• ••••••••,....4 . •• •••- -

See The Great Outback
Right Here In The States!

The Scene

Cultural Potshots

The new Makor center in New York City
is trying to set the standard of "Jewish cool."

2000 SUBARU OUTBACK

J. J. GOLDBERG
Special to the Jewish News

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lex Dwek, a London-born
real-estate developer, sits
with a friend in a dimly
lit cafe on New York's
fashionable Upper West Side, sip-
ping white wine and chatting up a
young lady he's just met. The three
of them, all 30-some-
thing, fashionably
dressed and single,
have just emerged
from an evening class.
nearby, where they
studied "The Artist's
Way: Discovering and
Recovering Your
Creative Self."
"The teacher says
we all have art in us
somehow, and we have
to recover it," Alex
explains. Companions
Richard Bakst and
Lori Mark nod enthu-
siastically. "It's a way
of getting in touch
with yourself," adds
Richard.
This could be a
scene from any one of
hundreds of dimly lit
cafes dotting
Manhattan. But there's
one crucial difference:
Alex, Richard and Lori
have come here hoping
to meet other Jews.
A pop singer gains an audience at Makor.
That, in fact, is what
this cafe is here for.
Rabbi David Gedzelman.
This is Makor, one of the hottest
- And if some end up married,
new hot spots on the New York cul-
well,
Makor won't object. That was
ture scene. The brainchild of phil-
a
key
motive behind the project's
anthropist Michael Steinhardt, it's
conception,
though it's downplaye
meant to be a sort of Jewish drop-in
lately,
having
evoked too much
center for the young and hip. And
smirking.
"
strangely, it's proving to be contro-
For Mr. Steinhardt, 59, the com-
versial.
munity's health is a personal cru-
To a visitor, the five-story town-
sade. A Wall Street legend, he
house resembles nothing so much as
retired in 1995 to pursue Jewish
a Hillel House for grownups.
continuity full-time. He created hi
There's a performance space and
own organization, the Jewish Life
adjoining cafe (beer and wine, no
Network,
and hired a stable of
booze) in the basement, a reading
young
rabbis
to dream up new
room and lecture hall at ground
ideas, which are then spun off. On
level, art gallery and screening room

A

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(248) 352-7254

above that, and two more floors of
classrooms.
Makor's goal is to attract under-
40 singles who don't generally fre-
quent Jewish institutions by offer-
ing cultural programs they can't
resist. "We try to bring them higher
Jewishly as they move upward
through the building," says Makor's
creative and rabbinic director,