From the time Alan Scher became CEO of the Kaiserman JCC in mid-2021, he was aware of the community center’s sister institutions, including the Gershman Y that stood at Broad and Pine streets for 94 years.
The Gershman Y, the arts and culture nonprofit, left the building in 2018 and became the Gershman Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, now Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media. Founded as the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in 1875, the Gershman Y was incorporated into the Jewish Community Center of Greater Philadelphia from 1984-2009, alongside the Kaiserman JCC and Klein JCC, now KleinLife. The space served as a cultural hub for the Philadelphia Jewish community for decades.
While Scher was going over the Kaiserman JCC’s strategic plan with the board, a consultant called the loss of a Gershman Y “an unhealed wound in the community.”
“There are many individuals, many, many individuals — at least enough for it to become a data point in a strategic plan — that spoke of a longing and a deep sadness, still mourning for the loss of the Gershman Y, particularly from an arts and cultural perspective,” Scher said.
Five years after the Gershman Y left its Center City building, Jewish Philadelphians still mourn.
“In hindsight, when the Gershman Y stopped operating as a community hub, it left a hole in the fabric of Jewish life in the city that has not been replaced,” said Kristen Arter, executive director of Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media and former associate director of the Gershman Y.
While demand for a Center City JCC remains high, it’s unlikely that the Jewish community will see another institution quite like the Gershman Y. While Jewish leaders are reluctant to build a JCC following the typical model, they’re hoping to create an institution that fulfills the changing needs of the Philadelphia Jewish community.
“When you look at Center City, the question is, ‘Do we need another institution, another organization, another building in Center City?’” said Jeffrey Lasday, senior chief of external affairs at Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. “Or do we need to look at, ‘What are the programs that are missing? … And what are the services that were never provided but that a new demographic is looking for?’”
As the pandemic waned for a period in 2021, the Jewish Federation approached the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, which emerged from bankruptcy in September 2021. With funding secured, what role would the Weitzman play in the Philadelphia community?
The Weitzman recently became home to Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media, the latest permutation of the Gershman Y. Tribe 12 moved into the museum as well. With an increased array of arts and culture programming, the Weitzman is in the process of creating the tentatively titled Center for Jewish Life and Learning, according to CEO and President Misha Galperin.
“There’s no space for cultural programming for the Center City community, but there is a need; there is a hunger,” Galperin said. “And while the Weitzman, for years, has offered a variety of public programs and educational programs, we weren’t particularly focused on serving the Center City Jewish community.”
After meeting with various Jewish organizations and leaders over the past couple of years, Galperin has found that the demand for increased arts and culture programming is there. Now the home of PJFM, the Weitzman has the potential to closely resemble the structure and programming of the Gershman Y.
Meanwhile, the Center City Jewish community is growing rapidly. According to the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s 2019 population study, the Jewish population in Center City has quadrupled since 2009, from approximately 37,200 to 123,700 persons in Jewish households, including an influx of empty nesters, parents with young children and college students.
The Weitzman doesn’t need to fulfill all the needs of this growing population, but it can focus on cultural programming and adult learning, a need Galperin has heard expressed again and again.
The museum becoming Center City Philadelphia’s newest cultural center reflects a growing trend in Jewish community centers, according to Lasday.
“A lot of the JCCs that focused on membership in brick and mortar [buildings] were finding that membership was decreasing,” Lasday said. “However, if you saw yourself as a program provider, and it wasn’t about membership, but about serving people and [being] willing to have more open boundaries, then you were succeeding.”
JCCs have since recovered from the pandemic, according to Scher, but the one area they are still lagging in is fitness. Especially in cities, Jewish residents can find both high-end and affordable fitness centers elsewhere. What community members are looking for is cultural programming tailored to Jewish community, similar to the 92nd Street Y in New York.
Because of the changing model of JCCs, it doesn’t make sense for Center City to have a traditional JCC, argued Jay Steinberg, a former Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia leader and former director of development for the JCC of Greater Philadelphia.
“Real estate in Center City is enormous,” he said. “It’s just so expensive.”
The Jewish Federation is looking to sell its properties to save and redirect money, evidence that sustaining a new Center City campus for Jewish life would be unlikely, Steinberg said.
Moreover, he believes that if Center City residents really wanted to support a Center City space, they would have invested in keeping the Gershman Y at Broad and Pine streets.
“There’s the story of ‘Chicken Little,’ and the sky is falling,” Steinberg said. “Everybody realized that they needed to do something, but nobody was willing to help.”
Even for Philadelphia residents who miss the Gershman Y, there’s a sense that the expansion of the Weitzman and additional collaborations between Jewish arts and culture organizations could fill the gap left by the Gershman Y.
Laura McColgan, who lives in South Philly, used to walk to the Gershman Y and attend speaker and cooking events there. She expressed a desire for a Center City JCC.
“I’ve been living here for about 30 years now and wasn’t really raised in a very religious Jewish household, but my parents instilled some very good values in me, and one of them was the arts, arts and culture,” she said. “I kind of miss doing those types of things that are Jewish-related.”
But McColgan said that she didn’t need for arts and culture programming to have a central hub but rather just be close enough and affordable enough for her to be able to access them.
Similarly, South Philadelphia resident Melissa Keleti, an administrative coordinator for Jewish Relief Agency, attended preschool at the Gershman Y and misses walking through the space and seeing the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame once housed there. She is looking to engage in cultural and adult education programming, both now offered by the Weitzman.
But Keleti also spoke of an almost intangible component of a JCC that few other institutions can replicate: While the Weitzman and other existing Jewish entities can meet the practical established needs of Jewish community members, there’s still a desire for the nostalgia and comfort of visiting a JCC, for no particular reason than for the fact that it represents a place of Jewish belonging.
“Once in a while, I’ll see people I know walking in the street and say hello,” Keleti said. “I feel like that is a great marker of community.”