Oy to Joy! Insights from the Asheville JCC

How do we harness the power of joy to build a more inclusive world? The Asheville Jewish Community Center's (JCC) Executive Director, Ashley Lasher, has some ideas on how "Jewish Joy" can unlock community and connection both in and beyond shared religion, tradition, ancestry, values, and experience. Listen in as we discuss the vital role of the JCC in strengthening Jewish identity, celebrating Jewish culture, and building a more inclusive community in Western North Carolina.

About Ashley: Ashley Lasher is an Asheville native with a deep-rooted history in the local Jewish community. Having been involved with the Asheville Jewish Community Center (JCC) since childhood, she brings a wealth of experience, passion, and perspective to her leadership role. Her professional journey in nonprofit fundraising has uniquely prepared her to lead the JCC, where she strives to create spaces of joy, resilience, and inclusivity. Ashley's leadership is instrumental in offering vibrant community activities and fostering connections to counteract antisemitism.

Curious? We hope so! Tune in to discover how Jewish Joy is being cultivated at the Asheville JCC, as well as how you can help make a splash!

We'll see you same time, same place next month. Until then, peace.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

We're profoundly profoundly interconnected. We don't always live that way.

Speaker 2 0:08

We don't always acknowledge it, but if we're going to heal, we have to live it, experience it and create institutions that celebrate it. Can we create a we where no one's on the outside of it?

Speaker 1 0:20

Welcome to the Uplift with Zedek Real talk for real change.

Speaker 2 0:24

Before we jump in, a quick reminder of why we're here and what we hope to achieve. We're here to build authentic community relationships and help fuel social transformation in Asheville, north Carolina. We believe collective liberation is not only possible but probable as we share, listen and learn together. We're here for the process. However, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. Welcome to the Uplift. Real Talk for Real Change. I'm Michael Hoban, the Director of Communications at Zetik Social Justice Fund and your host. Today we're chopping it up with second generation Asheville native swimming pool legend, ashley Lasher, the executive director of the Ashfield.

Speaker 2 1:05

Jewish Community Center, aka the JCC. Ashley, thanks for taking the time to be here now. How are you feeling today?

Speaker 1 1:11

I'm feeling great. Thank you so much for inviting me to come sit with you and have a cup of tea and chat.

Speaker 2 1:17

Awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? How'd you get from square dancing at your bat mitzvah to running the JCC?

Speaker 1 1:23

Oh, great question. So I grew up in Asheville, grew up Jewish in Buncombe County in rural Buncombe County, went away to college, thought I wanted to work in journalism and fell in love with working in nonprofits. So I started my career right away in nonprofit fundraising, moved into an executive director role for an amazing local nonprofit and the JCC has always been in my heart. So when they were looking for a new executive director it just felt right to have that be the next part of my JCC journey. As you said, I started off swimming there when I was a kid, then had my bat mitzvah party in the social hall, volunteered at the J as a young adult and served on the board, and so it was just kind of. The next the social hall volunteered at the J as a young adult and served on the board, and so it was just kind of the next step in this progression of loving the J and wanting to be part of it.

Speaker 2 2:11

Ashley, can you tell me a little bit about what does being Jewish mean to you?

Speaker 1 2:15

That is a very complicated question. There are any number of different answers, and in most things in Judaism there is more than one right answer. So I'm going to give you a few of the right answers. It will be incomplete, and that's one of the things that I actually love about Judaism is that we look at everything critically. We think about all of the different moving parts in any one topic, and so it's natural that when we think about our own identity, that can be one of the most complex topics of all. So being Jewish for many people is a religion. Well, let me back up. This is not a check one box answer. This is a check as many boxes as apply answer. I've already mentioned religion. That's the most obvious, but folks kind of see an incomplete picture when they think about Judaism as only a religion. Many of the world religions that identity is seeped in spirituality and religion. But Judaism has other factors as well. So heritage, ethnicity, peoplehood, community tradition. So heritage, ethnicity, peoplehood, community tradition, culinary culture.

Speaker 2 3:26

All things culture, really right, A whole vibrant, rich culture.

Speaker 1 3:31

All things culture. And you could ask 20 Jewish people what makes you Jewish, where does your Jewish identity begin? They might give you one of those answers, they may give you all of them, they may give you another answer altogether, and they're all right.

Defining Jewishness

Speaker 2 3:45

So I'm asking this one Jewish woman sitting in all of them they may give you another answer altogether, and they're all right. So I'm asking this one Jewish woman sitting in front of me what does being Jewish mean to you?

