Paying it Forward
this Giving Tuesday
Each and every day, the Jewish Federation of Greater
Philadelphia works to ensure that Jewish life is accessible for
all who want it in the local community, Israel and overseas.

From fighting against global antisemitism to ensuring that
every child gets to experience Jewish summer camp, the
Jewish Federation is committed to strengthening security,
expanding inclusion, and continuing and creating tradition.

The following community members share what paying
it forward means to them. To give back to the Jewish
Federation this Giving Tuesday, visit jewishphilly.org/give.

“I give to the Jewish Federation
to give back to the less
fortunate struggling in Israel
and other parts of the world.

I believe in strengthening our
international community to
help stop the global scourge
of antisemitism.”
Sam Cooper, NextGen and
Young Jewish Federation
Real Estate member
“The Jewish Federation’s
Holocaust programing
resonates with me, because
my wife’s parents are both
survivors, and they lost their
whole family during this
tragic time. I feel obligated
to keep their memories alive
and to teach the lessons of the
Holocaust.” Bart Hertzbach, chair of the
Jewish Community Relations Council’s
Holocaust Education and
Remembrance Committee
“I give to the Jewish Federation
because it is the only organization
positioned to serve a wide
spectrum of needs and interests,
regardless of denomination,
economic status, gender, color,
and a variety of other factors that
might act to marginalize people
within the Jewish community.”
Catherine Fischer,
Kehillah Strategy Committee Co-Chair
“KIAH’s Morasha Heritage
program, supported by the Jewish
Federation, empowered me to
discuss Jewish values with my
students. I was amazed to see these
children open up, even those who
are usually shy. When they started
talking about their own families’
traditions, their eyes lit up.”
Lilach Samin, school coordinator at
Netiv Yitzchak School in Netivot, Israel
“Participating in the Diller Teen
Program improved my Jewish
identity. Diller provided me
with the chance to interact with
individuals from all over the
world and discover commonalities
where we might otherwise find
differences. Diller forced me to
think about who I was and what
kind of Jew I wanted to be via
the lives of other people.”
Jazmine Rose, 2021 - 2022 Diller Teen
Program Participant
Pay it Forward
this Giving Tuesday, November 29, at jewishphilly.org/give
10 NOVEMBER 24, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



YOU SHOULD KNOW ...

Rory Michelle Sullivan
Photo by Chuck Fazio
Jarrad Saffren | Staff Writer
H owl at the Moon. Boston. January 2013. It’s Rory Michelle
Sullivan’s 26th birthday, and she’s the musical performer at
this bar with a stage.

She’s singing three songs from her first album, “Turtledove.” Only
she’s not performing them. As she tells the crowd, “This isn’t a con-
cert. It’s a singalong.”
Even then, back when she was a singer-songwriter with a new
album playing on a bar stage, Sullivan was a song leader at heart.

Today, the 35-year-old Philadelphia resident and Tiferet Bet Israel
member in Blue Bell leads singalongs in
religious schools, summer camps and
Jewish community centers.

Along with four studio albums, a
musical called “Rising in Love” and a
subscriber list with 654 fans, it is how
she makes her living as a musician.

Sullivan is the artist-in-residence and
prayer leader at TBI. But she main-
tains the flexibility to record her music
and do events outside of the Blue Bell
synagogue. “I call myself a musician because then
people understand that I’m singing and
playing guitar,” the East Kensington
resident said. “But I view myself as a
creative and an educator. It’s using the
arts to get to something else.”
The educator likes to help kids and
even adults embrace their spiritual
journeys. The daughter of a Jewish
mother and Catholic father begins each
day by “meditating on the connected-
ness of it all,” she said.

“I’ve been given a new day, and this is
a fresh start,” Sullivan added.

Growing up on Long Island, Sullivan
came to believe that “God is at the
top of the mountain,” as she put it.

But there are many paths to get there.

She thinks of Judaism as a method for
accessing the kind of spirituality that
can help you climb.

Hebrew schools, though, often focus
on “holidays and the Holocaust,” as she
explained. She knows how important
those topics are, but she also tries to
help young Jews go deeper into the
religion’s spiritual side.

And the best way to access Jewish
energy, according to Sullivan, is to
sing. The singalong leader loves her
job because she feels alive when people
start singing with her. Her favorite
moments are when she can belt out
lyrics and then drop out as everyone
else gets louder.

“And people are just singing,” she
said. Connecting with one’s spirituality
has inherent value. But it also helps
people figure out what they should
do next in their lives, according to
Sullivan. For her, adulthood has been a
journey of the soul.

After graduating from Harvard
University, she lived in Boston and
wanted to be a singer-songwriter, so
she recorded and released that first
album. It had 14 tracks about falling in
and out of love, finding an identity and
clearing the mind.

Then she spent half a year living with
a friend in Vienna and recording her
second album, “Inner Child.” That one
contained four songs, one called “It’s
Time to Let Go.”
Finally, in the spring of 2014, she
studied at the Pardes Institute of Jewish
Studies in Jerusalem and connected
on a deeper level with her religion.

Sullivan read Jewish texts and wrote
the songs that became her third album,
“The God Album.” And during lunch
one day, she got everyone to sing along
to one of them.

A friend in her program, another
musician named Max Jared Einsohn,
said, “You should be a song leader.”
For the next several years, Sullivan
worked as a song leader at Congregation
Beth El in South Orange, New Jersey.

In 2018, she wrote “Rising in Love,” a
story about an interracial Jewish cou-
ple “navigating love and relationships,”
according to Sullivan. She also moved to
Philadelphia and became part of Tribe
12’s fellowship program for Jews in their
20s and 30s who are trying to launch
companies and other projects. “Rising in
Love” has since been performed at the-
aters in New York City and Cincinnati.

Sullivan moved to Philly because
she wanted a young Jewish community
and a neighborhood vibe. She still likes
those qualities and plans to stay. She
is planning a year-long celebration in
2023 of her 10th year since breaking
into the music profession with that
Howl at the Moon show.

In January, the singer wants to do
a similar show, featuring her secular
songs, at the Howl at the Moon in
Philadelphia. Then in the spring, she
hopes to find a residency where she
can fine-tune “Rising in Love.” And in
the fall, she would like to do a series
of artist-in-residencies at local Jewish
communities. Sullivan wants to ask deep spiritual
questions around the High Holidays.

“Where have we come from? Where
are we now? And where are we going?”
she asked. JE
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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