Y.M.C.A. for Jews

Christmas comes three times a year at the Young Men's Christian Association in the Israeli sector of Jerusalem. With hundreds of Jews attending, the Y put on a carol sing to mark the Christmas of Protestants and Roman Catholics. On Jan. 6 it will hold another celebration of the birth of Christ for Orthodox Christians, and on Jan. 18 still a third for Israel's Armenian Christians, who follow the old Julian calendar.

No modern Y.M.C.A. any longer limits its membership to people who are young, male and Christian, but Jerusalem's Y is the only one in which 95% of the 3,300 members are Jewish, one-third of them women. The organization is so popular that some prominent Israeli families have unsuccessfully tried to use pull to move their children ahead on the long waiting list at its gym. But it started out to be something much more traditional.

"I Am the Way." Financed by a $1,000,000 gift from the late James Newbegin Jarvie, a New Jersey coffee-and-sugar millionaire, the 31-year-old Jerusalem Y was designed by Arthur Loomis Harmon, architect of Manhattan's famed Empire State Building. One of Israel's tallest structures, the pink, ocher and brown marble building consists of two domed wings connected by cloisters to a Jesus Tower, symbolizing the Trinity and the Y's threefold function-developing man's body, mind and spirit. Twelve cypress trees in the eight acres of gardens represent the twelve Apostles, and on the tower are carved, in Aramaic, Jesus' words from John: "I am the way."

There were plenty of protests when the Y first opened. Orthodox rabbis complained that the building would be a center for Christian missions, and veiled Moslem women paraded the streets protesting against "this proselytizing organization." Jerusalem's Latin-rite Roman Catholic patriarch denounced the Y in a pastoral letter. Since most of the members in the early days were British civil servants and Arab Christians, Palestinian Jews regarded it as a center for Arab espionage during Israel's war for independence. After the city was partitioned in 1948, membership dropped to 250.

The transformation began in 1950 when Herbert Leslie Minard, 56, a Disciples of Christ minister from Fresno, Calif., took charge of programming and membership for the Y. "We are not a proselytizing organization," Minard ruled; he halted Bible classes and refused to let Christian missionaries distribute convert-seeking literature. Minard, who is now the Y's general secretary, persuaded both Christians and Jews to join its community council, set up adult education courses to help in the acculturation of Jews from 50 countries who had gone to the new land. The Y now teaches 15 subjects, all in Hebrew, ranging from judo to dress cutting.

Certificates for Christians. The Y goes out of its way to respect Jewish customs. Its restaurant is closed only one day a year, Yom Kippur, and bar mitzvahs are regularly reported in the monthly bulletin. Although the Moslem chef does not keep a kosher kitchen, bacon, purchased from a Jewish butcher, is served only on request. Orthodox rabbis are pleased that there are separate hours for men and women to use the building's swimming pool, which is the only one in Jerusalem that observes the rigid Halakah prohibition against mixed bathing.

The Jerusalem Y's diplomatic ways are also respected by Jordanian Arabs. By acting as an unofficial consulate that issues certificates of religious affiliation for Christians wishing to go through the Mandelbaum Gate to the Old City, the Y has become one of the few sources of communication between the sectors of the divided city. In fact, it is generally so well thought of that next spring it will dedicate a new Y building in the predominantly Christian Arab town of Nazareth-with money raised in part by Israeli and Canadian Jews. Says Minard: "I'm optimistic about the future when we can get Jews to build a Christian service organization in an Arab community."

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