Ayelet Resnick, 30, creates Jewish communities wherever she goes.
Born in Israel, Resnick moved to Baltimore at a young age. She then attended Rambam and Beth Tfiloh. After graduating from Beth Tfiloh in 2011, Resnick went back to Israel for Young Judaea Year Course.
She then furthered her education at the University of Baltimore for both her undergraduate and graduate degrees. Resnick has a master’s degree in industrial organizational psychology from the University of Baltimore.
Now, Resnick is a learning and development specialist for Deloitte, an international professional services firm.
Ayelet and Aharon Resnick live in Owings Mills with their two children. The Resnick family attends the Chabad Israeli Center of Baltimore.
What is a learning and development specialist?
I do a lot of human-centered design work as it relates to learning and development. I’m internal-facing, so my clients are essentially people that work at the firm for the consulting practice.
If you think about what might be your core consulting skills or capabilities that you need for growth and development as you move through your career at the firm, and you develop and have career trajectory goals, that helps professionals at the firm to create and design learning programs tailored for people at each level. We do large-scale learning programs, live learning and virtual learning.
We also have a formal Jewish network at Deloitte that I and a fellow alumnus from Beth Tfiloh started. When antisemitism hit an all-time high four summers ago and people were holding “death to Jews” signs outside of our New York headquarters office, we [decided] this was insane.
We didn’t feel safe and nothing was coming out from the firm in solidarity for its Jewish professionals. We started this group, which is us, and it grew to about 1,500 people. Then I got connected with some Christians in our Deloitte community who were trying to start up a Faith and Allies group at Deloitte.
Faith is something that is so big for people, and it’s truly how they show up at work. It’s how they are their authentic selves. We went through a lot to share why this is so important.
I almost say my second job is being on the leadership board for Faith and Allies, but then also being a leader in our Jewish network because we started at a grassroots level.
We do amazing stuff and our community is so vibrant. We partner with our Israel firm. I love coming to work every day and I feel like I have a family of 2,000-plus Jews now at the firm.
How did you get into this work?
Because I have a background in industrial organizational psychology, a lot of what I focused on was organizational development and human-centered design work. I always knew that I wanted to work at a big company behind the scenes to focus on the importance of always making sure that employees in the job have the resources and the support that they need to be the best that they can be.
So much of industrial organizational psychology is less about why your business isn’t making money. It’s more about looking internally to say what policies, procedures and operating principles are in place that we could work on and enhance to ensure that our people have what they need.
I started at the firm doing talent development and leadership development in the government. Once I got pregnant and COVID-19 hit, we worked from home, and I couldn’t ever see myself going back to client work. I was supposed to do firm initiatives outside of the day job.
I was supposed to work on proposals or do something that is basically giving back to the firm. I always centered myself around learning and development and DEI work. So, then I just decided that I needed to make that a full-time job. So, after I came back from maternity leave, I landed a role in DEI. Then after that there was an opportunity in learning and development that popped up. I went that direction and it’s been amazing.
How would you describe your personal relationship with Judaism?
I grew up very religious. My parents got married when they were like 18 or 20. My mom’s one of 14. But as we got older, we all became more modern. My dad became not religious. My parents are still happily married. My mom stayed more modern Orthodox, and my dad became not religious at all, but they were able to stay together.
That opened my eyes to the fact that religion isn’t this linear thing where you should be doing something that’s going to make you pull away from it. Once my dad made that decision, I was still very young, but it was an opportunity for me to explore my Judaism.
Once I went to Beth Tfiloh, it opened my eyes to this entirely new world of Judaism. I’m not keeping Shabbos, but I think because both me and my husband come from very religious families, we live a very spiritual, traditional life. I’m always drawn to the things that are going to keep me connected to God and keep my Judaism alive.
Outside of work, what are some things you do for fun?
I’m very social and I have a great friend group. I really love getting together with friends. I love cooking a ton and spending a lot of time with family. We’re very lucky that both sides of our families live here — my parents and my husband’s parents. We really make an effort to always ensure that we’re doing something multiple times a week with the siblings and the sisters-in-law and all the kids and the cousins.
Shira Kramer is a freelance writer.
