oints of view Publisher's Notebook Editorial Beware Of Positive Iranian Overtures I p lans for a new Jewish Community Center, to be constructed on a 120-acre parcel at Maple and Drake roads in West Bloomfield, were grand as they were taking shape on the drawing boards at Louis Redstone & Associates in the early 1970s. The facility, accord- ing to stories contained in the Detroit Jewish News digital archive, was "to serve an area within a radius of some 50 miles, including all of Metropolitan Detroit, Flint, Ann Arbor and other local communities:' In addition to its broad allure, the building, according to JCC Executive Vice President Irwin Shaw, was "to provide the most diverse and the most flexible and functional Center building of its kind in the country. In this way, the Center can expand its current high level of creative program- ming and provide more activities to meet the needs of everyone in the community" As the Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit and its United Jewish Foundation scramble to plug unexpected and gaping deficits in the Center's operating bud- get while also searching — again — for a sustain- able business model and the leadership to carry it forward, it is important to acknowledge that the Maple-Drake facility — one of the largest Jewish Community Centers in North America with square footage and opera- tional overhead costs more closely resembling those found in decent-sized shopping malls — was built for an era that no longer exists. The Maple-Drake facility has become the community's equivalent of the talking, flesh-eating plant in the play Little Shop of Horrors — feed me! Instead of plant food, the nutri- ent to sustain the Center has been cash, and lots of it, espe- cially over the past 20 years. And like the rapidly growing plant, the more cash the Center received, the more square footage it added. Expansive Ideas The original Maple-Drake facility was constructed with a handful of core assumptions: • It would serve Jews and Jewish communities in a geographic area spanning from Flint to Ann Arbor; • It would be flexible and functional; • It would meet the needs of everyone in the Jewish community; • The physical presence of the Center would spur new residential development that would assure a growing population of nearby Jewish users. The belief that Jews from a 50-mile radius would come to the Maple-Drake JCC was aspirational and underscored the confidence being placed in the facility's anticipated allure. Membership dues and program fees paid by Jews from outly- The JCC building in West Bloomfield ing areas were not going to make or break the Center's bud- get. Today, of course, it's become too much of a shlep to drive the 25 minutes from Huntington Woods to Maple-Drake — regardless of the place's allure. While the facility may have looked flexible and functional on blueprints, in reality its maze of hallways (and wasted square footage), immovable walls, confusing entryways and long walks from the parking lots provided less- than-ideal user experiences. And, of course, the building came with crushing fixed and overhead costs that have only grown with the addition of more enclosed square footage (and this doesn't include the additional overhead costs in the Center's budget associated with the conversion of the Jimmy Prentis Morris branch in Oak Park into a full- service facility.) The Maple-Drake facility was conceived in an era when Jewish centers truly saw themselves as being all things to all (Jewish) people. It was easy to imagine the facility as a destination for the family. Once entering the lobby, dad could head off to the health club for a massage, mom could take a dip in the pool, sonny boy could play basketball in the gym and daughter could take a ceramics class. Afterward, they would gather in the cafe to talk about their day while munching on kosher snacks. There were no personal computers. No Internet. No distance learning. No yoga and Pilates studios. Virtually no health club competitors. Little programming competition from nearby Temple Israel. While demographers from the mid-1950s through the late 1980s pegged the Detroit Jewish population at anywhere between 80,000 and 96,000, a 2006 study found it to be closer to 72,000 with virtually no young adults and the high- est concentration of elderly outside of traditional Sunbelt retirement communities. Today, reasonable guesstimates place it between 60,000 and 65,000, approximately 25 per- cent smaller than when Maple-Drake opened. Anyone who lives within a 5-mile radius of the facility knows that despite its allure, new generations of Jews are not moving into the surrounding residential neighborhoods. But it would be disingenuous to attribute all of the Center's recurring financial challenges to grand visions from the 1960s and 1970s. When there were opportunities to challenge the core assumptions upon which the Maple-Drake model was built — to imagine what a Jewish Community Center for the 21st century should look like — the Center and com- munal leadership continued to double-down on a mid-20th century model with more brick-and-mortar investments, and their accompanying overhead costs. JCC on page 29 28 February 20 • 2014 n the wake of the great debate in Washington over whether to impose new Iran sanctions come two Iranian lead- ers cozying up to Jewish causes. While the gestures seem positive, don't be fooled into believing Tehran is warming up to the Jewish community, despite Iran being home to 25,000 Jews. Jew-hatred runs too deep in the Islamic Republic. Leaders take pains to distinguish Jews as a people from Israel as a govern- ment. But let there be no doubt: You can't despise Zionism, one of Judaism's binding forces, and say you like Jews, the lifeblood of Judaism. News reports indicate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a supposed moderate when compared with his predecessor, Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, donated any- where from $170,000 to $400,000 to the Jewish hospital in Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, meanwhile, declared the Holocaust was "tragically cruel and should not happen again," adding, "We have nothing against the Jews." The comments came amid talks between Iran and major powers designed to keep Iran from building a nuclear weapon. Against this negotiations backdrop, Congress is debating whether to side with President Obama and give diplomacy a chance or impose new uni- lateral sanctions. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, expressed her oppo- sition to new sanctions in a letter solicited by U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee and a staunch opponent of new sanctions. "Her let- ter is another strong signal to Congress that we should not take any legislative action at this time that would damage international unity or play into the hands of hardliners in Iran who oppose negotiations," Levin said. Levin has earned a reputation over 36 years of service as one of the Senate's most- respected members. He makes a strong case "that Congress and the administration are poised to act if Iran violates its commitments or fails to negotiate in good faith toward a final agreement." Still, there's reason to worry. The Zionist Organization of America points out that full Iranian compliance would only extend the time required to produce a nuclear bomb from two to three months. The ZOA also underscores that should the Geneva accord collapse, Iran would "earn billions through new and renewed contracts" as the time- consuming process of reinstating sanctions droned on. There's also the red-alert matter of Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei declaring just 12 days ago that America is his nation's "enemy." ❑