Last month, Joan Grayson Cohen, executive director of Jewish Community Services, announced on social media she will retire in July 2027.

By the time she retires, Cohen will have spent 33 years at JCS, starting at the agency when it operated as Jewish Family Services.

JCS Board President Jan Cardin said Cohen is a “diamond” to the community.

“It’s a landscape that’s constantly changing between federal cuts, between different emergencies that develop in our community, and [Cohen] is she’s a forward thinker. She always puts humanism first, Jewish values, compassion, people,” said Cardin.

Originally from New York, Cohen started working at the former JFS in 1993 after a friend spotted an ad for a job there in the Jewish Times.

“It was for someone to create and to direct the child abuse and neglect prevention project,” Cohen said. “She said, ‘I read this ad in the Jewish Times. It has your name written all over it. You have to apply.’”

Cohen holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Maryland and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Maryland School of Law. Before joining JCS, she worked extensively in human services and outreach, including the sexual abuse treatment unit of Family and Children’s Services of Central Maryland.

Because of her background in child abuse cases, both from a legal perspective and from a clinical perspective, Cohen was the perfect fit for the job.

“I got the job, and that just started my whole trajectory of work here at the agency,” said Cohen.

That work at JCS evolved, and she took on many roles over the years until 2016, when she became executive director.

“When I took the job, I never had any notion that I’d one day be the executive director,” she said. “Time just evolved, and I was very fortunate to have many opportunities that kept leading to [other] opportunities here.”

Before becoming executive director, she served as the director of economic services, overseeing the agency’s career center, financial assistance and service coordination.

Cohen described her work on a teen outreach program she created with a colleague at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore.

“We actually had a freestanding teen center, and we had staff that were literally on the streets in the middle of the night as teen outreach workers connecting with teens,” she recalled. “I do believe our staff really saved lives by the programs that we provided for the kids.”

As a leader, Cohen said she is always inspired by colleagues.

“People who work at the agency are very mission-driven,” she added. “They’re very dedicated to the work that we do. They’re passionate about the work they do … They’re collaborative and I think you don’t always find that in [different] environments.”

With both of her degrees, Cohen had her pick of pathways to take in her career, but what she enjoyed about JCS was always the work with families and children in a human service environment. “That … was the magic sauce of my career here for me.”

She also added that her work in the agency’s adoption center was “remarkable.”

“Just seeing the joy from both ends,” Cohen said. “Knowing that children will be in beautiful homes and that parents who wanted children will have children and create that home.”

As with any large agency, Cohen said JCS has faced many challenges with funding.

“Funding is always something that we’re constantly working on through resource development and donor relations and partnerships,” she said. “I think over the last several years, there’s been some significant challenges.”

In retirement, Cohen plans to spend more time with her three grandchildren and “just be.”

“I’m just going to spend some time just learning how to not rush and not have to think about things all the time, and just be,” she said. “I’ll learn what that means for me, and then whatever I wish to do, that I’ll now have time to do, I think will evolve.”

Although she has announced her retirement, Cohen emphasized she will be working until the last minute.

“The other day I thought about what happens when I walk out the door for the last time,” Cohen said. “I’ve been in every building we have ever had at the agency. Some don’t even exist anymore … I think I will be emotional because I love this agency and I’ve loved my work.”

Cohen said she hopes JCS will remain a critical and vital agency within The Associated system and within the community.

“There’s something magical about working in the Jewish community,” she added. “The connections that I’ve been able to have with synagogues and schools and other agencies that care about the Jewish community … there’s just nothing else like it.”

Cardin said that the board is in the process of picking a search firm to conduct the search for a new executive director.

“[Cohen] was able to keep our agency up and going during COVID,” Cardin added. “We have [a] Career Center which [was expanded] after all of the federal workers in our area … were laid off. She has always put the people in this community first.”

mresnicow@midatlanticmedia.com