H eadlines
Tribe 12 Gets Younger With New Board Members
L OCA L
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
THE WORLD WAS a very
different place when Tribe 12
launched in 2010.

The first-ever Instagram
posts were made that year; “Tik
Tok” was merely the name of
Kesha’s chart-topping single; and
the Phillies made the playoffs for
the fourth consecutive year, if
you want to get a sense for what
a truly dissimilar planet it was.

To keep up with a world
that keeps on turning, Tribe
12, dedicated to facilitating
Jewish community engage-
ment for locals in their 20s and
30s, added seven new board
members — five of them in the
same age range as their target
audience. Mara
Swift, Nuriya
Neumann, Adam Wodka, Carly
Zimmerman, Jeffrey Hurok,
Kimberly Decker and Jacob
Lindy joined Tribe 12’s board of
directors on Sept. 30. And Rachel
Dukeman began as the new board
president. “We believe in building a
board of directors that is based
on skills, diverse perspectives
and potential, not reliant on
age or wealth,” Dukeman said.

“This will help us build a board
that is based on equity rather
than privilege.”
Ross Berkowitz, founder and
CEO of Tribe 12, stressed that
the addition of new members
to the board does not represent
a total reconstitution; in fact,
Tribe 12’s bylaws allow for up
to 24 board members, and the
new seven will join members
of different ages, perspectives
and identities than their own.

Adding board members whose
experiences are closer to those
of their constituents, he believes,
is just one part of creating a
well-rounded board.

“It’s that diversity of
thought, that diversity of
perspective that they can
bring to really support the
4 OCTOBER 1, 2020
Ross Berkowitz, founder and CEO of Tribe 12
Photo by Yael Pachino Photography
Carly Zimmerman, a seasoned veteran of the Jewish community
engagement scene in Philadelphia, will join the board of Tribe 12.

Photo by Chris Kendig
We believe in building a board of directors that is based on skills, diverse perspectives and
potential, not reliant on age or wealth.”
RACHEL DUKEMAN
organization,” he said.

“These are people I like,
personally, and they’re people
that I respect, professionally,” he
added. “I’m just very excited to
have that opportunity to work
with them, to have an opportu-
nity to learn from them, and to
bring their skills to Tribe 12 as
we grow and make things more
incredible than what they are.”
He sees enthusiasm in the
group, too; after the board
whittled down the list of candi-
dates and made the ask, each of
the seven candidates contacted
agreed to serve.

Zimmerman, 32, is already a
seasoned veteran of the Jewish
community engagement scene
in Philadelphia. With leader-
ship positions at Challah
for Hunger, Hillel at Temple
University, Jewish Farm School
and BBYO under her belt,
Zimmerman, an alum of Tribe
12’s Fellowship program, was
an obvious choice.

Age, Zimmerman said, is not
the sole determinant of skill or
ability. In the case of Tribe 12,
though, she and the other board
members believe that their
similarities with fellows and the
young Jews that the organization
works with will help to develop
more exciting programming.

“To be able to understand
the experiences that our
particular demographic and
audience is experiencing, and
able to speak to them first-
hand, rather than just sort
of go off with maybe one or
two people’s stories or ideas
or news articles that you hear
about millennials, in general, is
really, really helpful,” she said.

JEWISH EXPONENT
Dukeman said that the
cultural familiarity that will
link the board members and the
constituents will serve as a bit of
a timesaver; there’s less “trans-
lation” to be done between
generations, in her view.

Being just 10 years old, Tribe
12’s board, Dukeman said, is in
a transitional phase alongside
the organization itself.

“The board had to shift
from being more of an
advisory, donating, philan-
thropic figure to being a little
bit more hands-on, able to
govern, and still clearly has
a very high fundraising and
fiduciary responsibility,” she
said. “We’re making sure that
the programs are reflective of
what our audience needs are,
and making sure that we have
the right staff and professional
capacity to meet those needs.”
Like Dukeman, 36, and
Zimmerman, Lindy, 34, has a
longstanding prior association
with the organization. He even
met his wife, Rachel, through
a mutual friend who was a part
of Tribe 12. There’s also the fact
that his grandparents, Phillip
and Annabel Lindy, provided
the financial support and
enthusiasm for Tribe 12 that
first got it off of the ground.

Tribe 12 has been a part
of his life for a long time, and
Lindy is excited by the prospect
of being more intimately
involved in its future success.

“I’d like to see it grow and
really be a strong program for
a long time,” he said. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM