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Never mind that the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center opened its doors when Gerald Ford was president and the first VHS player had just hit the market. Today, the JCC finds itself, in the words of board president Larry Jacobs, “in startup mode.”

More than a dozen years after money problems forced the East Bay nonprofit to abruptly close its doors — it now operates as a largely volunteer-driven “JCC without walls” — the board welcomed a new executive director in March to steer the center forward and hopefully position it as a model of agility and innovation.

“Our future is only limited by our imagination at this point,” Jacobs said. “We can be whoever we want to be, and it’s a very exciting moment.”

The Contra Costa JCC is not alone in its optimism. As Bay Area JCCs continue to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, they are now in a position to reimagine themselves. They’re opening satellite campuses to widen their geographic reach, forging multiple partnerships to attract new people and expanding virtual programming that became a hit during the pandemic. They’re also doubling down on fundraising. 

The pandemic left JCCs everywhere reeling from deep budget and programming cuts that led to furloughs and layoffs, forcing centers to cancel integral in-person offerings such as preschools, summer camps and revenue-driving gyms and aquatic centers. To prevent them from failing altogether during that difficult time, six Bay Area JCCs received a total of $10 million through the Power in Partnership Fund, an initiative led by Taube Philanthropies and the Koum Family Foundation. The money proved to be a lifeline.

“During Covid, while membership fell off a cliff and we lost programming revenue in all kinds of ways, fundraising revenue went up,” said Jordan Shenker, CEO of the Peninsula JCC in Foster City and a 30-year veteran of the JCC world. “The greater your degree of long-term financial support from fundraising, the greater the likelihood of sustainability.”

Origin story

North American JCCs largely arose in the post-World War II years as newfound economic prosperity drove Jews from densely populated urban neighborhoods to the suburbs, where they no longer ran into fellow Jews on every corner. JCCs offered a new kind of neighborhood, a place of belonging where these Jewish transplants from the cities could come to socialize, play handball or basketball, take a dance or drawing class or twirl a grogger at a Purim party. Over the years, JCCs have come to occupy a unique niche as inclusive hubs for a cross section of Jews, including many who don’t belong to synagogues or other Jewish organizations. 

“No other institution in Jewish communal life is as open and accessible and dedicated to serving the broad range of Jewish community as JCCs,” Shenker said. 

But if JCCs hope to remain solvent and even flourish in the 21st century, flexibility and creativity are key, according to a 2019 study from Brandeis University’s Cohen Center for Jewish Modern Studies. It spotlighted 22 North American Jewish community centers, including one in the Bay Area, that have diversified their revenue models and experimented with novel outreach and programming. 

Every local JCC, of course, has its own unique story, shaped by its history, its leaders, the region it serves and the people who walk through its physical or virtual doors every day to drop off toddlers at preschool, hear a best-selling author speak or log miles on a stationary bike. But all are facing the same unprecedented realities: They’re continuing to recover from the pandemic-related membership losses. And they’re looking for ways to create safe, nurturing spaces for a community deeply shaken by the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack and the rise in antisemitism that’s followed.

“Much of how we are reinventing ourselves right now concentrates on meeting this moment,” said Nathaniel Bergson-Michelson, chief marketing officer at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto, which serves a large population of Israeli-born families in addition to American-born ones. Among other responses to the Israel-Hamas war, it expanded a pilot program that teaches life skills to teens to also help them handle antisemitism.

Nod to innovation

The Brandeis study, called “Innovating JCCs,” cites the Oshman Family JCC for its “exemplary” work in developing its Israeli Cultural Connection, a program that bridges the gap between American and Israeli Jews in the community. The initiative started when one JCC professional and one lay leader, both Israeli, ventured out into the community to survey the needs of local Israelis. That dialogue led to programs like Beged Kefet, a school that teaches both Hebrew and Israeli culture and counts toward high school credit, and Libi, a group for young families. 

The leaders of the most successful JCCs, the Brandeis study said, “use data, they listen to people and they ask questions. They give their staff permission to try new things. They understand that innovation is not a once-and-done activity. They follow a path of incremental innovation, building from one step to the next as it becomes apparent. They are continuously on the lookout for competitive advantage and future trends.”

We can be whoever we want to be, and it’s a very exciting moment.

Larry Jacobs, Contra Costa JCC board president

New Contra Costa JCC director Yana Berger, who started in March, said it’s too early to forecast what the organization will look like in the years to come. The JCC could once again find itself inhabiting a dedicated physical space, Berger said. Or it could continue to function, as it does now, wherever programming takes it — to local living rooms, to partner synagogues for holiday festivities and its Under One Tent arts and culture series and, soon, to Walnut Creek nature trails where the newly launched J-Riders Club will meet for cycling and camaraderie. 

No matter what, Contra Costa County residents will have a major hand in shaping the region’s JCC of tomorrow, according to Berger and board president Jacobs. Focus groups are already under way, with residents from Brentwood to Pleasanton sharing what they want and need. 

