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12

May 17 • 2018

jn

:HVW%ORRPÀHOG
6900 Orchard Lake Road, Ste 215
:HVW%ORRPÀHOG0,

Underlying the self-congratulatory
hype of the Jewish Community
Center’s supposed “revisioning,
rebranding and repositioning” (“Let
It Ride,” April 26) is a sad reality.
I was a JCC employee in the
mid-1970s. I recall being told at an
employee meeting that JCC mem-
bership following opening of the
Maple-Drake building in 1976 was
about 13,000. I also recall being told
that membership in the last days
of the Curtis-Meyers building was
about 7,000 or 8,000. In both cases,
the membership was entirely Jewish.
Now, according the JN article,
membership has fallen to only 3,000,
a mere 1,800 (60 percent) of whom
are Jewish. In other words, the JCC
is currently serving only a minus-
cule proportion of Metro Detroit’s
approximately 70,000-strong Jewish
community.
Attempting to mask this pathetic
situation, the JCC’s CEO, Brian
Siegel, claims that the JCC is “serv-
ing thousands of people who aren’t
members . . .” Mr. Siegel, however,
provides no statistics to back up this
amorphous claim, and I’m skeptical.
The idea that non-members may
once in while go to some function
that happens to be in the JCC build-
ing cannot be turned into a claim
that they are in any meaningful way
being “served” by the JCC.
In another attempt to gloss over
the fact that the JCC is no longer
serving much of the Jewish com-
munity (and has almost as many
non-Jewish as Jewish members),
Siegel has now decided, more than
90 years after the JCC was first
established, that a major purpose
of the JCC is to be a “critical engine
for building meaningful bridges
between Jewish people and non-
Jewish people in the larger commu-
nity …” But wait a minute — doesn’t
the Jewish Community Relations
Council claim that mission? Why is
this suddenly the JCC’s mission? The
broader metropolitan Detroit com-
munity already has countless oppor-
tunities for interactions — in social,
educational, cultural, business and
other settings — between Jews and
non-Jews. Who needs a supposed
“Jewish Community Center” for that
purpose?
Good relations between Jewish
and non-Jewish communities is, of
course, very important. But promot-
ing specifically Jewish identity is
also very important; and, with Jews
a small minority, Jewish identity

is easily lost. It seems obvious to
me — and in the past I think it was
obvious to nearly everyone — that
the purpose of a Jewish Community
Center is to bring the Jewish com-
munity together for cultural, educa-
tional, social and recreational activi-
ties. That purpose is apparently now
forgotten.
Siegel also trumpets that the
JCC “has been in the black for two
years …” But is the JCC’s supposedly
now-secure financial position based
on large subsidies from the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit?
Siegel didn’t address that issue.
The latest-available Federation
annual report (2016-2017) shows an
allocation to the JCC of more than
$1.7 million. If the JCC’s supposed
“operating profit” is based on getting
large Federation allocations, is it a
real “operating profit”?
And, by the way, why is it anathe-
ma for the Federation to spend even
one single cent on any sort of Jewish
Community Center-type facility
in Oak Park/Huntington Woods/
Southfield while granting huge sums
to a Jewish Community Center in
West Bloomfield?
Siegel also claims that the JCC is
“… moving toward a vision of itself
that is not bounded by a building …
it’s moving to where the customers
are. The JCC has to deliver programs
outside the building.”
As far as I could see, the only evi-
dence Siegel provided to show that
the JCC is doing anything of that
sort was to cite supposed JCC co-
sponsorship of a few activities that
are run by other organizations. In
the Oak Park/Huntington Woods/
Southfield area — abandoned by
the JCC with the closure/demolition
of the JPM building — I’ve seen no
effort by the JCC to deliver off-site
programming. At best, a very few
legacy programs linger on in bor-
rowed quarters, with no new pro-
gramming being created.
There are a couple of things that
Siegel is quoted as saying that I do
agree with. He states that “the trust
has been lost,” and goes on to ask
“[h]ow do we rebuild that trust? We
have to prove it on the ground.”
Yes, Mr. Siegel, I quite agree with
you that “the trust has been lost.”
And yes, I further agree with you
that the JCC has to “rebuild that
trust.” But, Mr. Siegel, in my opinion,
and that of a great many others,
the JCC has so far utterly failed to
rebuild any trust.

David Barth
Oak Park