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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
local
ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
Awarded Grant for Safety, Equity Training
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
Photos by studiocandela.com
W hile some Jewish organizations
look to make their spaces safer
through hardened security, ALEPH:
Alliance for Jewish Renewal is address-
ing safety diff erently.
The SRE Network (Safety, Respect,
Equity) announced on Feb. 21 the
eight recipients of its $300,000 grant
for Jewish nonprofi ts to address
harassment and discrimination in the
workplace. ALEPH, a Philadelphia-
based organization that serves as a
hub for Jews aligned with the Jewish
Renewal movement, was among the
recipients. With the awarded $47,000 over two
years, ALEPH will provide training to
ordination program administrators and
faculty to “fortify skills around power
dynamics, interpersonal behavior, and
psychologically safe culture,” accord-
ing to a press release. ALEPH will also
collaborate with its affi liated network
communities on building inclusive
spaces and policies.
The trainings will address sexual
harassment in the workplace, struc-
tural pay or opportunity inequities and
discrimination. In religious and spiritual
communities, addressing psychological
safety is particularly important because
of the intimate nature of the discipline.
“Our communities are also workplaces,
and our seminaries are also workplaces,”
ALEPH Executive Director SooJi
Min-Maranda said. “The professional and
personal tend to get blurred in these
close spiritual environments that foster
feelings and emotions.”
ALEPH partners and network members,
like many other Jewish leaders, often
work with many organizations in a more
insular community. Therefore, if one
individual is discriminatory or violent,
their impact is likely to spread to multiple
organizations, posited Elana Wien, SRE
Network’s executive director.
Jewish people are not exempt from
workplace discrimination, despite having
minority status.
An ALEPH ordination ceremony in January
“Issues of gender-based harassment,
discrimination, other forms of harassment
and discrimination — it’s prevalent across
our entire society, and the Jewish commu-
nity isn’t immune to that,” Wien said.
Created fi ve years ago, SRE Network,
which consists of 160 organizations,
bases its mission on Jewish values.
“We do have a really vital tradition that
brings tremendous wisdom and oppor-
tunity to do this work around ethics in
a deeper way,” Wien said. “So we can
pull from that tradition and that Jewish
wisdom around teshuvah, around making
repair, to really ground this work.”
Though SRE Network fi rst created a
training grant in 2018, the latest itera-
tion of the grant was designed with
additional input from members. Finalists
for the 2023 grant were longer-term
partners with SRE Network.
For ALEPH, which previously received
an SRE Network grant, the new grant will
provide additional, in-depth training, as
well as opportunities to receive training
from SRE Network’s specialists.
Psychological safety, respect and
equity are important tenants to ALEPH,
the steward of the Jewish Renewal
movement. ALEPH, according to its
website, pushes for a Judaism that is
“joyous, creative, spiritually rich, socially
progressive, and earth-aware.”
However, Min-Maranda clarifi es that
Jewish Renewal is not a denomination of
Judaism, but rather a philosophy.
“It’s an approach to Judaism,”
Min-Maranda said.
Until 2018, ALEPH operated out of
a physical location in Mount Airy but
is now entirely virtual. However, many
Jews connected to the movement are
still based in the area, which is also the
host of many of ALEPH’s seminars.
ALEPH was founded by Rabbi Zalman
Schachter-Shalomi in Philadelphia in
1978 and fi rst called B’nai Or, which
later became ALEPH. The goal of the
movement was to reinvigorate Jews,
encouraging participation and drawing on
the joys of the Chasidic movement, while
also advocating for socially progressive
values. “The idea of it being a movement
alludes and evokes a spirit of movement,
that we are in motion — in motion and in
co-creation,” Min-Maranda said. “That
we are constantly changing, adapting,
responding, while being deeply rooted
in Jewish tradition.” ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com
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