Speaker 1 3:52

To me, being Jewish is my ancestry. It is my religion, my outlook on values and God and the way the world operates. And it's also the way I live my day-to-day life and the lens with which I look at the world around me. So it's part of the lens with which I parent. It's part of the lens with which I celebrate the cycle of the year. That is all rooted in my ancestry, but also in my choice today and how I choose in the world.

Speaker 2 4:31

I love that use of the word lens because I identify as queer and it's the same thing. I could never have a sexual relationship again. Gender could be erased and still queerness is really the framing or, like you said, the lens through which I understand and move in the world every moment, and I love that. Okay, you ready for this? Ready? Complete this sentence.

Speaker 1 4:51

The one thing I wish everyone understood about being Jewish is the one thing I wish everyone understood about being Jewish is I really have to choose one? Yeah, well, you know you can complicate it. Jews are. I'm going to go rogue. I'm going to do two. Okay, the Jewish people are diverse. We do not all believe, think, feel, look the same way On any one topic. You're going to get a whole bunch of different perspectives and opinions. And we are people. We are people who operate in the world just like everyone else. We are friends and parents and children and nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles.

Speaker 2 5:48

If someone asked me that question, but about queer identity, I would say the same thing Okay, so from global news to local Jews, 2024 has been difficult to say the least, which is why uplifting community and cultivating joy is so important, and the Jewish community has a long history of advocating for social justice. In your experience, how do you define Jewish joy and how is this idea shaping the work you do?

Speaker 1 6:14

I define Jewish joy as celebrating. There's a word in Hebrew, silcha. Celebrating joyous moments, dancing, tasting, kind of enjoying all of that cultural element that we talked about earlier and also finding inspiration in the spiritual. Go back and ask me the question one more time, because I think I want to add to it.

Speaker 2 6:40

So how do you define Jewish joy and how is this idea shaping the work that you do?

Speaker 1 6:45

Wow. Jewish joy is focusing on what makes our heritage, culture and religion beautiful, instead of focusing on, or focusing solely on, our hardship and oppression. It is lifting up those beautiful moments Some of them are exciting, some of them are peaceful but bringing those to the forefront and owning that as part of our identity, instead of always coming from a posture of worry, concern and fear.

Speaker 2 7:20

So that worry, concern and fear is that like core to kind of Jewish culture or Jewish togetherness.

The Asheville JCC Origin Story

Speaker 1 7:27

Great question. There is a seed of that trauma. I believe in most, if not all, jewish people, and yet when we allow that to define us, those who seek to harm us win, and when we refuse to let that define us, we don't allow that external force to win and we own ourselves. We tell our own story, we build what we want it to look like. I want to talk about this a little bit in terms of origin stories. Take the JCC, for example. The Asheville JCC was founded in 1940, at a time in which the Nazi party was rising in Europe and a time in which here locally in Asheville, jews were facing interpersonal and systemic oppression. Jewish families could not go swimming in any local country club pool, and some public pools oh that sounds familiar.

Speaker 1 8:30

We're not welcome to gather in certain spaces, we're not welcome to own homes or businesses in certain areas, and there were two synagogues here locally, so there was a space to go and fill a religious need for the Jewish community. But, as I mentioned earlier, jewish identity is so much more than religion, and so there was a vacuum of space for Jews to experience all of these other parts of their identity. So a group of Jewish families joined together and purchased an old house on Charlotte Street, the same location where the Asheville JCC sits today. The house is no longer needed to go, however we're in the same spot since 1940. And in purchasing that piece of property, these families gave a gift to the Jewish community of a space to have Jewish joy without fear so beautiful To gather and have dances, celebrate weddings, swim in a pool for fun, have a summer camp that could serve the Jewish community and their needs at that very vulnerable moment in time, and it became North Carolina's very first Jewish community center.

Speaker 1 9:51

Another important note is, at that time there was a man living in Asheville who was self-proclaimed America's Hitler, william Dudley Pelley, and he had a printing press that he operated off of Charlotte Street, right across from where the Asheville JCC was founded. So this is not a cognitive threat. This is a very real threat that folks were facing and yet they said no, this will not define us. We will be who we are and we will be joyful in that, and there is such power and beauty in making that decision. So this origin story to me says that out of this darkness grew great beauty. And here we are in 2024, still experiencing, celebrating, enjoying this space that grew out of something quite dark and ugly.

Speaker 2 10:49

And so that remembering there's something beautiful too, because I mean there are entire lives and histories, but it has to have a balance, kind of what I'm hearing Remembering and then becoming. Is that correct?

