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Author Elissa Sussman and The Lambert Center's Jason Blitman talk about Sussman's new book, Funny You Should Ask, the importance of Jewish representation in fiction, rules of romance novels, and more. Elissa Sussman is the bestselling author of Funny You Should Ask and three young adult novels. She received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MFA from Pacific University. She lives in her hometown of Los Angeles with her husband.

Erika L. Sánchez (I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter) talks to The Lambert Center’s Jason Blitman about her new memoir in essays, Crying in the Bathroom, which Kirkus Reviews calls “a rewarding debut memoir in which a sensitive soul finds salvation in poetry and a life in literature.” Erika L. Sánchez is a Mexican-American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her debut poetry collection, Lessons on Expulsion, was a finalist for the PEN America Open Book Award. Her debut young adult novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Awards finalist. It is now being made into a film directed by America Ferrera. Sanchez was a 2017 to 2019 Princeton Arts Fellow, a 2018 recipient of the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library Foundation, and a 2019 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry) joins The Lambert Center’s Jason Blitman to talk about her latest book, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which Publishers Weekly calls “a one-of-a-kind achievement.” Gabrielle and Jason talk about their shared experience of growing up in heavily Jewish populated areas, how we all play video games whether we know it or not, and how failure can be a creative place. Gabrielle Zevin is The New York Times and internationally best-selling author of several critically acclaimed novels, including The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, which won the Southern California Independent Booksellers Award and the Japan Booksellers' Award and was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Award, and Young Jane Young, which won the Southern Book Prize. Her novels have been translated into 39 languages. She has also written books for young readers, including the award-winning Elsewhere, which is on Time magazine's 100 Best YA Novels of All-Time list. She lives in Los Angeles.

Sloane Crosley (I Was Told There'd Be Cake, How Did You Get This Number, The Clasp) talks to The Lambert Center's Jason Blitman about her latest novel, Cult Classic. Sloane and Jason chat about the book's themes, beautiful cover art, the word "supposably," and whether or not mezuzahs are found on interior doors of synagogues. Sloane Crosley is the author of the novel The Clasp and three essay collections: Look Alive Out There and the New York Times bestsellers I Was Told There'd Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number. A two-time finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, she lives in New York City To learn more about the JCC's arts programming, visit mmjccm.org/lambert

It wasn’t just a perceived need. It was a moral imperative. In looking at the JCC’s burgeoning population of older adults, it became apparent that cards, trips, and discussion groups weren’t just fun, enriching ways to spend time. They were a way station, a way of conquering one of the most insidious epidemics of our time: loneliness. Under the direction of Susan Lechter and thanks to the care and largesse of board member Dana Linden, the Wechsler Center for modern aging would come to represent something more than a place for excellent programs. It would be a lifeline, a chance to build connections and community among a group that is too often overlooked in society. In today’s episode, joined by Susan and Dana, Rabbi Joy Levitt will discuss the impetus for launching the center — during a pandemic, no less — and how its many facets could change the way we think about getting older. To learn more about The Wechsler Center for Modern Aging, visit mmjccm.org/60plus.

It took a professionally upsetting and embarrassing incident for Rabbi Joy Levitt to realize how far the JCC, and indeed all Jewish communal agencies, had to go when it came to treating those in its neurodiverse community. But evolve the JCC did, thanks to the largesse and personal knowledge of people like Jack and Shirley Silver, whose Center for Special Needs at the JCC became the home of numerous groundbreaking programs. Among them was Adaptations, a supportive social community for adults in their 20s and 30s that offered individuals with a high level of independence a place to socialize, learn, grow, and deepen their connections to one another through structured social/recreational and employment programs. Thanks to an extraordinary lay-professional partnership, the seeds planted by the Silvers came to provide multiple pathways to fostering independence, finding passion, and experiencing the richness of community. To learn more about Adaptations at the JCC, visit https://mmjccm.org/adaptations.

Ma’yan: The Jewish Women’s Project was founded by the JCC in 1993 to serve as a catalyst and a resource for women working for change within the Jewish community. During its existence, Ma’yan promoted Jewish ritual from a new perspective through programs such as its feminist Passover Seder and innovative women’s Haggadah, while continuing to focus on advancing the status of womenstatus within the Jewish communal world. In today’s episode of 76West, Ma’yan Director Eve Landau and Cofounder Barbara Dobkin join Rabbi Joy Levitt to discuss the origins of the first women’s seder, and how the haggadah they developed is still influencing the way we think about the seder today. Note: this episode contains an excerpt from Debbie Friedman’s “Miriam’s Song” from her January 1996 performance at Carnegie Hall. To learn more about the Joseph Stern Center for Social Responsibility at the JCC, visit https://mmjccm.org/adults/social-responsibility-volunteering. To order the Ma’yan Passover Haggadah, visit https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Continues-Passover-Haggadah-English/dp/0966710711

