JEWISH My-Way

Connecting with Jewish Families Along the I-83 Corridor

When Amy and Ben Goldberg decided to move from their downtown Baltimore apartment, they knew immediately where they wanted to live. Amy, who recently finished graduate studies in Jewish Education and Jewish Communal Service at Baltimore Hebrew Institute at Towson University, had spent countless hours in the Towson community and wanted to raise her family there.

Towson, she felt, was a diverse community that didn’t feel too suburban. At the same time, this Jewish professional didn’t want to live in the same community in which she worked.

For more than half a century, Jewish Baltimoreans put down roots in Northwest Baltimore. Jews concentrated in neighborhoods like Forest Park, then Pikesville and Randallstown, attending schools and synagogues in their communities.

Yet over the past two decades, Baltimore’s Jewish community began spreading out, buying homes in nontraditional zip codes including downtown, Guilford, Ruxton, Lutherville, Timonium and Towson.

According to The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore 2010 Greater Baltimore Community Study, approximately 25 percent of the Jewish community lives outside the traditional five zip codes of Northwest Baltimore (Pikesville, Park Heights, Owings Mills, Reisterstown and Mt. Washington). More than 10 percent of Baltimore’s Jewish community live along the I-83 corridor. In the past seven years since the study was conducted, it is expected that number has increased.

This year, The Associated undertook a 10-month Community Services Review Task Force to learn more about the interests of Jewish community members living in Guilford, Roland Park, Towson, Lutherville, Timonium and Hunt Valley. They conducted numerous focus groups with Jews living along the I-83 corridor.

“As demographics shift and as people move to new communities, we wanted to make sure The Associated is providing programs and services of interest to Jews, no matter where they live,” says Katie Applefeld, who co-chaired the task force with Alan Edelman.

What was found, says Edelman, is that those they spoke with wanted to be engaged and involved Jewishly.

However, what that looks like may be different for each family. It could translate into Shabbat dinners with neighbors, wine and cheese under the sukkah or Mom’s Night Out with other Jewish mothers in the community.

Goldberg, who hosted one of the focus groups in her home, wants to connect with other Jewish families in her Towson neighborhood. In part, that’s why she recently signed on to become a Community Connector, a program of the Macks Center for Jewish Education, an agency of The Associated.

Community Connectors engage young Jewish families in their neighborhood, creating social – Jewish and non-Jewish-themed – programs. Currently there are 13 connectors scattered throughout the Baltimore community, four that focus on families living in the I-83 corridor.

Goldberg will connect Jewish families who reside in Towson neighborhoods. One of the first projects she is planning to organize is “Shabbat in the Park” in local parks and playgrounds.

The program will include songs, storytelling, an informal Shabbat celebration with challah and grape juice and informal time for families to get to know one another.

Top photo: Amy and Ben Goldberg with newborn Asher opted to move to Towson to raise their family.