The board of directors of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore has approved a request to begin opening a community center in Owings Mills on the Jewish Sabbath.
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The JCC now will open its Owings Mills center on Saturday afternoons beginning June 6. The later hours are intended to avoid conflict with morning synagogue services. Jewish employees would not be compelled to work and there would be no cash transactions or food service on the premises.
From the Baltimore Jewish Times:
The vote tally was 97-33 with four abstentions.
The approval to open came via secret ballot Wednesday afternoon by the Board of Directors of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore.
Board members voted after listening to some 30 minutes of discussion.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
The Orthodox community should ask that the Park Heights JCC be turned over to a separate frum organization and run as a Torah-dik inistiution separate from the secular suburban JCC, or we should boycott it and set up our own institutions. In some areas, the JCC makes no effort to serve us, and we already have our own separate activities (such as Yiddle League and the frum Boy Scout troop, both of which are cheaper than their JCC counterparts). Virtually all JCC classes are mixed as it is, so it isn’t a big deal if the we don’t use the JCC. It might be possible to arrange to use the gym, pool and fields at the public schools. We have to be realistic that the secular Jewish community and the Torah community are in fact two separate communities, and we should take this occasion to build up our own institutions, who see meeting our needs as a goal rather than something they have to do reluctantly.
The Park Heights JCC has done nothing but be supportive (some — many — might say *over*-supportive) of the non-northwest-suburban-Baltimore community. As a result of complaints, the PH JCC has almost no co-ed hours left in the pool and has a single-sex gym available at all or nearly-all times. But, if you and everyone else you invite boycott the PH JCC, maybe they’ll return to the old standard and become a more inviting place for the rest of the community. I might even rejoin at that point!
wow aaron. that is truly a lovely attitude you have there and i am sure that your startegy will bring all jews, observant (according to your definition) or not, closer together. lets cut off the entire outside world and move back towards the “shtetl” model? i guess to some degree, unfortunately, baltimore is moving in that direction. and oh by the way, to say that the JCC “makes no effort to serve us” is absurd. #1, the park heights jcc does (seperate swiming, women only work out room, women and men seperate excersize classes, children-oriented activities (run by “frum” people) and #2, you probably have never been to the owings mills jcc, so why do you need it to “serve” you” at all?
Bendo: If you count the hours of separate activities in the pools and gyms, you will notice that the amount of hours available to frum Jews is miniscule compared to our percentage in the population. For field sports, no provision is made for separate activities. The resources made available are heavily weighted towards the Owings Mills JCC. If you go through the list of programs the JCC equals, and mark which are suitable for frum Jews, and which aren’t, you will see that the status quo is that we are barely tolerated. Within the city of Baltimore, a majority of Jews are frum. If you include the suburbs, the majority of Jews are have any association with the Jewish community (using the Israel definition of a Jew– any Jewish ancestor), we are perhaps half (at least of the children). If the Association wants to be the “Jewish Community Center” rather than the “Northwestern suburbs” community center, they need us. If they don’t want us, why fight. Halacha is never negotiable. The frum community can replace their programs, do it in a way that would better serve the frum community, and probably do it more cheaply (unlike the JCC which is oriented for those with high discretionary incomes).
halacha, according to your definition, is not negotiable. wonderful. so you can seperate the sexes from here to tomorrow all you want and create some state of the art complex where all boys and men are kept away from those terrible girls and women. – not sure how you are going to create/fund/build it though, as the frum community has NO MONEY!!! The rest of the jewish community, however- has the money and funds the Aassociated. good luck working that out. the JCC is oriented to high-income? what in the world? in what way? the yearly dues? you must be joking
I am sorry but as much as I am against the decision, we must remember to love our fellow Jews. Most do not know anything about Shabbos, and those who made the decision are not acting in this way (in their minds) to “get” the frum community or in a way they believe violates Jewish law. Indeed, their “rabbis” are telling them this is the right thing to do. Instead of insulating ourselves, we should take advantage of the community organizations that help our needs and contribute where we can. That will engender achdus. Also, I disagree about having everything for the frum community totally separate. Yiddle League is great, but look at Wellwood baseball as a great example of where our day school and yeshiva kids can be around other types of Jews and even those of other religions. .