One of the JCC’s original volunteer initiatives, the literacy and math tutoring program has only grown in size, scope, and value in the years since its founding. Under Program Director Judy Gross, it has expanded into more schools, added facets such as having students practice their skills by reading to therapy dogs, and even survived a pandemic. On today’s episode of 76West, Gross and Rabbi Joy Levitt discuss the origins of this groundbreaking program and learn about some of the incredible volunteers whose generosity has given the program its heart and soul. To learn more about the Literacy and Math Tutoring Program at the JCC, visit https://mmjccm.org/adults/social-responsibility-volunteering/literacy-math-tutoring.

Few families have had as profound an impact on the life of the JCC as the Meyerson-Hooper family. From their earliest days as board members to participants in a full range of family programs and activities to their 2018 decision to name the organization after Marti’s mother Marlene, the Meyerson family bestowed an incredible personal and financial gift that will inspire donors and lay leaders for years to come. In today’s episode, we learn about how Marti’s personal journey brought her to the JCC, and how her family’s deep love of the institution led to one of the most consequential moments in the history of the organization.

Today’s episode of 76West begins with Rabbi Joy Levitt’s life changing trip to teach Judaism to the Dalai Lama, followed by a silent meditation retreat six years later. As soon as Joy and colleagues had a chance to bring meditation to the Upper West Side, they did so in the form of Makom, a space within the JCC that has become a daily refuge for hundreds since the building opened in 2002. To learn more about Makom at the JCC, visit https://mmjccm.org/makom

On April 28, 2006, a rally in Washington, DC urged the Bush administration to take action against genocidal atrocities in the country of Darfur. Leading the charge were Ruth Messinger and American Jewish World Service. Rabbi Joy Levitt, then chief program officer, and one of Ruth Messinger’s closest friends, had decided the JCC would take the lead in organizing participants from New York, and enlisted the help of Sarah-Kay Lacks to organize buses to travel to DC. In today’s episode of 76West, you’ll hear the story of how a single utterance in temple led to one the JCC’s largest, and most successful advocacy efforts to date. To learn more about the Joseph Stern Center for Social Responsibility at the JCC, visit https://mmjccm.org/adults/social-responsibility-volunteering.

In 2009, plans were announced to convert a building in Lower Manhattan into a center for the Muslim community called Cordoba House. Among the leaders of the project were Daisy Khan and her husband Feisal Abdul Rauf, a sufi imam. Khan, a native of Jumma and Kashmir, was the leader of two non-profit organizations, Musilim Leaders of Tomorrow and the Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality. In planning the center, Khan reached out to Rabbi Joy Levitt, then the Executive Director of the JCC in Manhattan, for advice both large and small. What resulted was a friendship that sheltered both through the cultural storm that erupted around the community center, which became known for a brief time as the Ground Zero mosque, due to its overstated proximity to the 9/11 site. In today’s episode, we’ll hear Joy and Daisy recall that turbulent time, and how one project designed to benefit an entire population blew up as a result of the country’s increasing polarization. To watch Joy and Daisy on This Week with Chistiane Amanpour, visit https://youtu.be/fE_XnmQRDPA

This week, a story that perfectly encapsulates Rabbi Joy Levitt’s tenure. In the first half, she recalls the opening of the JCC’s building in January 2002, and a crucial element that was missing at the time. In the second part, she talks about how the young JCC positioned its health club to succeed in a market filled with top-notch competitors. To learn more about the JCC Health Club, visit https://mmjccm.org/fitness-wellness.

Jewish Journeys (which began as the Jewish Journey Project) was designed to revolutionize Jewish education. The initiative has grown and morphed over the years, but its basic premise has remained the same: to ignite each child’s spirit, engaging them in activities they love while connecting them with Jewish life and learning. Over the years, Jewish Journeys has brought children together to absorb the concepts, ideas, and traditions that are the building blocks of Jewish life. Under the leadership of Rabbi Lori Forman-Jacobi, it has added a revolutionary online Hebrew learning program and an off-the-bimah B’nai Mitzvah experience. In this episode of 76West, we’ll hear Rabbi Joy Levitt discuss the beginnings of Jewish Journeys, and how a simple walk in the woods led to a whole new way of thinking about Jewish education. To learn more about Jewish Journeys, visit http://www.jewish-journeys.org/

In this episode, Rabbi Joy Levitt discusses the birth of the JCC’s Other Israel Film Festival with board member Carole Zabar, the namesake of The Carole Zabar Center for Film at the JCC. Founded in 2007, the Other Israel Film Festival presents cinema that inspires conversation, taking an in-depth look into Israeli and Palestinian societies and some of Israel’s underrepresented populations. Creating such a festival is a powerful statement for any Jewish organization, but for this JCC, it made perfect sense. Visit https://mmjccm.org/arts-film/film/other-israel-film-festival to learn more about the festival.

