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Non-Jewish Leaders Make Impact at
Jewish Organizations
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
6 MARCH 9, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
the same time,” Lowe said of working
at HAMEC.

Moreover, though her family’s Judaism
is lost, Lowe’s commitment to learning
and preserving her history has become
her praxis to combating antisemitism.

“Active remembrance is a form
of resistance against antisemitism,
against denialism, against all of the
forces that pushed my family and past
generations to stop practicing their
faith, to stop being loud and open
about who they were,” she said.

Like Lowe, Justin Guida, director of
Golden Slipper Camp, has Jewish family
ancestry but doesn’t identify as Jewish.

Guida was raised Catholic but found
out later in life that members of his
father’s side of the family were Jewish.

His last name, pronounced “Gwee-duh,”
used to be pronounced the more
Semitic-sounding “Guy-duh.”
Though director since 2018, Guida was
a counselor at Golden Slipper decades
prior when a couple of his Jewish friends
told him about the camp.

“It really changed my life,” he said.

Guida is in good company at camp:
About 30% of campers aren’t Jewish,
and, though led by Jewish values,
Golden Slipper also off ers Christian and
HAMEC Education Director Leah Dukes talks to a group of students.

non-denominational Saturday services
alongside Shabbat services.

As a counselor, Guida attended the
diff erent services, eventually leading
the non-denomination services. Golden
Slipper gave Guida that chance to fi nd
meaning in other religions, which has
helped connect him with Jewish culture
and educate non-Jews on Judaism.

The mutual respect at camp is what
helps create cohesion.

“When you’re in your teens and 20s,
you’re exploring or trying to understand
things you didn’t understand before … so
that conversation, it just connects you to
people,” Guida said. “Because regardless
of what you were raised as, or what your
religious beliefs are, we’re all connected.”
Finding belonging isn’t always so
easy, however.

Leah Dukes, HAMEC’s education
director who does not have a religious
affi liation, said that when people realize
she isn’t Jewish, they have questions:
What personal connection do you have
to the Holocaust? Why are you inter-
ested in this topic?
Dukes fi rst became interested in the
Holocaust after she heard two survi-
vors speak at a second-grade assembly
in her home state of South Carolina.

Because the experience resonated with
her so much, she realized the power of
sharing survivors’ stories with diverse
audiences. “Learning the Holocaust is something
that is for everyone,” she said. “The
lessons learned can benefi t non-Jewish
people as well as Jewish people.”
Jewish organizations with non-Jewish
leaders exemplify a lesson in human-
ity, according to Jewish Federation of
Greater Philadelphia’s Mitzvah Food
Program Operations Manager Whitney
Drukier, who is Catholic, but is married
to her Jewish husband and is raising her
children with both religions.

Like HAMEC and Golden Slipper, the
Mitzvah Food Program serves non-Jew-
ish clientele. Having a religiously diverse
staff not only means diff erent points of
view to determine how the organiza-
tion operates, but also fosters deeper
empathy for interacting with community
members in need, Drukier said.

“At the heart of it, it’s really about
giving back to the community,” she
said. “And I don’t think that that’s a
religious thing; I think that’s just a
humanitarian thing.” ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Leah Dukes
Golden Slipper Camp Director
Justin Guida
Courtesy of Justin Guida
K atie Lowe, program and collec-
tions director at the Holocaust
Awareness Museum
and Education Center, knew she had Jewish
relatives since she was a young girl, but
she was never supposed to ask about it.

Her great-grandmother’s generation,
originally from Eastern Europe, experi-
enced profound antisemitism upon settling
in Allentown, and that generation, as well
as Lowe’s grandmother and her siblings,
converted to the Moravian Church.

“I wasn’t allowed to ask those
questions of my grandmother, in partic-
ular, because it brought up really diffi cult
memories for her,” Lowe said.

But despite not growing up Jewish —
even being dissuaded from engaging
with the religion — Lowe still found a
professional home at HAMEC, working
to preserve stories of the Holocaust and
educate Jews and non-Jews alike on the
dangers of antisemitism.

Lowe’s story does more than just
prove that non-Jewish employees can
lead in Jewish organizations; her story
shows the impact that religiously diverse
leaders can have in their workplace.

Lowe reconnected with her Jewish
roots during her master’s program
at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro, where she worked with
Professor Anne Parsons on a Roots of
Resistance exhibit on the Holocaust.

Lowe learned more about her family’s
story indirectly through learning about
Jews in Eastern Europe.

“I began to feel a great sadness that
my family had once done something so
brave, so terrifying,” she said.

For Lowe, her family’s history gives her
personal stakes in Holocaust education.

“Though my family was in Allentown,
which isn’t the same as Philadelphia,
I almost feel like I get to interact with
their story even more by hearing stories
of people who came from relatively the
same places to a similar place around