Rena Dubin grew up in Columbia and was raised in a Reform Jewish household, and she remained Reform until she and her husband were in their 40s, when they met a local Chabad family and learned more about the Orthodox tradition.
Dubin, her husband and their three kids slowly began incorporating more Orthodox elements into their lives before moving to Pikesville in 2018 to be part of the Orthodox community there.
Now, the family has become integrated in the Pikesville Jewish community, but Dubin has spent the last two years giving back to the Howard County community she called home for decades as the program coordinator of the Student to Student initiative at the Jewish Federation of Howard County.
Dubin is also a part-time Hebrew school teacher at Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation, working with students up to second grade.
Dubin and her family attend Suburban Orthodox and Chabad Israeli Center.
Tell me about your Jewish journey.
Around age 40, my husband and I met Rabbi Yosef Chaim and Chaya Sufrin and we began learning more about Judaism. We became curious about some things that we were learning that were not what we had learned growing up. And we realized there was a little bit more to Judaism than we had been exposed to, and we liked it.
So, little by little, we made changes, and it was different than most people, because it was late in life and we had a five-year-old, a nine-year-old and a 13-year-old, so we were really changing all our lives.
And we ended up sending the younger two to Jewish day school they commuted from Columbia for 2 years and then we felt it was time to move up to Baltimore – that was seven years ago. We needed to be walking distance to shuls and for our kids to have friends around that were also keeping Shabbat.
How did you get involved with the Federation of Howard County?
I was looking for something part-time as my kids were getting older, and the last one was getting ready to graduate, and I wanted to do something more. I had done a lot of volunteering, and I had different jobs over the years, and I saw this ad about the Howard County Federation starting a program called Student to Student.
I saw the description and I thought it was such a great idea, working with Jewish teenagers and helping them become leaders and giving them the opportunity to make an impact and share with their non-Jewish peers what their lives as Jews are like, and have that opportunity to clear up misconceptions and stereotypes and lack of knowledge and all of the things that lead to misperceptions and even antisemitism.
What is the Student to Student program?
The students are mostly 11th and 12th grade Jewish high school students that get nominated, and it’s a volunteer opportunity for them. I have 22 kids in the program this year, and they go in groups of four to do a presentation about Judaism and how they live their lives as Jewish teens. They mostly present in the public schools, in the middle and high school classrooms.
We do a lot of practicing, role playing, [learning] how to answer questions… One of the great things about the program is the kids are the stars of the show. They talk about their lives.
So they may talk about, maybe [the non-Jewish students have] heard the word Shabbat, or the kids in the audience wonder why some people wear this little hat on their head, and the [presenters] talk about what a kippah is, but then they relate it to how it plays out in their life.
What’s the importance of this program?
The kids in the audience get to see that there’s a variety of ways that Jews practice their religion, and they’re hearing it from kids their own age.
Not only are we educating the other students who aren’t Jewish and clarifying the misconceptions but also the Jewish teens in the program, they’re at a point in their life where they’re going to most likely be leaving home and going off to college or whatever their next step in life is in a new community, where maybe there won’t be as many Jewish people.
They’re going outside of their bubble. And [they’re learning] how they want to represent themselves.
What has this program been like in a post-Oct. 7 world?
One thing that we wanted to make sure of was that the teachers and administrators and even the students in the audience understood that [the timing of] this program is coincidental, it’s not a response to Oct. 7… At the same time, the program aims to break up antisemitism, correct misperceptions, and foster understanding and connections with their peers.
By talking openly about times they faced antisemitism, that will lead to the kids in the audience understanding why things that seem to them as small and harmless jokes are very painful and uncomfortable.
[It’s meant] To sensitize them, because they get to hear from my kids. They talk about how their families have been impacted by the holocaust are impacted, and tell stories from their family history.
A whole separate topic is antisemitism, and they each share what they’ve personally experienced with real examples, and a lot of what has happened in schools growing up or more recent things. Many share experiences that have happened recently in their schools and how it made them feel.
How has your Jewish identity evolved over time?
Having changed my life and becoming Orthodox, I am visibly Jewish. When I go out with my family, we’re visibly Jewish. And it took time for me during my journey to become comfortable with that, and being the coordinator of this program, and seeing these brave high school students stand up in front of a room classroom of their peers and publicly introduce themselves as Jews and openly talk about themselves and share about themselves.
It is very great and inspiring. And I think that also impacts me, seeing what they’re doing and what they can do, and recognizing that [when I was] their age, growing up in Columbia, way back when I was always one of the few Jews in my class, and I wasn’t so comfortable. So I think it’s amazing to be part of something where these kids can grow to feel proud of their Judaism.
