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JCC Association
Press Kit

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Sen. Carl Levin and Chiefs of Chaplains Participate in Dedication of First JWB Torah for Our Troops

5/13/10 May 13, 2010, New York, NY--JWB Jewish Chaplains Council Director Rabbi Harold Robinson led a group of distinguished guests in reciting a shehecheyanu - the Jewish blessing for reaching a milestone-in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Room at the U.S. Capitol on May 10 when the last letter had been inscribed in a new Torah scroll commissioned for U.S. Jewish chaplains. The moving completion and presentation ceremony was part of a multi-year project called Torahs for Our Troops, which aims to raise funds for six special small, lightweight Torahs that chaplains can easily carry with them into the combat theater and from ship to ship, as well as provide support for the spiritual and morale needs of Jewish military personnel. The scroll was the first to be completed.>> go to complete story

Dedication to Be Held at U.S. Capitol Before New Military Torah Leaves for Middle East

4/29/10 April 29, New York, NY--On Monday, May 10, 2010, at 10 a.m., religious leaders, military personnel, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and people who care about the spiritual welfare of Jewish troops in the U.S. Armed Forces will gather in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Room of the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. to write the last few words in a special Torah scroll. This ceremony will mark the first step of a project called Torahs for Our Troops, spearheaded by JWB Jewish Chaplains Council, part of JCC Association, the leadership network for Jewish Community Centers in the U.S. and Canada.>> go to complete story

JCC Association Brings Lenny Krayzelburg Swim Academy to New York Metro Area JCCs and JCC Day Camps

6/12/09 New York, NY June 12, 2009: Children in the New York metro area can now learn to be safe in the water using the special method developed by four-time Olympic gold-medal-winning swimmer Lenny Krayzelburg. With the opening of the Shorefront Lenny Krayzelburg Swim Academy at the Shorefront YM-YWHA of Brighton-Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn, New York, JCC Association and Krayzelburg are bringing the successful swim school to JCCs and JCC camps on the East Coast. The original Krayzelburg swim school at the Westside JCC in Los Angeles now enrolls over one thousand children. >> go to complete story

Days of Caring and Sharing Community Service Program for JCC Summer Camps Focuses on Honoring Creation

6/2/09 New York, NY June 3, 2009—Forty-one JCC day and resident camps are using grants from the JCC Association/Legacy Heritage Fund Days of Caring and Sharing program to help their communities this summer. Thirty-three day camps and eight resident camps have been awarded grants totaling more than $68,000 to fund activities and projects focused on tikkun olam, improving the world we live in. To help ground the JCC Association/Legacy Heritage Fund Days of Caring and Sharing activities in Jewish values, JCC Association’s Mandel Center for Jewish Education has developed companion curricular units about Kevod Ha-briyot: Honoring Creation, the Days of Caring and Sharing theme for this summer. Through various activities and stories, campers and counselors will grapple with what it means to honor one another’s similarities, as well as differences. They will also examine the meaning of humanity’s charge to, “…fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.” (Genesis 1:28).
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JCC Maccabi ArtsFest® Launches New Website

5/4/09 NEW YORK, NY, May 4, 2009, – JCC Maccabi ArtsFest® opens its fourth season this summer with a brand-new enhanced website and new specialties in two locations. Forty-six JCC delegations so far are bringing Jewish teens to participate in a wide array of fine and performing arts. The New Orleans JCC (August 2-7) in partnership with Tulane University is offering broadcast journalism for the first time with a CBS-affiliate news anchor, and the Merage JCC of Orange County, California (August 9-14) will give teens a chance to produce short films and a television program with a professional producer/director. The two sites are offering ten specialties each to the 46 delegations, including musical theater, rock and jazz bands, interpretive dance, improve/acting, filmmaking, visual art, digital photography, creative writing, and culinary arts. The culinary workshop, brought back by popular demand, has already been almost filled in New Orleans.
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JCC Association Recognized for Innovation in Media and Publishing

4/29/09 New York,NY, April 29, 2009—JCC Association is being honored by the Society of National Association Publications (SNAP) at its 29th Annual EXCEL Awards, which recognize the best and the brightest in association media and publishing.
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Troops Celebrate Passover Far from Home with Help from JWB

4/20/09 New York, NY April 20, 2009: Fifty Jewish military personnel celebrated a Seder in what had been one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Baghdad. Three Jewish soldiers shared a Seder meal in a forward operating base in Afghanistan. Wherever they were, whether the surroundings were sumptuous or spare, Jews serving in the armed forces used supplies sent by JCC Association’s JWB Jewish Chaplains Council to mark the Israelites’ liberation from slavery. “The most important part of Passover is telling the story of Moses, so we took turns reading about the Exodus from Egypt,” said U. S. Army Captain Isaac Greenberg, a JWB Jewish lay leader in Afghanistan. “After that we finished our service and began our feast; including gefilte fish, pickles, horseradish, macaroons, and wine. What else do you need? We had an amazing time.”>> go to complete story

JWB Sends Torah to Iraq
Welcomed by Jewish Air Force Chaplains

3/26/09 NEW YORKs, NY, MARCH 26, 2009 – A beautifully refurbished Torah scroll recently arrived at Balad Joint Air Base in Iraq, sent to Chaplain Sarah Schechter by JCC Association’s JWB Jewish Chaplains Council. Service men and women at the base proudly carried the Torah in procession to Gilbert Memorial Chapel, where it will add immeasurably to the spiritual richness of religious service. Congregation B’nai Israel of Rockville, Maryland generously donated the Torah to JWB when they purchased a new one. This is the second trip to the Middle East for this Torah; it previously visited the Persian Gulf for the High Holidays in 2007 on board the aircraft carrier Enterprise and the amphibious assault ships USS Kearsarge and the USS Bonhomme Richard. >> go to complete story

JCC Association's JWB Jewish Chaplains Council Readies Seder Kits for Troops in Remote and Battle-Torn Regions

3/20/09 NEW YORKs, NY, MARCH 20, 2009 – Passover, the most widely celebrated of all festivals on the Jewish calendar, begins this year at sundown on Wednesday, April 8. While Jews worldwide gather around Seder tables, the holiday can be a trying time for thousands of U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen and women unable to join their families and loved ones. Reaching out to these isolated Jews stationed at bases at home and overseas, JCC Association, through the JWB Jewish Chaplains Council, has prepared its annual spring shipment of individual Seder kits and finalized travel arrangements for the military chaplains who will spend an entire month abroad, leading communal Seders and alleviating the loneliness, particularly acute during holiday seasons, that accompanies active combat duty. >> go to complete story

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