When war broke out in Israel over the weekend, Morry Zolet, co-chair of the Baltimore-Ashkelon Partnership, was in touch with Yehuda Halfon, his counterpart in Ashkelon.
Through the Baltimore-Ashkleon Partnership, community members from both cities check in with each other virtually every week. At these check-ins, they discuss relevant topics and share stories of survival around Yom HaShoah and current events.
“It was a tremendous shock, obviously — ‘their 9/11’ is what [Halfon] called it,” Zolet said.
Zolet, a long-time volunteer within the Jewish community and the broader Baltimore community, has an intentional focus on the next generation.
He hopes that future generations won’t have to worry like they do today with the war in Israel.
“The tragedy that transpired of the weekend in Israel, the murderous situation, it’s devastating,” Zolet said.
Zolet grew up in Randallstown and had his bar mitzvah at Beth Israel Congregation in 1977. Today, Zolet lives in Owings Mills with his wife, Lisa Zolet. The pair met in high school and married in 1989.
Now, Zolet is a member of Beth El Congregation, where he has been for 20 years. Two decades is a long time, but Zolet has been volunteering with The Associated for more than three decades. He is also the managing director, family wealth director and a certified financial planner and financial advisor at The Zolet Lenet and Fink Group at Morgan Stanley, where he has worked for more than two decades.
Recently, Zolet started serving as co-chair of The Associated’s professional mentorship program, in addition to the Baltimore-Ashkelon Partnership.
“It’s really important for the next generation of leaders,” Zolet said of the mentorship program. “We’re working with mentors of many different industries and professions and mentees that want to better themselves and get a better understanding as to how these people, the mentors, got to where they are and do it through a Jewish lens.”
Part of what Zolet says makes The Associated and its programs so successful is the strength of all The Associated’s supporting agencies and individual community members all playing their part.
“I love giving back. I think, you know, it’s just the way that I was brought up — to always do the right thing — from my parents,” Zolet said.
Zolet’s parents were both teachers and educators, and while Zolet said they didn’t always have the means to give back monetarily, they were always involved at the synagogue or at schools. Zolet commemorated his father’s influence fondly and actively through a foundation his family put together after his father died in 2004.
The foundation grants scholarships to four students each year in the Baltimore City school system. The process for choosing these students involves finding what Zolet referred to as “unsung heroes.”
Unsung heroes, according to Zolet, are people who have a supportive mentality and give 100% to whatever they’re doing.
“That’s how my father was,” Zolet said. “He touched so many lives. When he passed away, his funeral was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.”
Just as his father inspired him, Zolet hopes to inspire the next generation.
“There are so many opportunities that The Associated brings to teens and brings to middle schoolers and high schoolers, etc., that are ways to shape these young teens to understand the importance of Judaism and also understand the importance of community and how they interact with each other,” Zolet said.
Zolet has supported the next generation through other work as well. He co-chaired The Associated’s visioning process for what is now known as 4Front, a Baltimore-based teen initiative, and is on the board for the Port Discovery Children’s Museum.
Zolet said he makes an effort to instill the importance of supporting the next generation, as well as the importance of giving back to Baltimore in general, in his own family.
“It’s just been a beautiful way to give back to the community and really just be a part of an amazing system,” Zolet said.
