by Marilyn Silverstein
NJJN Bureau Chief/PMB

March 17, 2009

With hard hats on their heads and shovels in their hands, members of the Jewish community celebrated a symbolic ground-breaking ceremony for the projected new Jewish Community Campus of Princeton Mercer Bucks on Feb. 1.

Close to 200 people came together for the 45-minute ceremony on the 80-acre campus site bordering Clarksville-Grovers Mills Road in the Princeton Junction section of West Windsor Township. Under sunny winter skies, they looked back on the 10-year effort to realize the dream of a regional Jewish community campus and forward to the projected opening of the campus in 2010.

“It’s an amazing project,” said Howard Cohen, who recently took on responsibilities as cochair of the Jewish Community Campus Development Council.

“This is almost 10 years in the making, and it’s finally becoming a reality,” Cohen told NJ Jewish News. “This is something that will bring the whole Jewish community together. It’s our field of dreams.”

Actual construction shovels are expected to break ground on those fields sometime in late summer. Plans call for the construction of a 77,022-square-foot, multi-use facility that will be the new home of the region’s core Jewish agencies — United Jewish Federation of Princeton Mercer Bucks, Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Mercer, Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Mercer County, Jewish Community Center of Princeton Mercer Bucks, and the JCC’s Early Childhood Learning Center and Abrams Day Camp.

The building will also house classrooms, meeting rooms, a kosher cafe, a fitness facility, and an indoor pool. Plans also call for 272 parking spaces. Development of the site’s 20 acres of recreational areas and campgrounds will take place during a second phase of the project.

“This project is envisioned to be a Jewish hub of the community,” Cohen said at the ceremony. “Today, we can say yes, this is really going to happen because of the tireless efforts of many leaders. Today’s ground breaking is not an end; it is just the beginning.”

Council cochair Ron Berman looked back to the establishment of the region’s first Jewish community center on Stockton Street in Trenton in 1910, as well as to the opening, close to 50 years later, of the JCC of the Delaware Valley in Ewing.

“We, here, are standing on the shoulders of all the people in the past who worked on creating our Jewish community centers,” Berman said. “The new JCC will provide a sense of unity, identity, and belonging for people of diverse backgrounds and interests.”

As the ceremony continued, federation president Daniel Brent welcomed the state and regional officials who were on hand, including Sen. Bill Baroni (R-Dist. 14), Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo (D-Dist. 14), Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-District 14), Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes, West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, and East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov.

‘A momentous day’

A highlight of the program was the announcement of Inspiration and Vision Awards for Joe Fath and Robin Persky, founding cochairs of the council, for their leadership in launching the dream of creating a central Jewish address for the region. Fath received his award from Paul Schindel, a council member who formerly served as cochair.

“It was a momentous day,” Schindel said in an interview, “a big step forward for the campus project, and a clear message to the community that the project is entering its construction phase.”

The ceremony also served to recognize the four lead donors to the project’s fund-raising campaign — retired businessman and philanthropist Lewis Katz of Cherry Hill; attorney Richard Kohn of Hopewell Township, a member of the federation’s executive committee; New Jersey real estate developer Alan Landis and his wife, Linda; and the estate of the late Julius Koppelman.

Former federation president Ken Mack noted that, in recognition of the gifts, sections of the new campus community would be designated as the Betty and Milton Katz Jewish Community Center, the Julius Koppelman Federation Wing, and the Landis Family Indoor Pool.

As Katz addressed the gathering, he held the hands of his young grandchildren Ethan Michael Silver and Brooke Ryan Silver. At the heart of what the teachers and rabbis of his youth taught him, he said, “is what I have in my hands as I stand before you.”

“How do you teach your grandchildren the meaning of tzedaka? How do they learn how important it is to share the blessings that are given to you by a higher being? I want my grandchildren, more than anything, to understand that what Poppy wants, more than anything, is for them to know the responsibility,” he said.

“When I grew up in Camden, there were six million Jews living in America,” Katz noted. “There are now five million Jews living in America. I promise you, if you want those numbers to change, this building will make a difference. If you want your community to create something beyond all of us, this building will make a difference.”

So far, said Mark Merkovitz, the community has contributed 75 percent of the estimated $25.7 million cost of creating that difference.

“There are 18-20,000 Jewish families in our community,” said Merkovitz, federation vice president for the campus and coordinator of the fund-raising effort. “We need your help in reaching out to these people. We are asking everybody in the community to become a part of this project.”

All in all, the ground-breaking ceremony was an important step for the community, said council executive director Drew Staffenberg. “For me, it was a way to say to the community, we’re acting and moving forward,” he told NJJN. “It’s not just talk. We’ve made headway. We’re not there yet, but we want people to see the majesty of the property.

“There’s been a lot of talk about will it ever happen,” Staffenberg said. “We’re getting closer. We’re 75 to 80 percent there. My hope is that during 2010, the 100th anniversary of the JCC, we’ll be able to celebrate our third building in a century.”

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