27. Leaving the Congregation, with Rabbi Joy Levitt

In this episode, we’ll go back to the beginning, when Rabbi Joy Levitt was a congregational rabbi in Plandome, New York, searching for something more. We’ll hear about the forces that acted to bring her to the Upper West Side, before there was a building at 76th and Amsterdam. We’ll hear about a restless spirit ready for a second act, ready to take the show on the road. To apply concepts she’d mastered to a hub for a community that was starved for new ideas, new programs, and Jewish life. The JCC of the Upper West Side, as it was known then, wasn’t just going to be, in Joy’s words, “a gym and a pool.” Joy, alongside the JCC’s founders, had a much more expansive vision in mind.