An invitation arrived around New Year's. It was addressed to my daughter, who now lives on the other coast. Since it was a card, front and back, from a public rather than personal source, I read it and found it of potential interest. It solicited her membership in the
Jewish Community Center of her childhood town, noting the date of an Open House to tour the facility. It would be unrealistic for her to pursue this, though not me. I had been a member for decades. Now as a senior empty nester, one who could benefit from their health enhancement facilities, I took the card to my upstairs desk. Everyplace has a website, including the JCC. In the promotional initiative, they would waive their various upfront fees assigned to new members. The monthly fee would be $99 for a senior couple, $67 dollars for myself alone. Since the YMCA is around the corner from there and has comparable health facilities, I compared pricing. Virtually the same. And the JCC has Jewish content, though membership in the local Y includes access to any Y, regional or national. I reserved the date for their Open House, a three hour span from 10AM to 1PM. That time arrived. I bundled up for the cold snap, drove to the building, found a suitable parking space in a lot that I thought crowded for a Sunday mid-morning, and headed into the building.
Jewish buildings now require some vigilance on who may enter. I opened the front door to find their lobby rather busy. To my right, an affable African American lady at the registration table greeted me promptly and took the information she needed about me on her tablet. I thought I might have a history, but apparently not. A few docents were conducting personal guided tours, so one of them found me.
My membership had lapsed with intent many years before. I remember the circumstances but not the year, only that my children were pretty much starting on their own. My synagogue began a Capital Campaign. A solicitor, really two people, a congregant who chaired the effort and a contracted fundraising professional, came to my living room. They asked for an amount that I had but would rather spend differently. It was a pledge of $3000 payable over three years. My wife and I wanted to this to be economically neutral, as our children had not fully completed school. Membership in the JCC cost about that much, and we had more attachment to the synagogue than to the J, so we diverted the money. Our pledge got paid on schedule. We never restored our JCC affiliation.
The experience when I was there was a very mixed one. They hosted plenty of worthy Jewish events from an Israel Expo shortly after we arrived to town that utilized the entire surface area of the building. We attended their Adult Ed sessions for many years, a project championed by a senior member of my congregation. It contained a series of courses conducted by some real experts. I learned much of what I know of Jewish demographics from the U of D professor who taught this. But as his ability to assemble this waned, the project collapsed. Each Hanukkah they sponsored their Hanukkah Hoopla, filling the gym's floor space with vendors renting tables, some to sell high end Judaica, others coming as Jewish agencies promoting the value their organizations bring to out Jewish community. Having an exceptional child who was difficult to mainstream, I often found myself holding the bag as the JCC staff found dealing with him beyond their professional skills, something that generated a fair amount of ill will on my part. And there were the health and aquatic facilities which I used, sometimes with regularity, often with lapses. When I had an ankle fracture not long after my forty year parts warranty expired, whose recovery took time, the availability of the JCC resources was useful. But by the time my membership lapsed, I had become a sporadic user. The projects that attracted me most had atrophied. I no longer needed the child services. Not that I thought my congregation would use its endowment well as the alternative. It didn't. But once paid off, I had an extra $1000 or so each year not allocated to anything I didn't particularly value. Indeed, a small increment in my checking account not really even noticed.
In the intervening years, there are specific events that brought me to the JCC Building, ranging from political pre-election candidate forums to mincha services for my congregation or an occasional public entertainment event or guest speaker of international prominence. While on site, I just headed where the thing I wanted to attend or sometimes needed to attend was being held. I never ventured beyond the assigned room or adjacent hallway, other than maybe to sit in the lobby while waiting for the event to commence. This time I came to see what my monthly fee would purchase.
First, the building is considerably larger than when I left. My guide took me through a hall I had never entered previously on the far eastern wing of the building. The Fitness Center now occupies a space where the men's locker room had been, greatly expanded by amount of equipment and space devoted to it. Any imaginable means of increasing endurance and strength could be accessed. Not only did it appear large, the impression of space was further enhanced by a floor to ceiling mirror on the far wall which reflected the entire room into the visual impression of a duplicate room with identical equipment. They had energy drinks for purchase. I did not see the current lockers. She did offer to show me the pool, but I know what pool looks like. The more important question for a purchaser would be the accessibility of the pool as a finite entity that has to accommodate classes, swim teams, senior water aerobics, dedicated lap swim time, all in competition for random recreational use. They did supply the aquatics schedule.