Speaker 1 10:59

I think so. I think that's a great way of putting it. It is so important to remember, but if all we do is remember, we lose who we are.

Speaker 2 11:07

Do you think non-Jewish people have an accurate understanding of Jewish culture and Jewish celebration?

Speaker 1 11:14

Because, when I think about like media images that recently has been focusing so much on the rise in anti-Semitism, this dark rise in anti-Semitism, that it's the only thing that people hear about Jewish life in North America today. People aren't hearing about enjoying dinner in a sukkah during the Sukkot, the Harvest Festival. They're not hearing about dancing to klezmer music on the lawn. They're not hearing about Jewish comedy and beautiful life events. I do think that there is this kind of lack of understanding of who we are, or I should say limited, limited understanding of who we are based on those images that are shown.

Speaker 2 12:12

So how are you working to bring more joy into your work at JCC today?

Speaker 1 12:17

We think about this every single day and you're asking me at a really great time. So right now we're in early September while we're recording this, so I'm just coming off of summer at the JCC Pool season, am I right? Oh my gosh, it is my very favorite time of year at the J so you're feeling sparked. Oh, it has been a sweet, sweet summer. Just this past weekend we had 500 people at the JCC and one day to swim at the pool for Labor Day.

Speaker 2 12:52

Wow.

Speaker 1 12:53

These are people of all faith backgrounds. We welcome individuals of all faith backgrounds.

Normalizing the Jewish Experience

Speaker 2 12:59

Which I just learned today. Like I'm signing up, I had no idea.

Speaker 1 13:03

Yeah, it's part of the power of the J is in creating a normative Jewish experience in a highly Christian culture and an even more highly Christian culture in the South. We are this little spot that creates this normative experience for Jewish people, where everything closes for our most important holidays and we don't have to make excuses about it, we're just closed. Everyone gets why. And by bringing in and welcoming the community people of all backgrounds, people of all identities are welcome at the JCC we are giving a little taste of that Jewish joy to all of those individuals and building personal relationships, interfaith personal relationships, and in my mind that is one of the most powerful ways that we counter anti-Semitism is by giving someone a beautiful experience, by building a relationship because your children are playing together, by tasting challah for the first time, by understanding why these closures happen during certain times of the year.

Speaker 1 14:17

It's really an antidote to antisemitism that is fueled by xenophobia and ignorance. There are many types of antisemitism out there. What we are focusing on by building those beautiful moments and meaningful relationships is countering the type of anti-Semitism that comes simply by never having encountered a Jewish individual or a Jewish experience. And once you have that moment, you can understand and respect and grow together. And if you hear out in the community, somebody says something that doesn't sound right to you, you can say actually, I was just there last weekend. We had a blast.

Speaker 2 14:57

Because you have your own experience, as opposed to relying on what's being inherited or told to you Exactly. So okay, I'm going to be real, because I was raised Southern Baptist. So when we said all are welcome, the underlying motive was to convert Come as you are, believe a Christian right. Is that the same flavor that we're seeing in this all welcome message.

Speaker 1 15:22

Absolutely not. That is such a great question and I'm glad you asked it, because the Jewish people are not an evangelical people. Actually, it's very difficult to convert to Judaism. It is not an easy process and you almost have to prove how badly you want it. Yeah, and so our goal in the All Are Welcome is not let's grow the number of us who are around. Our goal in All Is Welcome is let's build positive relationships with our community. When you taste challah, it doesn't mean anything other than this is some really delicious bread. Sweet. Jewish people eat this every friday night. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 16:13

there's no undertone to that or ulterior motive so what I'm hearing is this come as you are is truly come as you are, be a relationship. Let's chill and then from that grows relationship.

Speaker 1 16:26

Yeah, yeah yeah, some examples of how joyful summer is at the JCC. We have about 60 day campers on site every single weekday, of all faith backgrounds, and we also have about 20 LITs leaders in training, who are teens and tweens volunteering to work with the summer camp, and so our entire campus is teeming with life. There is music, there is kickball.

Speaker 2 16:57

Laughter, I'm guessing Giggles everywhere.

Speaker 1 17:00

So much laughter, there is archery, there are crafts. It is just people coming together for joy and experiencing it across ages the older kids helping the younger kids, the younger kids learning from the older kids, watching them. And then every Friday afternoon at camp, they all come together, sweaty, dirty, their hair is full of chlorine you know, some of their hair is starting to turn green because they've had so much chlorine over the summer and they come together all as one for a camp Shabbat service and they go through the traditional Shabbat blessings over the candles, the wine, the challah, over the children, and they take a moment to share gratitude with one another. There are camp awards that happen during Camp Shabbat, camp awards that happen during Camp Shabbat, and there's this mixture of excitement and kids yelling and joyful and also children taking a moment, breathing deeply into their bodies, covering their eyes and basking in the light of the Shabbat candles before going home. And to me that is summer at the JCC. That is what it's all about. Yes, the pool is fabulous and so much fun.

