Mission + History
Mission, Vision, Values
Mission
Together with our community, the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan creates opportunities for people to connect, grow, and learn within an ever-changing Jewish landscape.
Vision
The Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan imagines Jewish life that is diverse and engages meaningfully with its values, culture, and ideas in everyday lives.
Core Values
We’re committed to redefining what Jewish life means today.
We serve as a model of what’s possible in the ever-evolving and diverse Jewish community, incubating innovative programs that are shared nationally.
We’re dedicated to the well-being of everyone in our community.
As people in our community seek out opportunities to grow physically, intellectually, and spiritually, we’re dedicated to helping them reach their full potential.
We have a broad and inclusive view of Jewish life and family.
There are multiple ways to live in a community. The experiences we offer invite everyone to explore what it means to be part of that community.
We feel a sense of responsibility for one another.
Our community is bound together by a shared commitment to a better, fairer world, which we put into practice every day, giving back and supporting each other through meaningful actions.
We take pride in our culture.
Whether celebrating Jewish holidays, exploring new ideas, or engaging with the arts, the growth of a community relies on its access to culture.
We believe in accessibility.
We strive to create an inclusive and accommodating environment for people of different backgrounds and abilities with opportunities for growth and connection.
We are deeply connected to Israel.
Our community connects to Israel through its sights, sounds, history, and complexity. We embrace the challenge of weaving our relationships with Israel into our diverse Jewish identities.
Guiding Principles
The Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan represents a diverse community and maintains wide boundaries and nuance. We welcome speakers and program content of diverse opinions on all matters of the day, including Israel. We can and should present challenging ideas to our community and aim to educate and contextualize them to deepen understanding and hold complexity. With our goal to present diverse opinions, we recognize that some content will be controversial to some of our community at any point in time. In bringing in potentially controversial views, we aim to present those views in dialogue where counter-views and challenges can be explored. Those differing views may or may not be represented on the same day and in the same program.
A word on “balance”:
We have a point of view. We are a Jewish organization that supports the State of Israel. While we are deeply committed to free speech, we are also committed to civil discourse. To this end, we cannot condone anything construed as hate speech.*
Therefore, we do not permit speakers or program content that:
- advocate for the destruction, demonization, and delegitimization of the State of Israel
- espouse antisemitism or other hate speech
- advocate violence.
Anyone who disrupts a JCC program will be escorted from our building immediately.
*There is no universally legally accepted definition of hate speech. For the purposes of the JCC, we will rely upon the American Library Association definition, widely used by institutions throughout the nation: Hate speech is any form of expression through which speakers intend to vilify, humiliate, or incite hatred against a group or a class of persons based on race, religion, skin color, sexual identity, gender identity, ethnicity, disability, or national origin.
History
The Founders of the JCC
came together in 1990 to envision a unique center for Jewish life in Manhattan that would bring people from all walks of life together to learn, raise their families, stay healthy, work to improve our city and develop lifelong friendships through an active engagement with Jewish values, community, and tradition. This new JCC would be a place that would welcome and respect the pluralistic nature of our community and where people could grapple with how to live a Jewish life in a modern world.
Its initial programs say much about the vision of the founders. A robust literacy program in NYC public schools brought volunteers and public-school children together to strengthen their reading skills. A program was created for the LGBTQIA+ community to ensure that they felt welcomed at the JCC. A Sunday sports league was created especially for Sabbath-observing children who could not play in the existing Saturday leagues. Ulpan, Jewish learning, and mindfulness classes were offered to a community that was eager to explore Jewish texts. Computer classes and discussion groups were created for older adults. By 2000, the JCC without walls had significantly grown, offering more than 400 programs a year.
Following a stint in a 22,000-square-foot space at the Jewish Guild for the Blind on 65th Street, the JCC’s Samuel Priest Rose Building, at 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, opened two days after 9/11, welcoming its first nursery school class. Through its modern design, the 137,000-square-foot, 11-story, state-of-the-art building included a health club and swimming pool, a nursery school and auditorium, art studios and classrooms, a Beit Midrash and art gallery. The building allowed innovative programming to flourish, welcoming upwards of 3,500 people each day.
Legacy of Groundbreaking Programs
The JCC has created a number of groundbreaking programs that have since taken root across the city, the country, and internationally. These include:
- The ReelAbilities Film Festival, the largest festival in the country dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with different disabilities. This festival began in NYC through the JCC and now lives in over a dozen cities across North America.
- The Israel Film Center, a primary resource for Israeli film. Its goal is to expand awareness of Israel’s thriving film industry and promote Israeli culture in America. The center is an educator, distributor, advisor, and festival producer.
- Adaptations is a dynamic and supportive social community for neurodiverse adults at The Jack and Shirley Silver Center for Diverse Abilities (CDA). For over 20 years, Adaptations has fostered a sense of belonging and empowered individuals through engaging social and recreational programs that promote independence, ignite passion, and celebrate the richness of community.
- R&R seeks to revitalize the idea of Shabbat through dinners and free afternoons at the JCC, creating space to “pause” and be in community through the arts, recreation, and programs for adults and children of all ages.
- For over 18 years, the JCC Parkinson’s Wellness Initiative—co‑founded by Dr. Alessandro Di Rocco, Caroline Kohles, and Gladys Gonzales Ramos—has improved the lives of people with Parkinson’s and their families through weekly exercise classes, support groups, lectures, and an online resource library. Founded with support from the Edmond J. Safra Foundation and Parkinson’s Foundation, it is now funded by the Neil S. Hirsh Fund.
- Cancer Care at the JCC started soon after we opened our doors over 23 years ago. Co-created by Dr. Alison Estabrook and Caroline Kohles and funded by Dr. Estabrook, the program began with one swim class and has grown to include movement, nutrition, meditation, art, and more—including online recordings with Broadway star Mandy Gonzalez—all free for those impacted by breast cancer.
- In January 2017, the JCC expanded its campus by opening JCC Harlem, a community space on West 118th Street. An initiative of the JCC, JCC Harlem is a collaboration with UJA-Federation of New York.
- D3 Open Arms, a network of District 3 public schools, nonprofits, houses of worship, and elected officials working together to meet the human needs of new immigrants on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and West Harlem.
- English Overseas connects Jerusalem high school students with native English-speaking older adults to help them practice and improve their spoken English. This unique, weekly, virtual one-on-one intergenerational cross-cultural volunteering opportunity, in partnership with the Municipality of Jerusalem, extends to West and East Jerusalem as well as other cities in Israel.
Our Name: the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
In February 2018, following the presentation of an unprecedented gift from the Meyerson family, the JCC was renamed the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan. You can read more about Marlene Meyerson here.