EDITOR'S NOTEBOOE

The Center Of It All

or me, Sunday afternoons in the 1960s were spe-
cial after a morning of Jewish learning at Sunday
school. I got to visit the main building of the JCC.
It was something I looked forward to all week.
The Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit
had moved in 1959 from Woodward and Holbrook to Meyers
and Curtis in northwest Detroit.
And the echoes that resonated from its corridors spoke to
me as a Jew, while answering my needs for recreational and
social opportunities.
It was a time of community innocence, preceding the 1967
riots that ravaged the city and accelerated white — and Jewish
— flight. I was a restless teenager who yearned to know more
about Jewish heritage.
Family was the middle of my Jewish universe. But the JCC
played an integral role in my upbringing, the 1961 firestorm
over opening on Shabbat notwithstanding. You could say the
JCC taught me, in a less formal way, how to
interact as a Jew, just as the synagogue taught
me, more formally, what it meant to be a Jew.
I remember the good times hanging out
with kids my age at the JCC — and how it
was the place for Jewish youth activities on a
broad scale.
These dormant images have sprung back as
the two-campus JCC marks its 75th anniver-
ROBERT A. sary, a yearlong celebration that began in
SKLAR
June. I'm pleased to be part of the celebra-
Editor
tion's planning committee. And I'm eager to
visit the JCC of my youth, now Detroit's
Northwest Activities Center, at a JCC-spon-
sored open house from 2-5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 2. It should be
fun not only taking the tour, but also stirring the dusty memo-
ries of days long past.
"The beautiful auditorium was a gathering place for com-
munal activities," recalls Linda Lee, co-chair of the planning
committee and a former JCC president.
"Community rallies, the Center Symphony,
theater productions and the always exciting
Book Fair made the JCC the center of our
local Jewish world."

Growing Pains

Throughout its history and five main build-
ings, the JCC has been Detroit Jewry's cen-
Linda Lee
tral address for informally learning and min-
gling Je-wishly, whatever your background. Year
after year, the JCC touches more lives than any other Jewish
agency. All the construction dust the past few years hasn't
diminished that.
The Janice Charach Epstein Gallery, the Jewish Book Fair,
the Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival, the Seminars for
Adult Jewish Enrichment and the JCC Maccabi Games are
just some of the jewels in the JCC's programming crown.
Many of the most successful projects or events have been joint
ventures with other communal agencies.
In 1998, the JCC kicked off a $25 million capital and
endowment campaign, in cooperation with the Jewish

Related JCC open house coverage: page 35

Federation of Metropolitan Detroit and its land management
arm, the United Jewish Foundation.
The campaign has grown to $33 million, in part because of
rising construction costs. The net result is a wealth of improve-
ments to both the 26-year-old D. Dan Betty Kahn Building
in West Bloomfield and the 45-year-old Jimmy Prentis Morris
Building in Oak Park.
Thanks to the Federation, the JCC dodged a budget bullet
as needs (a new heating and cooling system) and priorities (a
first-class banquet and meeting room) drove up the costs of
upgrading the Kahn Building at the same time that general
operating revenue began to lag.

Challenges Aplen ty

Not all is rosy, though.
Health Club users ar the Kahn Building await badly needed
improvements. The long-anticipated opening of Matt
Prentice's Milk & Honey of West Bloomfield kosher restaurant
at the Kahn Building has been pushed back to at least March.
Neither the Kahn nor JPM building has an operating snack
bar — which can't linger if the JCC hopes to continue to be a
place to relax and meet.
Above almost all else, President Sharon Hart and her board
must affirm the value of joining and supporting the JCC if
membership is to rise substantially.
Their long-term agenda also includes spending within their
means (because the Federation won't always be there to make
up deficits), boosting usage, endowing programs, returning the
Midrasha Center for Adult Jewish Learning's library archives to
public use, evaluating the range of social services under the
JCC rubric, and building on relationships with the Jewish
Academy of Metropolitan Detroit and the
Jewish Ensemble Theatre. There also must be
a contingency for the space vacated once the
Holocaust Memorial Center moves to
Farmington Hills.

Source Of Vitality

We as a community, meanwhile, must come
together to assure "our JCC" stays accessible
and relevant. At Hart's June 12 installation,
Dou Bloom
g
Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin of the JCC of Greater
Baltimore called JCCs "the great uniters" —
"where all Jews are equal citizens" and "where
you become embraced simply because you are there."
I like how Doug Bloom ; Linda Lee's planning committee
co-chair and also a JCC past president, puts it in today's Jewish
News "For many in Detroit, the JCC was a place for Jews to
play, swim, study and meet. Today, however, Jews can swim
and gather in settings that are not necessarily Jewish in nature.
So why should we care if the Center is 75 years old? We
should care, and we should celebrate, because the Center con-
tinues to be a vital place for Jews of all ages and all levels of
belief to gather and enjoy their Judaism. "
As a dues-paying JCC member, and with family roots in
Detroit going back 100 years, I fervently want my JCC
to thrive for another 75 years.
So amid the festivities marking these first 75 years, I sincere-
ly hope the JCC leadership can sustain a balance between pro-
gram quality and fiscal restraint — and can reinforce the JCC
as our community's village green.

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2001

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