When Dr. Harriette Wimms was 6 years old, she told her mother that she didn’t believe in organized religion. Her mother, who was raised as a Baptist in the South, told her that she needed to figure out what religion she wanted to follow. So, her dad took her to the library they frequented and researched different religions. Wimms said what called to her the most was Judaism.
Wimms is now the community relationships and Jews of color engagement steward at Third Space at Shaare Tfiloh.
Wimms studied English at Towson University, known at the time as Towson State University. There, she also spent time studying world religions and met a few Jewish students who introduced her to the concept of shekhinah, known in Judaism as the settling of divine presence.
After graduating, she spent time teaching creative writing to children in under-resourced areas in Baltimore City. “It gave me a window into the ways that poverty and discrimination can negatively impact, if not, actively restrain people from reaching their highest potential. And I wanted to try to figure out why and how,” said Wimms.
Wimms went on to receive her Ph.D. in psychology with a dual concentration in child clinical psychology and community/social psychology from University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She also holds a master’s degree in developmental psychology from Johns Hopkins University.
While working as a clinical psychologist, a friend of Wimms who was Jewish took her to services at Chizuk Amuno Congregation. There, Wimms said a person at the services made a negative remark toward her, “which I absolutely love her for.”
“I happened to tell my therapist at the time that this particular thing happened: Finally. Finally, I was in a synagogue and it felt so good and then this person said something to me and it hurt my feelings so badly,” Wimms explained. “And she said, ‘Oh my goodness. I belong to that congregation, I am calling the rabbi,’ and the next thing I knew I was getting an email from a rabbi, who is still one of my most beloved teachers, and she was saying to me ‘Please come into the synagogue. Come meet with me. I am so sorry that happened, and I want to apologize in person.’ So we had a conversation. She apologized … and she said, ‘Come to services on Friday night.’”
And so, Wimms went to the Friday night services.
“I walked in the room and the hazzan was davening, and it felt like — have you ever met someone and the moment you meet them you say to yourself, ‘Oh my gosh. That’s my person. These are my people.’ That’s how it felt,” Wimms added. “It felt like someone was talking to me in a language I didn’t know, but that I had known my whole life.”
From then on, Wimms studied with now retired Rabbi Debi Wechsler at Chizuk Amuno, converted to Judaism and became a bat mitzvah.
“I’m so glad that that person was a little bit snippy with me, because without her, I wouldn’t have been able to find my path home,” she said.
Years later, Wimms has become a leader in the Baltimore Jewish community and beyond.
She is the founder of The Jews of Color Mishpacha Project, gathering Jews of Color agencies from across the country to build community. She leads services at Hinenu in Baltimore as well as many other synagogues in the District of Columbia, and has served on numerous boards for local and national Jewish organizations. In 2022, Wimms was also named the inaugural Jews of color engagement fellow at The Associated.
In 2021, she attended a virtual event with Chizuk Amuno and the Jewish Museum of Maryland. While on the Zoom, she had privately messaged the 2021 chair of Chizuk Amuno Congregation’s social justice advocacy committee, Dr. Andrew Miller, and said, “One day I want to be a Jewish leader.”
To which Miller responded, “You already are.”
