Melissa Chapman, the top staffer at the JCC East Bay, has announced she will leave her job and the Bay Area, acknowledging that the steady drumbeat of staunch anti-Zionism and antisemitism she’s encountered here since Oct. 7, 2023, has taken a toll.
“Leading an organization in Berkeley post-Oct. 7 is, no doubt, the most challenging thing I have faced as a professional,” she told J.
Her last day as CEO will be July 4. She informed her board of directors of her decision last week, kicking off a search for her replacement that will start locally but won’t be limited to Bay Area candidates, according to the board.
Chapman, who for nearly six years has led the multifaceted Berkeley hub for East Bay Jewish community life, will move with her husband to the Chicago area, where she grew up and still has friends and family. She’s been hired by JCC Chicago, one of the largest JCCs in North America.
“It’s really spectacular and significant,” Chapman said of JCC Chicago, which operates locations throughout the region. She will serve as chief impact officer.
The JCC East Bay shared the news of Chapman’s departure on Thursday morning.
Her decision comes during a period of major transition for the JCC, which recently announced plans to sell its North Berkeley building. The nonprofit was founded in 1978 as the Berkeley-Richmond JCC and took on its current name in 2006 to reflect its reach across Alameda and Contra Costa counties, according to the website.
The JCC plans to move from Berkeley to a brand-new, sprawling Jewish community campus in Oakland’s Rockridge District, sharing the 3-acre site with other Jewish organizations. The property was purchased for $41 million by the real estate developer and philanthropist Moses Libitzky in 2019.
The JCC runs a preschool and after-school programs and hosts guest speakers and events, plus near-daily programming for seniors. Its mission statement is to create “healthy communities inspired by Jewish values, culture, and tradition.”
Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, the center has also become a vital gathering place for Israeli-born Bay Area residents, Chapman said.
“Our JCC became a refuge for the Israeli community in a way that didn’t exist before,” she said. She gives credit to Yafit Shriki Megidish, the Israeli-born senior director of Jewish learning, who brought in Hebrew-speaking social workers and other mental health professionals to help “work through grief and mourning.”
“She was also able to bring Israelis together to just listen to Hebrew songs and be together as humans in a Hebrew-speaking environment,” Chapman, whose grandmother was born and raised in Israel, said.
The animosity her community faced from strident anti-Zionists in the East Bay was a different story.
Chapman, 49, told J. how emotionally draining it’s been over the past 18 months as a representative of and advocate for Jews in Berkeley and the wider region. She said she took on a more “public facing” role than JCC executives often do, acknowledging how overworked the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area has been.
“It was important for me as a community leader to step up,” she said.
Chapman attended so many city council and school board meetings that she lost count, she said, speaking on behalf of American and Israeli Jews while often facing a raucous chorus of protesters. She said she was called a “racist” and a “baby killer.”
“It was a painful process. Both personally and professionally,” she said.
She recalled one particularly upsetting incident during a Berkeley City Council meeting in March 2024, when an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor was heckled and jeered at when speaking in support of a proclamation recognizing Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“A group of protesters literally physically surrounded a Holocaust survivor,” Chapman said, speaking of Susanne DeWitt. “That was something I never thought I would see in my lifetime.”
And last May, student pro-Palestinian protesters marched past the JCC, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “From the river to the sea!” and other slogans.
Chapman came to the JCC East Bay in 2019 from the Jewish Federation of San Diego County, where she was chief development officer. Before that, she was CEO of the Jewish Federation of the Sacramento Region.
Like other JCCs around the world, the JCC East Bay struggled financially during the pandemic, which started less than a year after Chapman arrived. Revenue from programs plummeted, and staff members were furloughed. The center has since rebounded. Chapman said its current annual budget sits around $6.5 million, “larger than we were pre-Covid.” As CEO, Chapman earned just north of $230,000 in 2023, according to the most recently available tax filings.
Steven Douglas, the board president, said Chapman has skillfully led the organization through challenging periods and will leave the JCC in a strong position as it looks ahead to its new campus.
“She was amazing for our organization. She led us through the pandemic, which was no easy feat, and she led us through the horrific events of Oct. 7, which was no easy feat,” Douglas said. “She’s built a team at the JCC that left us in a good position to survive, and to thrive, while she’s away.”
He added that the board is in the process of putting together a search committee to find her replacement.
“Ideally we would find somebody local who already knows our path, and who knows our community,” Douglas said. “But we’re not going to be shortsighted and only look there. We’re also going to look nationally.”