No Reprieve on Horizon for 2 Valley Jewish Centers Headed for Closure

The North Valley Jewish Community Center may have withstood a white supremacist’s attack on children attending its summer camp, but in the end, money woes may force the center to close.

The popular community center in Granada Hills, which has offered educational, recreational and social activities for 43 years, is due to terminate adult and teen programs Dec. 31 and end children’s programs in June.

Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles earlier this month announced plans to fire 50 employees and close five of its seven community centers, including the Granada Hills site and the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center in Sherman Oaks, to make up for a financial shortfall. The organization has since decided to spare one of the five, on the Westside.

At the Granada Hills center, staff members, volunteers and patrons say their emotions have run from disbelief to anger to sadness since the planned closures were announced Dec. 4.

“After the shooting, people felt the need to connect and help with the healing. We want to preserve the center,” said Nancy Parris Moskowitz, immediate past president of the center’s advisory board, who said supporters are trying to find ways to keep the center afloat.

The center was catapulted into the international spotlight in 1999 when admitted white supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr. went on a shooting rampage that left five people seriously wounded at the center and Filipino American postman Joseph Ileto dead in nearby Chatsworth. A Los Angeles federal judge in March sentenced Furrow to five life terms for the attacks.

The unemployed mechanical engineer from Washington state, who has a history of mental illness, allegedly said he wanted the attack to serve as a “wake-up call” to kill American Jews.

In the aftermath of the shooting, then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson toured the center. Concerned mothers met at the site to plan the Million Mom March in Washington, D.C. Parents of three wounded children and Ileto’s mother sued gun makers, accusing them of allowing weapons to fall into the hands of a mentally unstable convicted felon.

“We have been through earthquakes and shootings,” Moskowitz said. “We are like a phoenix. We are not going to let money get us down. We are going to rise above it.”

At the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center in Sherman Oaks, parents, staff members and patrons said they were upset by the announcement that the 40-year-old center will close.

“It’s devastating,” said Lesleigh Alchanati, 37, of Reseda, who must now look for another preschool for her 3 1/2-year-old triplets, Camden, Parker and Franchesca.

Alchanati said she enrolled her children at the Sherman Oaks community center’s 200-pupil preschool because of its religious affiliation, convenient hours and proximity to her job as a media librarian at nearby Millikan Performing Arts Magnet School.

“There is no other Jewish school open at 7:30 a.m.,” she said. “This school accommodates working mothers.”

Likewise, Viki Bokra, 33, of North Hollywood, said she was heartbroken when she learned that the center will shut for good in June.

“It is such a warm environment here,” said Bokra, who has children in the preschool and after-school programs. “We are hoping that somehow the center can stay open for the sake of the community.”

Sandy Cable, an administrative assistant at the center for 12 years, has accepted the fact that she will be out of work in a little more than a week.

“I used to fantasize that if I won the lottery, I would still work here and be their biggest volunteer,” she said. “But now, I’m looking around to see what jobs are available. I have been spoiled working here.”

Executive Director Fran Brumlik said the center’s closure will displace teens, adults and seniors who attend classes, meetings and social gatherings there.

On any given day, she said, seniors gather at the center to play cards or take writing, current events and literature classes offered by the L.A. Unified School District.

The center also provides meeting rooms for self-help groups, including Alcoholic Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous, and teen groups such as the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization.

“This center was started 40 years ago in order to meet what was at the time an emerging Jewish community,” Brumlik said. “It will be gone in June unless something wonderful happens.”

Jewish community centers in Santa Monica and Silver Lake also are scheduled to close. Other Jewish organizations have stepped in to help laid-off workers obtain loans and find jobs as well as to assist parents in finding new preschool and after-school programs for their children.

The Westside facility, however, won a reprieve earlier this week after patrons protested its closure, prompting the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles to agree to renovate it instead.

Now the Westside facility at 5870 W. Olympic Blvd. will be remodeled into a state-of-the-art center that will be one of two full-service centers in the region. The other is the existing West Valley center at 22622 Vanowen St. in West Hills.

The center in Conejo Valley, run by the same organization, will remain open.