“I would say we are meeting the community where they are, not where we are,” said Jacobs, a Moraga real estate agent whose two children, one now in college and one just finishing high school, attended preschool at the center. Since it sold its Walnut Creek building in 2011, the JCC has used interest from the sale’s principal to make grants to synagogues, Chabad centers and Jewish nonprofit organizations.

Satellite approach

San Rafael’s Osher Marin JCC has taken a different approach and has opened “JCC South,” its 6,000-square-foot satellite campus located about 10 miles away in Mill Valley. The new location, which opened to the public in April, serves as a hub for many of the JCC’s educational and cultural programs and as a community gathering space. Half of the space is dedicated to the preschool, which has already been serving children ages 2-5 since October 2023, and to JBaby programming for infants through age 2. 

The JCC South initiative kicked off in the middle of Covid-19. “We were in a rebuilding mode anyway because of the pandemic,” Osher Marin JCC CEO Judy Wolff-Bolton told J. “We thought, ‘Let’s have a vibrant, robust satellite site, where we can do a variety of programs for all ages.’” 

The JCC Sonoma County has also turned to preschool education to set its path toward the future. Last September, it opened a nondenominational school for children ages 2-5 in a refurbished three-bedroom home in Santa Rosa that also holds the JCC’s office. Until then, the JCC hadn’t had a building. The preschool started with six children, ended the school year with 19 and hopes to enroll 24 this fall, said JCC board president Deborah Burg-Schnirman. 

“We are thrilled with the success of our preschool in this first year,” she said. Over the next two to five years, she hopes to expand the preschool to new sites across the county. The JCC Sonoma County has continued its senior, holiday and cultural programming including its film fest, but opening the preschool has energized and focused the community.

“We are being seen … as an organization that is doing exciting things that people want to be involved in,” Burg-Schnirman said. “It’s just been a very positive experience for our JCC.”

The Addison-Penzak JCC in Los Gatos has also experienced a major shift in recent years. In 2021, it merged with the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley to form a new entity called Jewish Silicon Valley for a together-is-mightier approach. 

“This intertwining has enabled us to combine the programming, community and fitness expertise of our APJCC and the planning and mobilizing function of the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley,” said Rabbi Hugh Seid-Valencia, Jewish Silicon Valley’s chief community officer. 

The JCC East Bay, meanwhile, is looking toward its own major expansion with an additional site on a $41 million, 3-acre property in Oakland’s Rockridge District, a choice neighborhood filled with cafes, clothing stores and fitness studios. The JCC will anchor the new site, which eventually could house up to 20 other Jewish nonprofits.

“The JCC East Bay has never really followed a traditional model,” said Melissa Chapman, CEO of JCC East Bay. “The campus will be a comprehensive destination for anyone interested in participating in Jewish life. [It] will become the center of Jewish life and will allow our JCC, and our community, to reach its fullest potential.”

Partnerships galore

The JCC of San Francisco’s own reassessment has resulted in partnerships with organizations including Congregation Emanu-El; the Jewish Baby Network; JIMENA, which preserves and celebrates the heritage of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews; and Value Culture, a philanthropic and cultural venture.

“The JCCSF is a vibrant hub and nexus for Jewish life and culture,” said JCCSF CEO Paul Geduldig. “We create our own high-quality programs, and we are leaning into partnerships with other Jewish organizations to reach broader audiences and to amplify each other’s work.”

In 2023, the JCCSF and Value Culture, the nonprofit founded by Adam Swig, began developing and cross-promoting programs for Jews in their 20s and 30s. Events included a “Soy Vey Shabbat” to celebrate the Chinese New Year, and a Black-Jewish “Soul Vey Havdalah” with a New Orleans-style marching band that led S.F. Jewish Film Festival attendees as they walked from the Vogue Theater to the nearby JCCSF.

Partnerships such as these have brought thousands of people into JCCSF this year, Geduldig noted. 

For Swig, the partnership is appealing because Value Culture and JCCSF share community-building goals, he said. “Not to mention the JCCSF building is incredible,” he said.

According to the Brandeis study, the JCCs that have forged such partnerships with one another, with other Jewish and non-Jewish groups and with the community at large, have been rewarded. 

“In each instance, much was gained from the relationship, including higher-quality, stronger community, greater efficiency, increased revenue and deeper purpose,” the study said. Many of those lessons from the research also apply to synagogues and other Jewish organizations.

JCCs serve a significant number of non-Jews too, and arguably that’s never been more crucial to the centers’ future.  

“We do Jewish with non-Jews, and it’s a really important role for us in the community,” said Peninsula JCC’s Shenker, noting that two-thirds of visitors to its center are non-Jews. 

“That means if we’re seeing 2,500 people a day, we have 1,500 to 1,800 non-Jews walking through the doors,” Shenker said. “Whether it’s a Jewish art exhibit or a display on antisemitism, we have a really powerful opportunity to educate the non-Jewish community and create partners of understanding.”