Located on a beautiful 52-acre campus, it provides recreation, education, social and cultural activities for close to 2,000 member families, as well as the entire Nashville community. The Gordon JCC was nitially founded in 1902 as the Young Men's Hebrew Association (YMHA), offering the "advantages of membership" including: a "recreation parlor equipped with all sorts of harmless games" and "long distance telephone." By 1914, the Young Women's Hebrew Association was established as the Ladies' Auxiliary to the YMHA by the "indefatigable" Mrs. The name of the YM-YWHA was changed in 1948 to the Nashville Jewish Community Center with a mission to "improve the moral, spiritual, cultural, and physical welfare of its membership; to help in every way possible the Jewish community of Nashville; to endeavor to bring that community into harmony and union; to foster and develop the highest ideal of American citizenship." The JCC has had many homes, starting above restaurants on "unsavory Cherry Street" (now 4th Ave), then 712 Union Street in downtown Nashville from 1907 to 1948, and temporarily at 3814 West End Ave (next to West End Synagogue) from 1948 to 1951. The Center then moved to a permanent home at 3500 West End Avenue before dedicating the current site on Percy Warner Blvd. In a more than $12 million campaign, the Center was expanded and renovated and rededicated in April, 2000 as the Gordon Jewish Community Center, to honor the major benefactor of the expansion, the Bernice and Joel Gordon family. Come check out "From Y to J: The Hundred Year History of Nashville's Jewish Community Center." by Jean Roseman in our library.