Speaker 2 18:18

It is a fabulous pool.

Speaker 1 18:20

It is a blast and there is a lot of joy that happens there.

Speaker 1 18:24

But it's also in these little moments of connection to culture and connection to one another that the magic happens, and connection to one another that the magic happens. Another thing that I really love about summer at the JCC is it's the end of our school year for our early childhood education kiddos. So they have spent a whole year with the same classmates and the same teachers and they've built these little classroom ecosystems of trust and care for one another and love, and they get to flex a little bit more independence in the summertime and walk over to the pool for their swim lessons and go on walking field trips and have water play on the playground. Sometimes I just watch and see the way these three-year-olds are engaging with one another. It's not always perfect, you know, like sometimes somebody wants to grab some truck from somebody else, but they've been together long enough that they've learned how to solve conflict with their peers and they've learned to trust their caregivers in helping them do it. And that's just another element of the magic of summer at the JCC.

Speaker 2 19:24

Is that citizenship like something that you deliberately like, intentionally cultivate?

Speaker 1 19:29

Yeah, absolutely. Our curriculum includes a lot of child-led learning, wow. And so the teachers are following the children's interests and the children's needs and in that way, like I said, they're developing a whole community in every single classroom. And I don't want to forget another one of my favorite parts of this summer at the JCC we held three different events for adults to come together and experience Jewish joy. One of them was a klezmer concert on the lawn. That was family friendly kids running around, elders sitting in lawn chairs enjoying the music, getting up and dancing. This is a traditional Eastern European Jewish form of music, style of music.

Speaker 1 20:16

Another one of our events was a poetry presentation by the poets of Yetzirah, a hearth for Jewish poetry. So we had a bagel brunch which was delicious and heard some really deep and profound, beautiful spoken word. And one of my own personal favorites we had the queer Jewish stand-up comedian, antonia Lasser. She was so good my cheeks hurt when I left that night. I had been laughing so hard. She's one of my personal favorites and she came and did stand up to our packed social hall and talk about Jewish joy. There's no Jewish joy like stand up, right, oh my favorite comedians, jewish women in particular.

Speaker 2 21:06

Yes, antonia's awesome. So then, how can community best show up and support Jewish Ashvillians? It's a beautiful question.

Speaker 1 21:15

In the best of times, show up and experience Jewish joy with us, however that looks, whether that's at the JCC or any other, through any other Jewish organization. And when times are scary, show up with a word of concern love, support. That word can look like a card, an email, can look like saying hello to any Jewish person who you may know in the community and stopping them and saying how are you? And allowing that person to really share what's in their heart.

Speaker 2 21:51

And just letting that being kind of being with them. Yeah, which is really challenging sometimes for our different social justice circles to do. Yeah, I'm interested to hear a little bit about how do we make space for all and still keep our cultures and ourselves safe in the process.

Speaker 1 22:11

It is a tightrope walk and yet it's a very important one to endeavor on. We often at the JCC talk about the challenge of being as welcoming of an environment as we can while also being safe. Our front doors are locked always, and in some ways that doesn't feel very welcoming. I'm not welcome to just walk in, and yet that's done through necessity, out of consultation with our partners, and so the way we infuse welcoming in with that is we hire some really incredible staff who sit at the front desk with a great big smile and answer the door with a shalom. How can I help you With our teachers who are so warm and loving with our children, like just from the beginning to the end, this incredible staff who exudes welcoming. That is a huge part of how we maintain that balance, Because when the physical building has to be locked, we have to find other creative ways of being inclusive.

Speaker 2 23:16

How you treat my child is everything. I really think that so much progress could be made. From a parent perspective, I'm okay on my own to be excluded and left out or to struggle, but if somebody just shows kindness and truly embraces you know, my daughter, I'm yours, I'm done, yes, so OK, I hear doors are locked, but our hearts are open.

Speaker 1 23:40

And another element of that is in building partnerships with other organizations. So we have this great partnership with the organization Transmission oh yeah when we offer a trans swim night at the JCC pool once a month. I've been there, oh you have.

Speaker 2 23:58

Yeah, that makes me so happy.

