Men’s Club

The Jacksonville Jewish Center Men’s Club is an organization dedicated to the enrichment of Center life and the Jacksonville Jewish community. The Men’s Club provides an opportunity for our Center men to work together supporting, sponsoring, and participating in programs that bring meaning to our slogan, “Involving Jewish Men in Jewish Life”.  The Men’s Club is a great way to make friends, have fun, and meet people from our synagogue as well as our regional Jewish community.  Our members regularly get together on Sunday mornings to play pick-up softball, touch football games or perform community service activities.

Our Men’s Club is an active member of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs (FJMC), an international organization dedicated to the ideals, philosophy and traditions of Conservative Judaism.  Our level of activities and Center participation have earned your Men’s Club the First Place and Honorable Mention Torch Awards from FJMC in years past, and our Yad Shel Chai program is now being implemented in Men’s Clubs across the nation.  We participate in a wide range of FJMC programs and activities such as distributing Yellow Holocaust Memorial candles so that every congregant can honor the memory of the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah and World Wide Wrap which brings together congregants, clergy and Center youth on Super Bowl Sunday to participate in the mitzvah of wrapping tefillin.

The Center Men’s Club works closely with Youth and Education leaders to support your children and the Center youth organizations.  We are available to lend a helping hand with local activities and regional USY and Kadima conventions.  We sponsor the Yad Shel Chai (Hand of Life) and Double Yad Shel Chai awards that recognize our youth for reading Torah in our synagogue services and building on the success of the Yad Shel Chai program.  The Men’s Club Martin J. Gottlieb Brit Hinukh award is given each Spring to one Teacher in the Center schools who best represents the life commitment necessary to bring a quality learning experience to Jewish children.  We provide a metal finished Kiddush Cup for Bar and Bat Mitzvah students and gifts for our 12th graders that complete the Siyyum program.  We sponsor and raise funds for the Horty T. Gendzier Summer Scholarship Fund, which provides the opportunity for children to attend Camp Ramah and other Jewish enrichment programs who otherwise would not have been able to do so.