Your Impact by the Numbers
$24.5 An MILLION
HAS BEEN
RAISED AND
Update on
Emergency Response
ALLOCATED BY THE FEDERATION SYSTEM
Efforts in UkrainE
THOSE DOLLARS HAVE MADE REAL IMPACT
650+ Jewish Ukrainian
refugees have arrived
as new olim in Israel
70%+ of the requests are
for food, medicines,
and evacuation
A lifeline for
40,000 elderly
23,000+ beds were rented
calls have been
received at various
hotlines 7,000
1,000 4,130
receiving support
on the ground
locations across
Ukraine Showing up for
2500 Emergencies happen without
notice, which is why the Jewish
Federation of Greater Philadelphia
is grateful for the support of
the Jewish community in times
when it matters most. As fighting
intensifies, millions of Ukrainians,
including tens of thousands of Jews,
are attempting to flee the country.

Thanks to the incredible generosity
of this community, as of March
14, more than $800,000 has been
raised to provide humanitarian aid
on the ground and help individuals
and families escape to safety.

#THISISFEDERATION #THISISFEDERATION
poor Jewish children
We do this work in partnership with: The Jewish Agency for Israel, JDC, World ORT, and others.

To Learn More & Donate, click here
To date, Jewish Federations have raised
$24.5 million for Ukrainian relief efforts.

In collaboration with our global partners,
including the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee (JDC), the
Jewish Agency for Israel, World ORT, and
others on the ground, these dollars have
made real impact.

Your support can help ensure the safety and
vitality of the Jewish community:
● Emergency Response Fund – jewishphilly.org/emergency
Addressing crises as they arise, such as the current
situation in Ukraine
● Jewish Community Fund – jewishphilly.org/donate
Essential, unrestricted dollars for the organizations that
provide services to our community and to those in need
around the world
On behalf of all of our Jewish brothers and sisters that your
generosity is helping, thank you. Let us pray for peace.

14 MARCH 17, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



YOU SHOULD KNOW ...

BY SASHA ROGELBERG
Claudia Kronfeld
P icking up the jeweler’s saw
was the easy part for Claudia
Kronfeld, the Rittenhouse-
based creator and designer behind
Claudia Mae Jewelry. Building a jew-
elry brand from the ground up was a
little bit more difficult.

With a knack for details and an
eye for the finer things, Kronfeld, 26,
honed her passion for jewelry — and
served as the apprentice to an Israeli
master jeweler by night after college —
to develop Claudia Mae Jewelry during
the pandemic.

Kronfeld, who had her bat mitzvah
at Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley,
began selling her pieces at the onset of
COVID-19 restrictions in 2020. Over
the past two years, all while she bal-
anced a full-time job, Kronfeld’s brand
has grown and now has an estab-
lished presence on Instagram and in
Philadelphia-area retailers. She hopes
to one day take the brand to retailers
across the country.

How would you describe the
style of the jewelry you create?
Courtesy of Claudia Kronfeld
It’s definitely for the gold-lover. I
use a lot of chunky gold. Most of my
pieces are done in 14-karat, but I do
a lot of made-to-order stuff in 18. So
it’s really for the person who loves
and appreciates the richness of gold
and the weight of gold.

And then it’s also for the person
who loves and appreciates gem-
stones because I am a big gem-
stone enthusiast. I studied at the GIA
(Gemological Institution of America);
I hunt for stones all around the world
— so someone who loves color and
is interested in the background of
gemstones and where they come
from and how they got here.

What drew you to those
materials in particular?
My metalsmithing background
started at NYU (New York University),
and at NYU, we were working with
silver, and I honestly hated met-
alsmithing when I was working with
silver because I had no interest in
silver. I love jewelry, I had appreciation
for jewelry, and then once I started
working with those materials (gold
and gemstones), I loved it that much
more because making something
that has inherent value is just such
a different experience than mak-
ing something of metal that really
doesn’t hold any value.

If money and resources were
not an issue, what would your
ideal piece of jewelry look like?
I always talk about making my
chunky nomad ring that I do with
three large oval stones. My dream
ring would be that with diamonds
in it — three big oval diamonds and
gold of course, always yellow gold.

With the market now, everything
is diamond, diamond, diamond. The
diamond industry is like this false
scarcity. Diamonds really aren’t as
rare and scarce as we’re made to
believe they are; they’re just mar-
ket-controlled. I still would choose diamonds but,
after that, I would love a piece with
a massive emerald because they’re
really as rare as we think they are.

When were you first drawn
to making jewelry and
metalsmithing? I’ve always been a very creative and
visual person. I explored so many
different creative outlets growing
up and even in high school. I started
a “Crafts for a Cause” club, where
we would do different projects and
donate them for different causes. So,
at one point, I had all the boys in my
grade knitting scarves for the home-
less. But I never saw my creativity as
anything more than hobbies.

So when I went to college, I was
focusing on what I felt was more
practical and then pursuing my cre-
ative outlets on the side. So I had
taken this metalsmithing course at
NYU just because I had an extra
credit. And then, fast forward a few years
later, when I graduated, I was work-
ing full time in the beauty industry.

And I was so trapped in that corpo-
rate office setting. I would spend my
lunch hours walking up and down
Madison Avenue and would window shop all the high-jewelry
houses. And at the time, I had really wanted a gold band for my
birthday, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I became obsessed with
jewelry, and obsessed with the idea of just creating this perfect
gold band since I couldn’t seem to find it anywhere. Just for
myself, not for anything else.

Given the time you spent in the Diamond District in New
York, what’s your assessment of “Uncut Gems”?
Accurate in a lot of ways! I spent a lot of time — and still do — on
47th Street, and when I first started, I really had no idea what I
was doing. And I was walking into those ground-floor jewelry
stores, like the ones in “Uncut Gems,” and I’m dealing with these
guys who really are very similar to how they’re depicted in the
movie. And they’re looking at me like, “What is this girl doing?”
And a lot of them try to take advantage of me. I’ve gotten ripped
off plenty of times. A lot of them would totally laugh in my face. JE
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 15