buy
the book — or get it some other
way — they would certainly nev-
er read it. I continued by saying:
"Dr. Bloch, you're implying that
if you lead a horse to water and
can't make him drink, it's not
worth leading him to the water.
But you mistake our purpose. It's
not our job to make him drink.
Our job is to make him thirsty."
That was our job then. It's still
a job that urgently needs to be
done now. As a matter of fact, this
"changed community" to which
you refer in your last paragraph
needs it more desperately than
ever. If anybody thinks that the
job can be done without programs
like the Book Fair and without
good Jewish libraries, he/she is
only deluding him/herself.
Irwin Shaw
Executive vice president emeritus,
Jewish Community Center

Is The JCC
Relevant Today?

So, let me get this straight. The
best thing I can do for the Jewish
community is...join the Health
Club at the JCC. And to top it off,
by joining I will be helping a club
which is open only to Jews to
open on Shabbat and a few festi-
vals. And we can have neat books
(but let's not have any of the Jew-
ish library stuff). What a concept.
Or perhaps, I really hope that
your article was full of misquotes
and misprints.
Mr. Bloom, with all due re-
spect, maybe you have got it a bit
wrong. Rather than asking a
question such as, "What can we
do to increase health club mem-
bership so that we can, perhaps,
underwrite some of this Jew Stuff
— after, of course, we've paid for
installing all that new equipment
and marketing expenses and so
on," maybe you and Dr. Plotnick
should ask, "Is the JCC, as struc-
tured, relevant to Jews today?"
or "Is there really a need for a
health club which exists in a state
of tension between being Jewish
and being full service?"
You might find that you occu-
py a non-existent position in the
market, and if you dress it up one
way you are no longer worthy of
being called Jewish, and if you
dress it up another way you are
no longer worthy of being called
a health club.
So, the underlying question

might be: "What is the role of the
JCC today?" and not, "How can
we buy better equipment for a
failing enterprise without a clear
path for making it other than a
failing enterprise?"
We might find that Jews today
have enough opportunity to
schvitz in non-Jewish surround-
ings. We might find that what the
community needs is being dis-
covered in bookstores because
that's where unaffiliated Jews
are. And that we could serve
them better by going there rather
than by creating more of them via
opening all day on Shabbat and
other Holy Days.
Then there's the side of me
which wonders why all of this is
coming out just as Hillel Day
School is debating its future. I
sure would hate to see personal
agendas get caught up with com-
munal agendas.
Yes, I am sad that the JCC is
in financial trouble. But I am
more sad that Borman Hall has
been abandoned and the elderly
are not served. And that educa-
tion for the unaffiliated is not be-
ing supported. And that day
schools don't get the money as
they should. And that other, cen-
tral tasks of a Jewish communi-
ty are being left undone. That is
where I want to spend my ener-
gies and dollars, and where I
want my community leaders
spending their energies and dol-
lars. Not on a Stairmaster, on a
Saturday morning.
Leonard I. Wanetik
West Bloomfield

Hillel Also
In Festival

As an addition to your story on
Israeli performers Noa and Gil
Dor, and their appearance at the
Mid East/West Fest, I'd like to
point out that the fifth-graders at
Hillel Day School, as part of our
seven-year-old Open Minds/Open
Arms program, are also partici-
pating, with their pen pals from
the Schulz School in Detroit, in
this year's Mid East/West Fest.
Open Minds/Open Arms is a
joint program devoted to bridg-
ing the gap between the black
and Jewish communities and
learning about each others' cul-
tures.
This year's program has been
enhanced by both schools' par-
ticipation in the Mid East/West
Fest and the concerts of the Tnu-
atron Dance Theater and the up-
coming Noa and Gil Dor
program.
Rochelle Isckovitz
Principal,
Hillel Day School

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