JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER: THEN AND NOW
What is now known as the Jewish Community Center (JCC) began as the Jewish Educational Alliance (JEA) in 1909. Recognizing the polarization between the Central European and Eastern European Jews, leaders in the two communities shifted the focus towards a united goal of Americanization. The JEA offered English classes for new immigrants, lessons on American history, and tutorials for how to gain citizenship. The JEA also became a center of community, expanding beyond classroom instruction and including meeting spaces for outside clubs, sports events, and even a health clinic after the first facility was finished in 1911. The original facility was located on Capitol Avenue, in the heart of the Jewish Southside, which helped further its development from an immigration center to a broader center of social engagement.
In 1946, the JEA changed its name to the Atlanta Jewish Community Center, and raised enough money to move to a bigger location slightly north of downtown. World War II resulted in a more active Jewish community; studies show that only 6% of adult Jews after the war were not members of Jewish organizations, and that 61% belonged to two or more. The picture above is the new JCC building that was built on Peachtree Street, just down the road from The Temple, and opened officially in 1956. The JCC continued to be a central hub for Jewish activity in the city, as its new facility was bigger and included a pool and athletic courts for sports teams. In addition, the JCC had to accommodate for the increasing growth of the Jewish population in Atlanta, which rose from 14,500 Jews in 1960 to 27,500 in 1980 and 86,000 in 2000. In part due to this growth, the JCC moved again in the late 1990s, from its midtown location to outside the perimeter of the city. This move followed the common trend of almost all Jewish communities over the course of the 20th century. As communities grew bigger, there was an inclination to move out of downtown and find a spot in northern
Atlanta to resettle. For this reason, synagogues such as The Temple, AA, Shearith Israel, and Or Veshalom all moved north in the mid 1900s, shifting the Jewish community from its concentrated downtown quarter to a wide, spread out entity. The new JCC, its campus funded primarily by Bernie Marcus, founder of Home Depot and notable businessman, now inhabits a sprawling campus north of Atlanta, where a sizable Jewish community had previously recolated. It has grown into a center with wide ranging programs, including summer camps and theater productions. Today, the Jewish population in Atlanta numbers over 120,000, making it the city with the ninth biggest Jewish population in the United States. It has come a long way since the arrival of the first two Jews in 1845, and its growth in just 150 years raises the question of how the community will continue to develop in the next 150 years to come.
