JCC 'thriving' despite dwindling membership

The Jewish Community Center of West Hempstead made a small splash in the headlines last month when it was featured by The Jewish Week in an article about changing demographics in West Hempstead and neighboring communities.

Throughout the years, the JCC — the community’s only Conservative synagogue — has undergone an evolution of sorts as the population of Conservative Jews in the area has dwindled, according to JCC Rabbi Art Vernon. While more Modern Orthodox Jews are moving into the neighborhood, Conservative Jews have either died out or moved out, primarily to retirement communities.

The streets behind Dogwood Avenue, where the JCC has resided since it was founded in 1951, were once home to members of the Conservative congregation. Today there are fewer than a dozen Conservative Jews living there, the rest having been replaced by Orthodox Jews, Vernon said. West Hempstead has the largest Orthodox community on Long Island save for the Five Towns. In addition to the Orthodox influx, many Jews have left neighboring Franklin Square, which The Jewish Week described as half of the JCC’s “catchment area.” There they have been replaced mostly by non-Jews.

Although they acknowledge that the shrinking Conservative population is a problem, JCC leaders prefer to focus on the positive. “I would much rather harp on how we’ve overcome that issue,” said JCC President Richard Selzer, “how the Conservative Jewish population, though dwindling — we are still thriving with programming and satisfying the [community’s] needs.”

In its early days, the synagogue had about 650 families as members. Today it has fewer than 200, and many of those are middle-aged or elderly. The JCC stopped offering Hebrew school 15 years ago, according to Vernon, and began instead to focus on attracting “adult Jews,” including active retirees, empty nesters and people who were once affiliated with a synagogue, left and now want to re-affiliate. To that end, the synagogue developed an extensive array of programs it offers daily, weekly or monthly, and, so far, it has worked. Selzer said the JCC has brought in new members in the last two years.

“I’m not going to tell you we’re getting more than we’re losing,” he said. “But the good news is that people are now seeking us out because of our programming, and that’s what we’ve dedicated ourselves to — to keeping the Conservative Jewish population in the Franklin Square-West Hempstead-Malverne areas.”

The JCC offers several educational programs where congregants meet to discuss various subjects, including the Bible and films, on a daily basis. It provides religious services and cultural activities, and holds inter-congregational programs with Conservative congregations in the area. It also hosts a few public lectures annually, and its Sisterhood holds a “mini university” twice a year.

Additionally, the JCC has the only glatt kosher catering hall in West Hempstead, and Jews from the five Orthodox synagogues in the hamlet and from neighboring congregations use it often. The JCC’s congregation is not directly affected by the Orthodox influx, but its existence is: As more Orthodox families move in, the “Jewishness” of the community is strengthened, Vernon said, and that is an upside to the evolving demographics. “Peripherally, we benefit from that,” Vernon said. “We’re not on the brink of extinction by a long shot.”