As a result of a $1.6 million deficit, the JCC slashed its Jewish programming in the spring of 1994 to a smattering of classes, most of which were then sponsored by outside organizations such as Lehrhaus Judaica.
The crisis also led to scores of layoffs and closed the health club, which is scheduled to reopen Jan. 2 under management of the S.F.-based Pinnacle Fitness.
The mini-school will be the primary component of the JCC’s Jewish education offerings.
Co-sponsored by the S.F.-based Bureau of Jewish Education, the school focuses on the study of sacred texts, life-cycle events, values and contemporary issues.
The curriculum, written in part by scholars at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, includes the Jewish covenant, the revelation at Sinai, marriage, Shabbat, conversion, prophecy, repentance, children, the calendar and death.
“It’s from the beginning of the life process to the end. It also puts things in a contemporary perspective,” said Yossi Offenberg, the JCC’s new Jewish-program manager.
The classes are taught to include everyone from the adult who had a negative Jewish experience as a child to the parents who know little about their heritage but want to educate their children, Offenberg said.
Classes meet two hours on Wednesday nights for 30 weeks over a two-year period. Students must be willing to commit to the two-year curriculum, which runs from Feb. 12 to May 28 and resumes in the fall.
The cost is $650. The program will accept 25 students.
Although homework will be assigned, there are no grades, examinations or prerequisites for the course. At the end, students receive a certificate of completion.
Rabbi Martha Bergadine, who teaches at San Francisco’s Congregation Sherith Israel and is interim rabbi at San Francisco’s Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, and Lehrhaus instructor Ron Reissberg will lead the classes from a perspective that embraces all of the Jewish movements.
“Because the program is pluralistic, it fits in perfectly with the overriding JCC policy of catering to the entire spectrum of the Jewish community, irrespective of affiliation,” Offenberg said.
“The program itself is not weighted in one denomination, but presents all facets equally, making Jewish education more widely accessible and palatable.”
Offenberg hopes the mini-school will bolster the appeal of other new or newly revived Jewish programs that begin this month.
These include an eight-week Jewish film class on Monday nights, starting Jan. 6; an eight-week speaker and discussion series for singles and professionals on Tuesday nights, starting Jan. 21; an eight-week Torah study group on Thursday nights, starting Jan. 9; and a nine-week introduction to Judaism class on Thursday nights, starting Feb. 8.
The mini-school’s opening was subsidized by a $22,500 grant from the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation Endowment Fund.
The mini-schools are the brainchild of Florence Melton, a Jewish education advocate from Ohio who proposed and underwrote the $250,000 start-up costs for the program in the early 1980s.
JCC officials hope this mini-school will follow in the footsteps of its counterparts in two dozen other American cities, where its popularity has spawned waiting lists and sparked interest in Judaic studies.
“Because of Melton’s success in at least 24 other communities, it would stand to reason that it would have a similar impact in San Francisco,” Hymowitz said.
A free preview class will be offered at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 22.
Call Offenberg at (415) 292-1237 to enroll or for more information.