From Jewish food festivals to Yiddish language films, from preschool to senior services and from bingo to lectures by renowned scholars — over the past 18 years, the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center’s offerings have been nothing if not diverse.
Now, with expanded programming and a new Jewish Learning Center and library, the BRJCC is continuing to flourish and grow as it turns 18. That’s fitting, considering that Jewish numerology equates chai, Hebrew for “alive” or “living,” with the number 18
On Saturday, May 8, the BRJCC will celebrate its chai anniversary with a gourmet dinner, entertainment and an auction hosted by KRON-TV film critic Jan Wahl.
“As in human life, the first 18 years are so much about building, growing and changing,” said Judy Wolff-Bolton, the BRJCC’s executive director. “Now, we’re at a point where we have our base, and we’ve created a vital institution from which to develop.”
The center has come a long way since the early 1980s, when a makeshift building on a University Avenue parking lot housed its first programs. Then, the operating budget was a mere $9,000 — now, it’s $1.4 million. And while the first center could count its attendance figures in the dozens, nowadays 500 people use the BRJCC daily, from preschoolers to seniors to interfaith couples.
It’s a figure that might astonish the Jews who first gathered in 1979 to discuss the possibility of creating a JCC in Berkeley.
“We met in living rooms, in parks, anywhere and everywhere,” recalled Berkeley resident Lee Marsh, a co-founder of the BRJCC. “We were idealists, iconoclasts from the ’60s in Berkeley. We felt that people here could make a wonderful, spirited and creative JCC.”
In tune with Berkeley’s unorthodox image, the BRJCC did not get started in the typical way, Marsh said. “Mostly, the Jewish establishment decides it needs a JCC in a certain place, then it goes to philanthropists to get the money. We didn’t know anything about that procedure, so we simply used idealism and elbow grease.”
Among the first offerings were a preschool, a Jewish community newsletter and screenings of subtitled Yiddish movies. Some creations, like the Berkeley Jewish Theater and the JCC Voice newspaper, didn’t survive. Others grew into major programs serving thousands of community residents.
“We learned by experience; we had our share of triumphs and mistakes,” said Marsh. “Luckily, we were capable and mature enough that we could use that method and grow.”
In 1987, the BRJCC took over a 1916 landmark building at the corner of Walnut and Rose Streets from the Berkeley Unified School District. Wolff-Bolton, who was named executive director that year, recalled a sinking feeling as she surveyed the bad upkeep and peeling paint of the building’s exterior.
“It was very unattractive. People would tell me that they didn’t even want to come in,” she said. Bingo-generated funds were channeled into paint, and the building soon began to look more welcoming.
“I was touched when people told me how they saw then that we were caring for this agency,” Wolff-Bolton added. “We were really here as a member of the community.”
Two BRJCC programs that have become major cultural events are the Jewish Music Festival and the Jewish Food Festival, 15 and 3 years old respectively. The music festival “started as a one-day event that drew 500 people; now it’s a weeklong festival attended by 3,000 people,” said Laura Sheppard, producer of both festivals.
As for the food festival, “we were just so surprised the first year, when over 1,000 people walked in,” says Sheppard. “We have everything from couscous to knishes to 200-year-old Venetian Jewish recipes. People are very excited about cuisine.”
Unlike other JCCs, the BRJCC doesn’t have a revenue-raising gym or swimming pool, said Wolff-Bolton. “Because of that, we’re extremely programmatically driven, and we’ve always tried to be creative about fund-raising.”
A prime example of this is the center’s Nosherei. Started by octogenarian volunteers Rosalie and Nate Fisher in 1991, the Nosherei sells day-old bread donated by local bakeries. Over the past eight years it has grown into a $30,000 venture that underwrites the center’s hot lunch program for seniors.
“When I arrived here and saw what the Fishers were doing, a lightbulb went off in my head,” says Nancy Castle, director of adult and senior services. “They would always run out [of baked goods] because there was more demand than they could satisfy. I saw the two of them and thought, ‘There’s money here!'”
These days, as well as serving hundreds of seniors in her program, Castle has up to 40 volunteers, many in their 80s and 90s. “They’re bagging bagels, slinging out lunch and doing whatever it takes,” she said. “I cherish and nurture them — they can only leave if they move away.”
Marsh, who was the BRJCC’s first president from 1981 to 1983, is now one of its most active volunteers. He’s particularly proud of his latest project, the year-old Jewish Learning Center that features Jewish and secular lectures and brings a wide range of people to the BRJCC.
Although Wolff-Bolton has been at the center for a dozen years, she still sees “heartwarming stories and memories that happen here every day.”
A typical day, she said, might include a child lighting Shabbat candles for the first time, an interfaith couple seeking out a support group and visiting Israeli academics breaking into smiles as they enroll their child in summer day camp.
Over the years, said Wolff-Bolton, “these kinds of stories are the fuel that keep us going.”