Speaker 1 24:01

Oh, I'm so glad and that's part of how we build this welcoming and inclusive environment too is by saying you know what? Maybe you're not a JCC member, maybe you're not Jewish, you didn't know that you had any other reason to walk through our doors, and yet we want to offer something for you that's meaningful for you, that you can do here in our space and in community with us, and so that's another way that we work on balancing that.

Speaker 2 24:23

And it was a great space and a great time, and I was really surprised for myself how comfortable it felt. We have to wrap it up, so here's my final question for you If you could bottle up one aspect of Jewishness to share with the world, what would that be? If?

The Gift of Shabbat

Speaker 1 24:40

I could bottle up one aspect of Jewishness to share with the world. What would that be? Shabbat, Tell me more.

Speaker 1 24:48

Shabbat is the Jewish Sabbath. It begins at sunset on Friday evening every single week and it ends when the third star appears in the sky on Saturday evening. Shabbat is the most frequent Jewish holiday and many people argue. You know, we talked earlier about how we like to argue and have different opinions. Many people argue that it's also the most important holiday to argue and have different opinions. Many people argue that it's also the most important holiday.

Speaker 1 25:19

There's a saying more than the Jewish people have kept Shabbat, shabbat has kept the Jewish people, and the reason why I want to bottle that up and share it with everyone is because it is a mixture of peace, calm, introspection and happiness, joyfulness and community. It's a mixture of religious observance and family togetherness and it's multisensory, and I love anything multisensory. I mean we're tasting delicious food and wine who doesn't love that? We're enjoying the glow of Shabbat candles, we're blessing our children, we're pausing and in our world we almost never pause. We just keep going, and Shabbat gives us an opportunity to just be.

Speaker 1 26:06

It's quite difficult to observe Shabbat in North America because all the soccer games happen on Saturday and, you know, all the parties happen on Friday night and all of these different things. But when you add whatever elements of Shabbat that you can fit into your life. It's probably for most of us it's not all of it, but every bit that you add adds richness and repair and it's beautiful Repair, yeah, how does that work? When you pause, it's like charging the battery on your phone. Your phone isn't going to keep working if you never stop and charge it.

Speaker 2 26:41

You sound like my wife.

Speaker 1 26:45

She must be a very smart lady.

Speaker 2 26:46

She is amazing. I like her already. Okay. Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Speaker 1 26:52

As Jews, we can't ignore what we've been through Personally. Two of my grandparents were refugees from Nazi Germany. Two of my great-grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust. That's a piece of me and a piece of my DNA and who I am, and I will never be able to ignore that, nor should I. And in refusing to completely define myself by that, I reclaim power and joy. And so, so far, my kids are six and nine years old.

Speaker 1 27:25

They know generally what happened to their great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents, but that is not what has made them Jewish. What has made them Jewish has been feeling so welcomed and comfortable in Jewish community, having a normative Jewish experience during their early childhood years lighting Shabbat candles at home on Friday nights, going to religious school and seeing all of their friends at Friday night services at temple. Their Jewishness is based in playing sharks and minnows at the JCC pool with their friends who they met in the infant room at Hilda's house and that other hard stuff that's baked in. We're not going to ignore it. It's there In age-appropriate ways. We're going to discuss it and explore it and mourn it as they get older. But it's not what makes them Jewish. What makes them Jewish is this whole host of other experiences that they have had their entire lives.

Speaker 2 28:24

That have been quite beautiful my own and you you know, you understand this as well that you embracing joy and your children living joy, that your great-grandparents and their parents, and on that, that would make the suffering and the deaths and all of that that is worth it to see that's what they all want.

Speaker 1 28:47

That's what we all want it's true is to have that for ourselves and our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren on and on, for people to be comfortable in exactly precisely who they are.

Speaker 2 29:01

I love that. Exactly precisely who they are Doesn't seem that difficult. If that is a gift that we're willing to have for ourselves and we can give it also, then we can be there. Okay, so if somebody wants to find out things that are going on at the JCC, where can we find you, the best place is to look at our website, jcc-ashvilleorg.

Speaker 1 29:24

We also have a weekly e-newsletter that comes out that says everything that's coming up that the J is part of, and that's a great way to stay kind of on top of things if you want it to come straight to your inbox. But I'd say those are the two best ways to know what's going on and start to come.

Speaker 2 29:41

Awesome, Ashley. Thank you so much for bringing light and love, sharing the ABCs of the JCC. Beautiful humans. Thank you for tuning in. Check us out. Same time, same place next month. Until then, peace.