Emily Dalton wears many hats at a two-year-old Jewish congregational school that serves Columbia Jewish Congregation, Kol Nefesh and unaffiliated families.
“My main role is coordinating all the bits and pieces so the program runs effectively,” said Dalton, the educational director at B’Yachad Oakland Mills Jewish School in Columbia. “I coordinate the teachers and help them develop the curriculum they are building their lessons on.”
Dalton also connects with clergy to align the lessons with the calendar of Jewish holidays and teachings at the Reconstructionist Columbia Jewish Congregation and Kol Nefesh, a Reform synagogue in Columbia.
Dalton, 42, ensures that teaching materials are available and that communication flows to the 50 students attending the school and their families. She also built the school’s website and created a Jewish star logo.
“Everything that goes on with the school, I’ve got my hands in right now,” she said.
The school offers classes on Sundays for students in kindergarten through seventh grade and mid-week learning options for those in fourth through seventh grades. There are three teachers, including a clergy guest teacher.
“Our school really embodies what a community school can be,” she said. “We approach learning Hebrew and Jewish values and traditions with an emphasis on joy. The goal is to instill a deeply rooted sense of Jewish identity and community through vibrant and engaging Jewish experiences.”
Dalton is a former public school teacher who doesn’t hesitate to step into the classroom at the Jewish school when needed. She taught middle and high school in Baltimore and Howard counties before coming to B’Yachad.
She grew up in the area and went to Howard County Jewish Community School. Her family belonged to Temple Isaiah, a Reform synagogue in Fulton.
Dalton received an undergraduate degree in marketing management from Syracuse University where she was involved with Hillel. She earned her master’s degree in education from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is a nationally board-certified teacher.
Dalton transitioned out of teaching when the former education director of B’Yachad departed the program.
“I said to myself, ‘I could do this,’” she said. “I’m not the most knowledgeable in the room about everything, but I know a lot of people who are and I know education.”
She applied and was offered the position.
“I saw an opportunity to take what I knew how to do and really bring a different perspective to it,” she said. “I’ve never taken a leadership role before like this, one that has never spoken to me quite like this has.”
Dalton, who lives in Ellicott City, belongs to Columbia Jewish Congregation. She joined the Standing for Racial Justice Committee, which serves to make CJC a welcoming community for everyone and educate youth about racial injustice.
Dalton has two children, Rena, 13, and Audrey, 11.
Dalton is in an interfaith marriage with her husband, Chris Dalton, who works in sales. “I’ve been raising my children and teaching them Jewish values and how to walk this world as a Jew, which is a wild experience,” she said.
In her free time, Dalton builds LEGOs and kayaks at Daniels Dam in Ellicott City. She said she has two adorable dogs, Rylie and Monkey, that are fluffy and chaotic.
Her most touching Jewish memories are her children’s baby namings. Giving her oldest child her grandmother’s Hebrew name, Rena, was especially meaningful. At her younger child’s baby naming, “Audrey was asleep the whole time and then the cantor started singing in Hebrew, and their eyes opened up and they locked eyes with the cantor and wouldn’t look away.”
The Jewish value that is most important to her is “coming together in a shared experience. One of our CJC members, a Holocaust survivor, spoke to our students recently, and having people see the world through a lens that not everybody gets to see, it creates such a sense of belonging in an existence that can be quite lonely at times.”
Her approach to Jewish education is that “it be grounded in values and in the person before anything else. I think creating that connection is one of the most beneficial and long-lasting impressions when it comes to Judaism.”