While my health as a senior matters, with exercise part of it, I have a home treadmill, though one with much less utility than theirs. Would I use strength building? Minimally at most. Would I engage the professional skills of a trainer? To the extend my monthly fee included that. Would the driving time required to get there and back, approximately the duration of an entire treadmill session, deter me from using the facilities? I think so.
But what attracted me during my membership years was not the health club, which I used, but the Jewish content which was considerable and the friendships which essentially did not materialize. So as my personal tour guide took me around, my questions focused on what makes the Jewish Community Center, ours and others, Jewish. Modifications of access for shabbos and yom tovim? She could tell me the building was closed, gym open. Interestingly our JCC could not survive solely on its Jewish membership dues. People come to use the gym and pool primarily. They also enroll for child care services, from day care to after school care to summer camp. These have a vestige of Jewishness. They ask that home made lunches be free of pork and food prepared in their kitchen is kosher. But they cannot realistically suspend child care on yom tovim. They have lunch sessions with Jewish themed talks. They are directed at seniors. I know the principal instructor. Unlikely to have any content not already covered in a Hebrew school of the 1960s, long since atrophied by the Hebrew school my kids attended in the 1990s. Struck me as minimalist, though I don't really know.
And like many secular Jewish agencies, they tend to stratify people. Children under age 5 neeed to be together, pre-Bar Mitzvah grade school needs to be together, Seniors need to be together. With suitable programming for each, with crossover regarded as intrusion on protected turf. I assume they learned this from the USCJ Congregations that promote this, or perhaps from childhood weekends at Grossingers and the like where they functioned this way. Homogeneity created fewer problems than diversity, be the stratification by age, wealth, level of observance, or political views. As polarized as America has become and as badly as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has been managed, as echo chambers have become the places we default to unless forced elsewhere, the really valuable parts of the world as I see it seem to do the opposite. In my workplaces, my common mission is shared by all sorts of people. On a cruise where people are assigned to tables either randomly or semi-randomly and where you could be sharing an excursion adventure with anyone, being with people who are not like me is integral to enjoyment. My electronic friend, Rabbi Hayim Herring wrote a book Connecting Generations: Bridging the Boomer, Gen X, and Millennial Divide (Rowman and Littlefield 2019). He argued that organizations do themselves and their users a disservice when they put people into generational boxes. The workplaces and vacation operators have learned this. The agencies of Judaism haven't, except for maybe the Orthodox synagogues. Of all my experiences at the Open House, it is my impression that I belong here and not there caused me the most unease.
Since this was an Open House being attended by a variety of people who might be interested in the JCC for many different reasons, the event also had vendors with display tables lining the walls. Some were Federation subagencies like the JCC. Others sold tutoring services, the PJ Library which provides Jewish books to Jewish preschoolers and early readers, various services of interest to Seniors, The Friends School for kids who need a level of prestigious entitlement beyond which the local day school struggles to compete.
They had bagels and coffee on a table next to a big depleted box with paper lining indicating it had been supplied by WaWa. I didn't eat anything.
The people were pleasant. The facilities clean. And the gym top notch. I don't think Jewish was at a level that would greatly enhance me from my current level. I already attend an excellent Osher Institute affiliated with my state's flagship university. There I do not mind a space restricted to other retirees, as that is Osher's purpose. It is not the JCCs purpose, or shouldn't be. My JCC membership had lapsed decades before as it lost a head to head decision against my synagogue for equal levels of support. I didn't miss the gym. Getting wet periodically at a state beach or a hotel was sufficient. By the time I left, the upper tier Jewish programs were already gone. And experience with child care could have been better, No strong friendships were made, though none sacrificed either. Does rejoining restore or enhance? Not how I reason it right now. But while there, I spun the wheel for a free gift. Mine came up a single day pass. Now wedged in a little slot in my cell phone case, I could return and experience this at a time that is not a targeted recruitment event. I could experience how helpful their trainers are or whether those lectures on Judaism targeted to seniors reminds me more of college or Hebrew School. But while I appreciated the upgrades to facilities, I returned with some baggage of prior experience. And in a Jewish world of significant attrition in my post-Hebrew School lifetime, now two generations worth, I wonder how much our leaders really learned as the baton was passed from the adult creators of my youth who effectively cloned their proteges to run the operations with efficiency metrics now.
