What will be behind the doors?

For the past 13 months or so, the community has been buzzing about the project from the Partnership for a Jewish Center. Some things I’ve heard around town…

“I heard they’re building a JCC…”
“Not a JCC, a gym and addition to the Lerner Jewish Community Day School.”
“No, it’s just another fitness center… aren’t there enough of those around?”
“I heard there’s going to be a theatre and a swimming pool!”
“Or maybe a social services venue?”
“Rumor has it; they want to build office and meeting space. Why spend the money?
There’s plenty of space at the synagogues, and we can rent if we need more.”
“What exactly are they building?”

As you read on, I hope to clarify a few of these impressions spreading like
wildfire through the community.

Let’s begin at the beginning. “They” are not building anything. “We” - the Durham/Chapel Hill Jewish community - are. The PJC (Partnership for a Jewish Center) is a partnership of the Durham/Chapel Hill Jewish Federation and the Lerner Jewish Community Day School, with a Board and growing cadre of
volunteers comprising a cross-section of the entire Jewish community. The PJC, as an organization, exists simply to raise the funds necessary to manage the creation of the new facility… JCC… day school
addition… “J”… campus… social services venue… or whatever you want to call it.

So, what will this facility ultimately be?

Picture a place where the entire Jewish community comes together. It may be for social gatherings, physical activities, a visit with friends, to hear a speaker, see a film, take part in a performance, prepare for Shabbat with the day school students, complete an art project, enjoy a program with our seniors, or anything else you can imagine. You should be able to do it all in this place.

Image walking the halls and into each room and place yourself in any of these scenarios…

You peek into one room. One of the day school students is painting a piece of pottery she made. It looks like her grandfather is helping her, when you realize you know him from your congregation – and the two are not even related, they are just working together on an art project.

You overhear a conversation at the Kosher Café… “At my old health club, I would come and exercise, then leave. Here it’s different. I finished my workout 2 hours ago and have been visiting with friends ever since. I better run, but I’ll see you at back here at the lecture tonight.”

You are walking the indoor track, (getting that cardio workout the doctor has been recommending for years) when you spot a friend from one of the other congregations, who you very rarely see. You walk together, catch up and decide that you will both volunteer to work in the expanding Jewish Food Bank.

Close your eyes now and imagine the posters throughout the halls announcing all the exciting growth in our community: the first Jewish Film Festival in its own home, a community play performed on stage by day school students, an announcement for the first meeting of a Jewish scout troop, tryouts for the Maccabee Games swim team, a lecture series by the local rabbis, a new photography club, a Holocaust symposium for Durham and Chapel Hill public school teachers or even a weekend Shabbaton for all the high school youth group kids!

Each scenario represents a dream that members of the Jewish community have expressed over the last five years or more in surveys and feasibility studies, as well as personal and public conversations. And before the first shovel of earth is moved, or the first brick is laid, you can have your input too.

What is your vision? Your dream? This is your once-in-a-generation opportunity to help create the kind of community you can be proud of… for yourself, your family, your children, your parents, your grandchildren, your friends.

I urge you to become an active participant in the process: Join a committee, promote your vision, extol the benefits to your friends and neighbors, and give generously to help make it happen!

So after all is said and done, what exactly is being proposed? Simply this: A central address to allow your Jewish dreams to come true.

As published in The Menorah, October 2007