JCH Mosaic Wall
The Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst, or JCH, was created in the early 1920s to accommodate the larger Jewish community of Bensonhurst. It originally contained two floors, a basement, a large gymnasium, a swimming pool, an auditorium, lounge rooms and more. News accounts indicate it was a sizeable community, since it hosted two seders in 1929 with 500 people at each of the Passover dinners. They also had summer programs and fitness centers to get adolescents to socialize. Through services for the community, the JCH tries to instill a sense of pride to the Jewish people in order to prevent assimilation. In fact, the original slogan of the JCH is “Isolate not thyself from thy community,” indicating how important staying connected to the community is. Today, the JCH, now called the Edith and Carl Marx JCH, is still in Bensonhurst and caters to the new generation of Jews in Bensonhurst.
JCH Original 1920s Blueprint
