Hundreds Rally To Save Detroit JCC
Hundreds showed up at the Jewish community center in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park in an effort to save the building.
Some 800 people, the maximum number allowed in the JCC building, showed up at a discussion Monday night to protest the center’s closing, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Leaders of the center and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit recommended that the building be shut down by May because it is losing approximately $1 million a year.
Residents at Monday night’s meeting such as Alan Hitsky, 69, accused the area’s Jewish leaders of “only caring about the country-club set instead of worrying about those in need.”
Others proposed starting a grassroots funding campaign; one woman wrote a $1,000 check.
“We’re not abandoning this neighborhood,” Scott Kaufman, CEO of the area’s Jewish federation, told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re going to continue servicing the community, but at a price we can afford.”
The JCC’s financial problems surfaced in late 2013 when an oversight committee composed of JCC and federation leaders calculated the center’s debt at $6 million.
Another public meeting at the JCC will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Make a Passover Gift Today!
Dive In
-
Fast Forward FSU shooting suspect used neo-Nazi imagery on social media, ADL finds
-
Fast Forward Pope Francis’ final speech called for ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza war
-
Fast Forward Israeli army fires deputy commander after finding ‘operational errors’ in killing of 15 Gazans
-
Fast Forward ‘F–k Israel’ message displayed at Coachella music festival and streamed to millions
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture How this Marc Chagall painting explains Pope Francis’ soul
-
Opinion He’s one of Israel’s worst extremists. So why is Yale legitimizing him?
-
Fast Forward FSU shooting suspect used neo-Nazi imagery on social media, ADL finds
-
Fast Forward Pope Francis’ final speech called for ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza war
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.