76West: A Podcast from the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan

Today’s episode of 76West begins with Rabbi Joy Levitt’s life changing trip to teach Judaism to the Dalai Lama, followed by a silent meditation retreat six years later. As soon as Joy and colleagues had a chance to bring meditation to the Upper West Side, they did so in the form of Makom, a space within the JCC that has become a daily refuge for hundreds since the building opened in 2002. To learn...

On April 28, 2006, a rally in Washington, DC urged the Bush administration to take action against genocidal atrocities in the country of Darfur. Leading the charge were Ruth Messinger and American Jewish World Service. Rabbi Joy Levitt, then chief program officer, and one of Ruth Messinger’s closest friends, had decided the JCC would take the lead in organizing participants from New York, and enli...

In 2009, plans were announced to convert a building in Lower Manhattan into a center for the Muslim community called Cordoba House. Among the leaders of the project were Daisy Khan and her husband Feisal Abdul Rauf, a sufi imam. Khan, a native of Jumma and Kashmir, was the leader of two non-profit organizations, Musilim Leaders of Tomorrow and the Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equ...

This week, a story that perfectly encapsulates Rabbi Joy Levitt’s tenure. In the first half, she recalls the opening of the JCC’s building in January 2002, and a crucial element that was missing at the time. In the second part, she talks about how the young JCC positioned its health club to succeed in a market filled with top-notch competitors. To learn more about the JCC Health Club, visit https:...

Jewish Journeys (which began as the Jewish Journey Project) was designed to revolutionize Jewish education. The initiative has grown and morphed over the years, but its basic premise has remained the same: to ignite each child’s spirit, engaging them in activities they love while connecting them with Jewish life and learning. Over the years, Jewish Journeys has brought children together to absorb...

In this episode, Rabbi Joy Levitt discusses the birth of the JCC’s Other Israel Film Festival with board member Carole Zabar, the namesake of The Carole Zabar Center for Film at the JCC. Founded in 2007, the Other Israel Film Festival presents cinema that inspires conversation, taking an in-depth look into Israeli and Palestinian societies and some of Israel’s underrepresented populations. Creatin...

The groundbreaking Edmond J. Safra Parkinson's Wellness Program was founded in 2007 to help improve the lives of those impacted by Parkinson's Disease. Through education, exercise, support groups, and other programs, and in collaboration with the medical and local communities, people impacted by Parkinson's remain active, connected, and empowered. Through a collaboration between the JCC and the Pa...

As Rabbi Joy Levitt looked out on the Upper West Side one weekend afternoon, she saw a familiar sight: people going about their lives, trying to fill their time by… spending money. Not everyone was Shabbat observant, but for those who were, or who wanted to be, the JCC devised R&R, a weekly opportunity to be together as a family and a community: an inclusive alternative to the typical New York Sat...

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 mas...

In this episode, Rabbi Joy Levitt speaks with Todd Elkins, the JCC’s longtime Chief Health + Wellness Officer, about a program near and dear to their hearts—Saturday Morning Community Partners. The program has served as a lifeline for disadvantaged children around the city, and as a cornerstone of the JCC’s values-driven programming for the community. To learn more about this program, visit https:...

If you’re listening to this in the fall of 2021, and you’re not aware, the JCC’s Chief Executive Officer, Rabbi Joy Levitt, is retiring at the end of the year. This podcast is for you. If it’s sometime past the fall, maybe the spring of 2022, or the winter of 2026, this podcast is for you, too. There’s something about stories, and this particular storyteller, that’s crucial to understanding what m...

On the season finale of 76West, we're listening to two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead in conversation with Ruth Messinger, former Manhattan borough president, global ambassador for American Jewish World Service, and current activist in residence at the JCC’s Joseph Stern Center for Social Responsibility. In this podcast, Whitehead discusses his New York Times best seller, The Nickel B...

This week: “Exploring the Science of Creativity, Meditation, and the Brain," a conversation between renowned psychiatrist Dr. Norman Rosenthal, classical guitar virtuoso Sharon Isbin, and esteemed Transcendental Meditation teacher and CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, Bob Roth. In their conversation on the science and art of meditation and creativity, they discuss how stress impacts the creativit...