The groundbreaking Edmond J. Safra Parkinson's Wellness Program was founded in 2007 to help improve the lives of those impacted by Parkinson's Disease. Through education, exercise, support groups, and other programs, and in collaboration with the medical and local communities, people impacted by Parkinson's remain active, connected, and empowered. Through a collaboration between the JCC and the Parkinson's Foundation, supported by Northwell Health, the program has grown into a hub for the New York Parkinson's community, and has been adapted nationally. In this episode, we’ll hear Rabbi Joy Levitt discuss the founding of the program with two of the driving forces behind it: Caroline Kohles, the JCC’s Senior Director of Health and Wellness, and Dr. Alessandro Di Rocco, neurologist and director of Northwell’s Movement Disorders Program. Visit https://mmjccm.org/parkinsons to learn more about the program.

As Rabbi Joy Levitt looked out on the Upper West Side one weekend afternoon, she saw a familiar sight: people going about their lives, trying to fill their time by… spending money. Not everyone was Shabbat observant, but for those who were, or who wanted to be, the JCC devised R&R, a weekly opportunity to be together as a family and a community: an inclusive alternative to the typical New York Saturday. For Friday evenings, there was Shabbat Shabbang, an event designed to welcome the community into the building for a meal, new friends, and fascinating programs. Leading the charge alongside Rabbi Joy Levitt was board member Alice Gottesman, who drew on her own fond childhood memories in supporting both programs. In this conversation, you’ll hear Joy and Alice discuss the founding of two programs that came to embody the Jewish values of the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan. Learn more about Shabbat programming at the JCC at https://mmjccm.org/jewish-life/shabbat-holidays.

In this episode, we’ll go back to the beginning, when Rabbi Joy Levitt was a congregational rabbi in Plandome, New York, searching for something more. We’ll hear about the forces that acted to bring her to the Upper West Side, before there was a building at 76th and Amsterdam. We’ll hear about a restless spirit ready for a second act, ready to take the show on the road. To apply concepts she’d mastered to a hub for a community that was starved for new ideas, new programs, and Jewish life. The JCC of the Upper West Side, as it was known then, wasn’t just going to be, in Joy’s words, “a gym and a pool.” Joy, alongside the JCC’s founders, had a much more expansive vision in mind.

In this episode, Rabbi Joy Levitt speaks with Todd Elkins, the JCC’s longtime Chief Health + Wellness Officer, about a program near and dear to their hearts—Saturday Morning Community Partners. The program has served as a lifeline for disadvantaged children around the city, and as a cornerstone of the JCC’s values-driven programming for the community. To learn more about this program, visit https://bit.ly/3a7WkH5.

If you’re listening to this in the fall of 2021, and you’re not aware, the JCC’s Chief Executive Officer, Rabbi Joy Levitt, is retiring at the end of the year. This podcast is for you. If it’s sometime past the fall, maybe the spring of 2022, or the winter of 2026, this podcast is for you, too. There’s something about stories, and this particular storyteller, that’s crucial to understanding what makes—and made—the country’s premier JCC tick. What allowed it to go as fast as it did, to build success upon success upon success. Rabbi Joy Levitt isn’t—wasn’t—just a boss to some of us. She is, was, a spiritual adviser. A relentless “idea person.” A source of endless motivation. And whether you’re listening to this before she leaves, or after, there are lessons you can take from it. You can listen to her voice and know there was a strong hand steering the ship at the JCC. There was joy, in Joy. Welcome to season 5 of 76West, recorded, appropriately, in an office at the corner of West 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. In past years you’ve heard conversations with some of the great thinkers of our time. This season you’re going to hear the voice of one: Rabbi Joy Levitt. Sometimes she’ll be by herself, sometimes accompanied by the amazing people who helped make the programs she shepherded a reality. That’s by design. Joy works—worked— best in collaboration with others, people who pushed her, prodded, who inspired her as much as she inspired them. That’s going to be—is—her legacy to the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan: a spirit of positivity, of moving onward and upward. Taking a simple idea, a Jewish Community Center, and elevating it beyond what anyone would use as their definition. In this episode, Rabbi Joy Levitt discusses an eye-opening moment in the JCC’s Laurie M. Tisch Gallery, in which an exhibit of the work of photographer Caryl Englander brings about an epiphany for one young family and for Joy.