I’m glad they are open. They don’t value shabbat as we therefore do not understand the signifigance of a closed JCC on shabbat. It seems to them as as if we are burdening our level of religion on them. A closed JCC will only lead to more strife between factions that should work to become closer.
Any other discusions should focus more on Zumba classes for men.
chosen, to say that “they dont value shabbos as we” is quite arrogant. just becasue they “celebrate” it or “observe” it differently than the orthodox, does not mean they value it less. that kind of “hollier than thou” attitude is what i think is felt by the reform and conservative communities and “will only lead to strife between factions”
Ah, bendo – having grown up non-observant, I can certainly tell you that the number of families I personally observed who made Shabbos a “special day” on anything resembling the scale that observant Jews do was pretty tiny. I also went to a public college with a fairly large Conservative population, and I would probably count the number of truly whole-day-Sabbath-observant, and I mean this in any sense, Conservative and Reform Jews between 15-25. Compared to the thousands of non-Orthodox Jews on campus, that’s kind of a joke.
I don’t think castigating the non-Orthodox is a great plan, either, but trying to pretend that “they just celebrate it in a different way” is disingenuous at best. Most reform and conservative Jews were simply never taught the importance of the Sabbath, possibly due to the abysmal level of education given to most reform and conservative children. I’m not sure I personally think an increased “valuation” of the Sabbath by reform and Conservative Jews would necessarily have changed the JCC vote, though, because, as bendo pointed out, the observance _is_ different to some extent.
Then again, real Conservative Jews shouldn’t be driving to the JCC either, at least if they cared about what their own movement said on the matter.
I for one am grateful to the JCC for the efforts made on behalf of the orthodox. On a daily basis, one can see members of every shul and students of every school utilizing the fitness program. We should appreciate the opportunity to exercise in a comfortable environment and be courteous and considerate to all the staff as well. Any type of boycott would only harm the already fragile health of the frum community, a community that certainly does not have the resources to create and support a facility of their own. We need the JCC!
Bravo Be Real. I couldn’t agree more. Even though I am a secular Jew, I am appalled that the JCC will be open on Shabbos. But the deed is done and Baltimore is fortunate to have two facilities with one still geared towards the frum. I don’t live in Baltimore (but I’m moving back) so I can’t say whether the facilities are equal, but I can tell you that it’s better than what you get in most cities these days. The JCC where I live has been open on Saturday for at least 10 years and from what I can tell does very little to accommodate the observant community. I understand you’re angry and I agree, but please don’t insulate yourselves as a result of your anger. Where I live the Jewish community is small so the observant and the secular mingle all the time. As a result my family has been inspired. We now regularly celebrate Shabbos and ALL the holidays. Perfectly? No, not even close, but we’re trying. So be angry, vent here if it helps, but don’t cut your selves off from the secular because you never know who you might inspire.
Kudos to Be Real. The Baltimore Orthodox community thinks “Jewish unity” is when the yeshivish AND the Chassidish Jews agree on something. It’s very sad. Also, Bendo, I think you misunderstood Chosen because of the word “value.” I think it was an unfortunate word choice–the rest of the post is very sympathetic.
In order to understand why the JCC opened, you need to see the world as the Reform Jews see it. They don’t believe that driving etc. are prohibited on Shabbat. Just like some might keep yoshon but others don’t hold that it’s necessary here…can you imagine boycotting 7-Mile Market for selling non-yoshon products? (Uh-oh, hope I didn’t give anyone ideas…)
Aaron-the JCC is REALLY cheap. Do you have any idea what kind of money that it takes to run a place like the JCC? If the “frum community” would take over the PH JCC, it would cease to exist due to inability to function like a normal 501c3 since it takes expertise to run an org as complex as the J. Also, everyone has different ways of connecting to shabbat, so its great for Jews in the Baltimore community to have a place to spend shabbat afternoon with other Jews, since previously only the pool and tennis courts were open after 1:00.