This week, Abigail Pogrebin interviews author Nathan Englander, as part of Abby’s ongoing series at the JCC, What Everyone’s Talking About. Nathan Englander is author of the novels Dinner at the Center of the Earth, The Ministry of Special Cases, and kaddish.com. He’s responsible for the story collections For the Relief of Unbearable Urges and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank. Engl...

This week, we're listening to “Idealism and Activism: A Conversation” featuring Choreographer Bill T. Jones with Rabbi Ayelet Cohen. Jones is a multi-talented artist, choreographer, dancer, artistic director, and writer who has, over a 40-plus-year career, received distinguished honors including the National Medal of Arts, a MacArthur "Genius" Award, a Kennedy Center Honor, and two Tony Awards. Ra...

This week on our podcast 76West, it’s writer Lisa Brennan-Jobs, the daughter of Steve Jobs, talking with Abigail Pogrebin about Brennan-Jobs's intimate, heartbreaking coming-of-age memoir, SMALL FRY, which made it onto The New York Times and The New Yorker’s Top 10 Books of the Year lists. This talk was recorded in front of a live audience on January 15, 2020.

We open season 4 with a discussion from January 2013 between one of America’s most admired authors, Malcolm Gladwell, and Abigail Pogrebin. Gladwell is the author of five New York Times bestsellers — The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. He has been included in the TIME 100 Most Influential People list and touted as one of Foreign Policy’s Top Global Thinkers...

This week we’re listening to a discussion between two-time Emmy and Grammy award-winning comedian Kathy Griffin with civil rights attorney Yetta Kurland. Griffin has performed for hundreds of thousands of fans around the globe, giving legendary standup performances in a class of their own. In 2014, Griffin made history with her 6th consecutive Grammy nomination and first win, joining Whoopi Goldbe...

This week, we’ll be listening to a discussion between famed singer-songwriter Judy Collins and Abigail Pogrebin. Collins is a six-time Grammy nominee and winner of one, for her cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” in 1969. Back then, she evoked the idealism and determination of a generation united against social and environmental injustices. Five decades later, new generations take inspiratio...

This week on our podcast 76West, we’ll listen to a talk with New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, whose book The Education of Brett Kavanaugh investigates the formative years and confirmation of the Supreme Court justice. Asking the questions is Robin’s sister Abigail Pogrebin. To listen, subscribe in iTunes or Google Play, or stream at jccmanhattan.org/76-west. This conversatio...

This week on 76West, we bring you a conversation from 2011 between the late Nora Ephron and Abigail Pogrebin. Ephron was, as the NY Times put it in its 2012 obituary, “a journalist, a blogger, an essayist, a novelist, a playwright, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a movie director — a rarity in a film industry whose directorial ranks were and continue to be dominated by men.” Her screenplays in...

This week's pod features "The Craft of Confession," a discussion between three leading authors of memoirs and Abigail Pogrebin. New Yorker staff writer Ariel Levy talks about her book The Rules Do Not Apply; Daphne Merkin about This Close to Happy: A Reckoning With Depression; and Dani Shapiro about her memoir Hourglass. This talk was recorded in front of a live audience on November 29th, 2017.

We open Season 3 with a discussion between one of America’s most admired public servants, Madeleine Albright, and author and former 60 Minutes producer Abigail Pogrebin. Aside from being the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state, Albright is also a former Ambassador to the United Nations. In this discussion, Secretary Albright and Abby discuss the Secretary’s book Fascism: A Warning, a p...

Episode 12 of 76West, our season two finale, features a discussion between American icon Candice Bergen and Abigail Pogrebin. Acclaimed for her decade-long lead role in the recently revived Murphy Brown, Bergen's acting career – from Carnal Knowledge to Boston Legal -- spans television, film, and Broadway. Her memoir, A Fine Romance, was an instant best-seller. This talk was recorded before a live...

This week on 76West, we’ll be listening to a discussion about the NY Times bestselling memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, an intimate look at how Dr Paul Kalanithi, a 36-year-old neurosurgeon, dealt with his stage IV lung cancer diagnosis. This powerful book has impacted millions of readers who, through Dr Kalanithi's insightful writing, follow the journey of a doctor-turned-patient as he evaluates...