Comments (4)Updated: JCC Now Open For Shabbat
Associated board votes in favor of opening the JCC on Shabbat.
May 27, 2009By Alan Feiler and Phil Jacobs
Updated May 27, 2009 2:45 PM
“Open on Shabbat.” That’s what the Rosenbloom Owings Mills Jewish Community Center will be, beginning 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 6. The vote tally was 97-33, with four abstentions.
The approval to open came via secret ballot last Wednesday afternoon, May 27, by the board of directors of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore. The JCC is a constituent agency of the Associated.
More than 100 board members voted after listening to approximately 30 minutes of discussion in favor and against opening on Saturday afternoons.
The landmark vote and decision comes after weeks of emotional discussions between rabbis, community leaders, sermons from pulpits and even buzz from exercisers on the very treadmills that will be now operating on Saturdays.
Nearly a dozen years ago, when the same vote came to the Associated, the board opted against the center’s opening on Shabbat.
The JCC executive board and board of directors both voted overwhelmingly recently to open the JCC. At the Associated’s May 14 board meeting, two hours were devoted to presentations by both sides of the issue, as well as questions and discussions.
On May 17, a rally was staged at Northwestern High School in Upper Park Heights, to speak openly about the importance of Shabbat and its preservation. The rally was attended mostly by Orthodox community members.
Jimmy Berg, chairman of the Associated board, said that the rally made people think more deeply about Shabbat. “People who have approached me have told me that it’s made them think about their own practices,” he said.
“Certainly the JCC feels that this vote will enable us to connect with even more families and individuals,” said Louis “Buddy” Sapolsky, JCC president. “We have some plans to make Shabbat at the JCC a very exciting day. We look forward to working with local congregations to help make this happen. It’s important to note, there are no winners or losers, and we look forward to working with the Orthodox community going forward to try to build bridges together, and my hats off to Rabbis [Moshe] Hauer and [Menachem] Goldberger for the respectful and civil way they handled the whole process.”
“Now, we can really get down to working together making Shabbat a special day at the J, and to continue a really positive dialogue with the observant community, now that this is out of the way to continue the process without this vote hanging over us,” Mr. Sapolsky said.
Said Associated President Marc B. Terrill, who had been working to bridge the community’s views in countless meetings and exchanges: “The positions shared at today’s Associated board of directors meeting were all noble in their intent. The ultimate goal of everyone involved in this communal conversation is to connect individuals and families to the beauty of the gift of Shabbat. I only hope and pray that the decision today serves as an opportunity to broaden its observance.
“A day of reflection and inward thinking makes a great deal of spiritual and pragmatic sense. I applaud the breadth of leaders actively participating in this conversation for their wisdom, respect and civility.”
Rabbi Hauer, spiritual leader of Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion Synagogue, said of the vote, “It’s almost like when you expect something to happen on a certain level and it doesn’t make it easier when it does happen. I feel terrible. Our community has just dropped a significant notch both in terms of what it stands for as well how it stands together. I’m very committed to trying to continue to make the community stronger and to work together and to develop the kind of real, real understanding and appreciation we obviously do not have enough of. … I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. It’s a chillel HaShem [desecration of God’s name].”
Shortly after the board meeting ended last Wednesday, Elaine Freeman praised the Associated and JCC leaderships for their handling of the Shabbat issue. Ms. Freeman, a Beth Am congregant, favored opening the JCC on Shabbat.
“The leadership did a great job in letting everyone have their say,” she said about the meeting. “Both sides made their points. It wasn’t a tense meeting but after 30 minutes, people had enough discussion. You get to a point where everything has been said and you’ve had enough. … I feel like now there’s an opportunity to do more programming on Saturday afternoons and engage more people.”
Fellow board member Gary Attman concurred. “This was a very respectful process, and I think everyone voted their conscience,” he said. “In an ironic twist, it may have brought the community together. … Everyone in the room has so much respect for Jimmy and Marc and how this process was handled.”
Mr. Attman said he does not believe there will be a backlash to the decision from the traditional community. “I would hope there wouldn’t be,” he said. “People should be able to share their feelings freely without worrying about what the next person would think or say.”
That sentiment was echoed by Ronnie Rosenbluth, even though he advocated keeping the JCC closed on Shabbat.
“I don’t expect a backlash. I hope not,” he said. “It’s not necessary.
If anything, people should get more involved with the Associated. Maybe instead of 33 [votes against opening the JCC on Shabbat], next time we’ll have 50. … I expected it to go this way. I’m disappointed, but this is a great Jewish community. It has to stay united. We have to keep the Baltimore Jewish community together.”
Associated and JCC board member Suzanne Levin-Lapides said the vote to open the center on Shabbat “shows we now understand that we have multiple points of entry to the community, and there are lots of ways to engage the community.”
Ms. Levin-Lapides compared the process to her service on the committee for the annual Baltimore Jewish Film Festival, in which entries need to be heavily screened for appropriateness to traditional segments of the community, even though observant Jews rarely attend the festival.
“The minute you tell someone they can’t do something, it starts a buzz,”
she said. “You’re not making a choice for people, you’re giving them the right to choose, whether they engage or not. … I expected things to go this way. It’s a different world from 1997.”
One board member who requested anonymity admitted that she expected the vote to go against opening the JCC on Shabbat because of the strong presentations made at the meeting by opponents.
But Beth Mayers, chair of the board at the JCC, disagreed. “I felt very confident that we made a strong presentation,” she said. “I’m very happy, but I feel we now have much work to do. We have to build bridges together in the community. This decision will enable us to connect with more Jewish families and individuals. And this will help us connect and work with the Orthodox community. We’re going to work hard to make sure the communication that started with this process will continue.
“The leadership of Rabbi Hauer and Rabbi Goldberger was outstanding, very respectful, dignified and thought-provoking,” Ms. Mayers said. “And I thank the Associated for the work they did during this process. Now, we have a lot of ground to cover.”
About an hour after the historic vote, Mr. Berg said, “One chapter ends and the next one starts. The burden is on the JCC to make it a different day and an outreach opportunity. The last four weeks have been a Jewish journey for me, delving into this issue, building relationships with Orthodox leaders and hearing them out and hearing their passion. I felt they got an education as well as reason for the need to outreach to the unaffiliated. At the end of the day, it’s a challenging scenario. How do we have the unaffiliated opt in? How do we make Judaism relevant to them?
“At end of the day, I hope and pray the JCC puts a program in place to make a difference. I think they have a historic opportunity to make a difference here. I think we’re making a huge statement to the Jewish world that Baltimore has two JCCs. One of them is closed, because we respect our Orthodox community. But we’re also willing to take risks and be open to the unaffiliated. The bottom line is that people walking into the Owings Mills JCC that day will know it’s a different day.”