It is surprising to find how few Jewish women’s clubs there are in our city. I am not referring to charitable organizations, of which there are certainly a great number, but to women’s social organizations. I am not giving my sanction now to a life of bridge and tea parties, but clubs on the order of the college clubs would certainly not interfere with any one’s life to an alarming extent, and would probably offer an opportunity for pleasant recreation. Men manage to have their meeting places without devoting their lives to them.
Most of our younger women are great potential athletes who spend the winter months moaning that they have no place to exercise, and complain over how dull it is walking in Central Park. An athletic club with squash courts, a gymnasium and a swimming pool would be just as useful to women as the city athletic club is to men. It would allow women to get their exercise in town instead of having to rush frantically to the country on the first mildly tepid day in spring. The amount of motor fuel thus saved would almost finance the swimming pool.
WOULD END HUNT FOR “FOURTH”
There are also many young women who insist, contrary advice notwithstanding, on having occasional bridge games in the afternoon. The money which they donate to the telephone company in search of that clusive creature known as the fourth would amply pay for the bridge tables at the club. And think of the wear and tear on nerves, all dispensed with by the happy knowledge that one has only to walk into the clubroom to find a bridge game waiting for one.
It should be fairly easy, in spite of the promised boom in real estate, to get a building that would suit such a purpose and yet not be too expensive. If enough women became interested, the equipment might be managed little by little. Although it may seem ridiculous to be thinking of next winter when we are just entering upon a series of hot spells, still those of us who have come limping back from the country with muscles stiff and creaking from disuse may not find it too inopportune a moment to discuss keeping these muscles working after we’ve gotten them in tolerable shape over the summer.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
