A Message From EMJC President Emily Eckman
EMJC’s president delivered this Kol Nidre appeal on October 1, 2025. Please support EMJC today with a donation.
My dad always knew I'd move back to Brooklyn, and those stars aligned in 2008.
Fast forward to 2015. Dan proposed and the search for a wedding venue began. My mom suggested East Midwood Jewish Center but I had other ideas. Little did I know that four years later, we would be attending a Room J Shavout program. The rest is history. During that summer, I found myself reading past shul bulletins posted on the website and a familiar name popped up, Pearl Binder. It noted her passing.
Pearl and her husband Sam were close friends of my paternal grandparents. They were part of the same Holocaust survivors community. It was comforting to learn that she had been a member here. I felt it was b'shert. Dan's friend Michael, who had been his Best Man at our wedding, began to join us for High Holy Day services when we became a member family, and we were delighted to learn that his father had become a Bar Mitzvah under Rabbi Harry Halpern, on this very Bimah, and had in fact grown up in one of the adjacent apartment buildings. All roads, it turns out, lead to EMJC.
During my time as a member, I’ve watched our community rally in support of the Urban Dove school to ensure that they had a home for their students. We got through COVID under EMJC President Michael Schwartz. We celebrated our centennial with Amy Nitzky and Steve Litwin. And we did all of those things under the spiritual guidance of Rabbi Cantor Sam Levine and with the creativity and tenacity of Audrey Korelstein.
In April, our Shul with a Pool debuted renovated locker rooms, complete with a viewing room so families can watch Take Me to The Water swim school provide lessons to their children. Our neighbors are thrilled to have their pool back, too. Thank you, Ed Guterman, for overseeing such a massive project. Thank you to Glenn Pepper of Take Me to the Water for financially backing the project. Despite exhaustive redrafting of plans to keep costs down, the Department of Buildings now wants us to install a third bathroom in the women’s locker room. That work will begin once the High Holy Days have concluded, and will cost approximately $12,800. EMJC will be financing this project on our own.
Since I took the reins as President back in May, I've witnessed the birth of a B'nai Brith Youth Organization chapter at EMJC. It provides a much-needed space for Room J alumni as well as other Jewish youth in south Brooklyn to come together to discuss current events through a Jewish lens, explore ritual and have fun. It’s a new community that gets to call this Center home, because all roads lead to EMJC.
A year ago, you heard Amy and Steve talk about the replacement of our boiler plant facility. The new boiler is working great, and we are in the process of paying it down, but it will take another three and a half years until we make our last installment, which necessitates additional cash flow. They also touched upon the need to take advantage of the security grant we had been awarded a few years ago, which requires additional funds from our coffers. Following Simchat Torah services, we’ll be replacing our beloved wooden doors with more secure metal-and-glass ones. I will personally miss walking through them, but we understand that the needs of the moment outweigh sentimentality. These doors will be just one of the enhancements covered by the monies from the grant. We’ll also have an upgraded security camera system and new protocols for entering and leaving the building. Once the funds from the grant have been depleted, we’ll need to evaluate whether or not we want to use our own funds to continue to pay for the additional private security we have all grown accustomed to.
We were visited by the FDNY and they determined that the fire alarm system in our 100+ year old building is no longer up to code. Additionally, our insurance provider conducted a periodic evaluation of our safety systems and has determined that we must install new fire safety doors between EMJC and the school building to ensure that they are independently fire safe. Without these necessary upgrades and modifications, EMJC could accrue fines, and eventually lose the ability to operate. More immediately, we can’t risk losing the tenants and vendors who have been calling EMJC their home, the revenue from which enables us to operate at the comparatively low rate of dues we assess from our members. We also can’t risk the safety of anyone who walks through our doors.
Thanks to Ed and Wayne, we’re already in discussions with vendors and work should be underway before the close of 2025. This, of course, means that we will need to make down payments for the work in the very near future. The fire doors will cost $6,800. The replacement of the fire alarm system will cost $125,000.
Protecting this building and the people who use it are a top priority for me and I am certain that it is to all of you as well. This is our home.
Throughout this service, we’re reminded of obligations in our lives. Finding a spiritual home can be just as challenging, if not more so, as finding a place to sleep at night. Some of us have been members across multiple generations, and some are just starting their family’s tradition here. One of those many roads led you to EMJC and we're so thankful to have you. There aren’t many Conservative synagogues left in Brooklyn. Please join me in making sure that our community remains safe. It is up to all of us to keep the lights turned on and the doors open to the community, to ensure that those roads never stop leading here. We ask that you give as generously as your means allow so we can ensure that future generations of Brooklyn Jews can receive the gift that we ourselves were so fortunate to have gifted to us by those who came before us.
Shana tova u’metukah. May you be sealed in the book of life.
Emily Eckman, President
