Walking past the fitness center toward the Town Square of Palo Alto’s Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life, Mimi Sells says her “eyes well up” as she recalls witnessing 4- and 5-year-olds from the T’enna Preschool and their parents ushering in Shabbat.
With the opening of the campus a year ago, now young parents, not necessarily synagogue members, “have an opportunity to make a connection to Jewish life.”
It’s not just young families, says Sells, who is chief marketing officer for the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center. “Watching people sitting outdoors at a concert, your heart feels so full and I feel at home.”
In the same vein, Marilyn Israel, executive director of the Moldaw Family Residences, a senior living community on the campus, shares an e-mail sent by resident Carole Stein to her son.
“Just came up from the courtyard performance of the Firebirds. … Hundreds of parents and families to celebrate their children’s accomplishments. Absolutely fabulous — preschoolers to professional male and female dancers … and we all did the hora …
“What could be better — walk across the promenade — no cost and walk back to the apartment,” Stein’s e-mail continues. “I probably say it too often — but this must be paradise — if it isn’t, I have no way to imagine my next place.”
Says Israel: “When I when read it, I got chills. It was exactly what I hoped would happen.”
The 8.5-acre Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life recently celebrated its first birthday. The campus includes not only the JCC, the fitness center and the senior residence, but a preschool, 350-seat theater, a café, the Miriam’s Well Judaica shop and Jewish communal offices, among other facilities. The Stanford Health Library also has a branch on campus.
Because the theater’s seats are electronically retractable, the venue doubles as a hall for b’nai mitzvah and wedding receptions, holiday parties and corporate events. Upstairs, a conference center is being completed.
“The vision was creating a community where everyone could gather. A place where people could make friends and find friends they haven’t seen for years and years,” says Alan Sataloff, executive director of the JCC, who began spearheading the project in 2004. “I think we’ve achieved almost all of that.
“It’s not just a “neighborhood for the Jewish community,” he says. “I walk through the fitness center and see people of all cultures using the facilities, which means we have an impact on the larger community.”
Collaborations are also part of the equation, Sataloff adds, noting that some programs are held in conjunction with Stanford University, area synagogues, the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and other Bay Area groups — some Jewish, some not. It is “important to us that we not be an insular organization — not everything we do, we do by ourselves.”
With 8,000 members, and a plan to attract 50 percent more, the JCC is thriving, despite the economic downturn in the Silicon Valley community. Although pre-opening numbers were lower than expected, according to Sataloff, they picked up once prospective members had a chance to look at the center and enjoy the facilities. In addition to Moldaw residents, those living in some of the adjacent town homes and apartments receive free membership. So do first-year parents in the T’enna preschool and families affiliated with the adjacent Kehillah Jewish High School, which uses the fitness center’s gymnasium for sporting events.
“Housing has grown all around us,” says Sells. But beyond the new neighbors of the JCC, the facility is drawing from several populations, some of them not previously involved in local Jewish life. Among them are the large Russian and Israeli communities and singles. Teens have a lounge where they can hang out after school. Plus the larger community, Jewish and not, is getting a taste of Jewish life, whether it’s apples and honey during the High Holy Day season, latkes at Chanukah or cultural programs.
A day on the campus has a rhythm, says Sells. At around 5:30 a.m., working people descend on the fitness center. At 9 a.m., the “mom crowd” appears. In the afternoon, students from Kehillah High School use the gym for basketball and other sport or play ping-pong and air hockey. It’s not unusual for staff members to pick up ping-pong paddles for a brief game while waiting for a meeting. In the evening, the post-work crowd appears. The fitness center, which closes only for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, is open from early morning until late evening most nights. Fittingly, the name is Goldman Sports and Wellness Complex.
“Our slogan is live fully. It’s really about the life well lived,” Sells says. While two swimming pools, rows of exercise machines, a large gymnasium and classrooms for group exercise fill the fitness center, facilities at the T’enna Preschool at the other end of the campus are on a smaller scale. Small tricycles, tiny chairs and a playhouse fill the outdoor playground for the smallest children, who graduate to larger structures as they grow. In the middle, preschoolers tend flowers and vegetables for their cooking projects.
“It’s a green campus,” Sells notes, remarking that the students eat on dishes that they learn to wash and store. For holidays, the kids make their own decorations. Art rooms used for finger painting and kids’ crafts during the day become studios for adults after school.
Among the changes as the center took shape was the new Israeli Cultural Connection, which spun off from adult and cultural arts programming. Now the campus houses a Hebrew-language library with 3,000 books. The campus also hosts celebrations, clubs and classes for Russians, and was also home to a Russian festival last season.
Outreach to singles includes a variety of mixers, holiday events and a monthly Singles Arts Cafe. For the spring, a wellness symposium for women is in the works, and in a couple of years, the goal is to host the JCC Maccabi Games.
Innovation “is in our DNA in Silicon Valley,” says Sells. “Whatever is the next new thing, we want to do it.”