Community

February 3, 2012

Milken JCC to close in June

By JewishJournal

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The JCC at Milken in West Hills announced this week that it will shut its doors permanently as of June 30. The 42-year-old center will also close its Early Childhood Center, which has 80 preschoolers, on June 15.

In a Feb. 1 e-mail, Milken JCC chair Steven V. Rheuban announced that the board was abandoning its search for a new location following the sale of the building that houses the center.

“It is with a heavy heart that we must tell you all that after an exhaustive and in depth search for a new home, without success, the Board of Directors of The JCC at Milken has had to make a most difficult decision,” Rheuban wrote.

The JCC at Milken survived the wave of Jewish community center closures that began in 2002, in part, because its property, Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus, was owned by The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles rather than the centers’ parent organization, Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles. While the center struggled with debt and a loss of membership, its leadership was able to strike a deal with Federation in 2009 to remain on the campus.

A deal between New Community Jewish High School and The Federation to purchase the Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus for an undisclosed amount was confirmed last October, following nearly a year of negotiations. The high school is expecting to relocate to the renovated property from its current home on the property of Shomrei Torah Synagogue in September 2013.

The West Hills center had been hoping to permanently move its Early Childhood Center to a new location, and temporarily move its senior services to a different site in June while the New Community Jewish High School began reconstruction at the Milken campus.

The JCC at Milken’s closure follows that of the Valley Cities JCC, a 50-year-old institution that shut its doors in June 2009, less than a year after moving from its longtime Sherman Oaks site to one in Van Nuys. North Valley Jewish Community Center, which continues to offer programming at various locations despite losing its Granada Hills property during the centers crisis, would be the only Jewish community center left in the San Fernando Valley. 

In addition to its preschool and senior programming, the JCC at Milken is home to arts and fitness programs, after-school programs, sports and summer camps, and Team Los Angeles, an award-winning team that competes in the JCC Maccabi Games.

In his letter, Rheuban wrote that the center’s board and staff would be compiling a list to help its members find similar programs within the Jewish community.

Related:
Phoenix Rises - Milken JCC Readies for Big Splash

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What happens when the JCA signs over their property in 1968 to the LA Jewish Federation for $1 with the promise that in return the Federation will build a campus that will also house the JCC in perpetuity? They renege and leave the JCC with building debts, then try to shut down all the JCC in 2001 and then starve the Milken JCC while selling the campus to a Jewish high school whose board is populated by Federation connected members.

Ten years down the road the high school board will sell the Milken campus to a developer whose influential on the high school board….and that’s the story of Jewish L.A.

Remember, Save the JCCs

Comment by Pini Herman on 2/03/12 at 4:24 pm

Sorry, got the deed transfer date wrong:

The roots of the Milken JCC go back to the West Valley JCC, which was founded in 1969 and bought the Milken campus, then a horse ranch, in 1976.

The site was deeded for $1 to Jewish Federation, which put up $15 million to build up the campus, completed in 1987 (and the JCC found itself in a continuing debt to the Jewish Community Foundation for a “loan” of over a quarter million dollars for a Milken campus facility the Federation should have built, rather than the usual grant). The Federation claims to have come up with additional funds to restore the buildings after the 1994 earthquake but were likely almost totally covered by FEMA and insurance.

Comment by Pini Herman on 2/03/12 at 4:44 pm

And, as we lose one of the few remaining institutions that serves the whole Jewish community to one that charges about $30,000/yr. in tuition and fees, we continue our transition to a country club religion. Are we now the Episcopalians of the 21st Century?

Comment by LA Reader on 2/04/12 at 1:43 pm

This is just horrible!

Comment by Laurie Saidiner on 2/04/12 at 6:53 pm

In retrospect I did the Episcopalians a disservice. They were the ones who saved my Hollywood-Los Feliz JCC when it was abandoned by the Federation and the JCC. Episcopalian churches like All Saints in Pasadena probably reflect Olam Tikkun better than most Jewish institutions today.

Comment by LA Reader on 2/06/12 at 11:54 am

I believe the one remaining JCC, Westside JCC has faced severe reductions on Jewish Federation current funding and has been informed of even greater cuts in the future. No JCC in the country exists without substantial federation subventions. I just can’t understand why LA JCCs have been financially choaked almost out of existence over the reign of Federation execs John Fishel and Jay Sanderson?

Rember: Save the JCCs

Comment by Pini Herman on 2/06/12 at 1:55 pm

I think they should get in contact with the JEM Community Center (former Y of BEverly HIlls) it’s a fantastic location with good sincere people behind it, I’m sure they would be open to discussions if it means helping the community and youth

Comment by Eliza on 2/07/12 at 1:28 pm

Hey folks.  GET USED TO THIS. The closures are due to lack of Jews who want to affiliate or fund. How did you do this? By trying for only 2 children, but averaging only one.  Saving money on not giving those kids any Jewish education beyond the Bar Mitzvah, if that. 50% intermarriage and divorce.  Narry a whimper from your temples. Just wait… it gets better. Soon most temples will have to merge or close.  Watch JFC funding dry up too. Blame no one but your own and your friends’ decisions to divest of Jewish traditions in favor of neutered ‘Tikkun Olamism’. This is the long predicted result of those choices and just the beginning of the end of Jewish liberalism.

Comment by Abbushuki on 2/08/12 at 12:30 am

Unfortunately, the closure of this JCC has little to do with differences in Jewish denominational consumerism, but how our Jewish community has decided to allocate communal resources. For example, while the Jewish Community Foundation was bloating to over $700 million it was collecting on $250,000 that it had decided to loan rather than grant to the JCC around 1987 when the Federation demanded additional monies along with the large property it had gotten for $1 from the JCC.

Now, non-denominational and Secular Jewish communal resources have been sold, in unknown, but doubtlessly, favorable terms to a unrepresentative group . All Jews in LA have lost, from the secular to the most observant.

Comment by Pini Herman on 2/08/12 at 11:45 am

As far as I could discern the JEM (Jewish Educational Movement) Community Center, 25 miles distant from the JCC being discussed, is a synagogue which has a pool and gymnasium with programming congruent to its mission.  JEM doesn’t’ seem to have filed a non-profit tax return since 1994 and it has no board listed and its filer with the Secretary of State is Rabbi Hertzel Illulian, who appears prominently in Google searches as well as a Jewish Journal article: http://www.jewishjournal.com/community_briefs/article/fate_of_santa_monica_apartment_building_embroils_rabbi_and_residents_in_leg/

I guess that is the best this Jewish community can offer.

Remember: Save the JCCs

Comment by Pini Herman on 2/08/12 at 12:23 pm

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