In Boca, There Goes the Neighborhood

from The Jewish Week:

JCC, Synagogues In Holy War In Boca

… the JCC’s decision has ignited a war in this heavily Jewish Broward County community. As synagogues around the country struggle with membership numbers and count on the High Holy Days to sign up congregants, thereby padding their coffers, rabbis here are seeing the JCC’s action as “usurpation” and an “invasion.” There are even fears that Boca synagogues might ban a representative of the Jewish federation, which funds the JCC, from making his annual High Holy Day pitch.

And as JCCs around the country shed their old image of being merely a gym and a pool and instead search for a new mission – including offering services and religious programming, particularly aimed at the large numbers of unaffiliated Jews – the turf battle in Boca is the leading edge of a trend that is likely to play out all over the country in the coming years.