Sarah Brody moved to Baltimore six years ago and began working for the Women’s Institute of Torah Seminary and College. During her time there, she has created a thriving program for their alumni and formed an alumni counsel to allow adults in their 20s and 30s to have leadership roles.
At 21, Brody traveled to Israel and planned to stay there for the rest of her life. However, four months later, she met her husband. His dream was to be a rabbi for special small communities. They moved to Detroit to spread Torah and make a difference. They then lived in Seattle for 12 years, building a beautiful shul there.
Now, the Brodys live in Summit Park.
Tell me about your job as director of marketing and development at WITS.
When I started here, there wasn’t a vibrant alumni association. So, the school was doing a fantastic job at developing these young women who want to go out into the world and be professionals and stay true to their values, but they didn’t have anything going on for the alums. The alums are out there; they’re working in their different fields and there wasn’t a ton of support so that they could continue to thrive. That was something that I was very passionate about and still am. I got very involved in building an alum association. We have an incredible alumni council. We recently started a Health Science cohort for alums who are out there in health fields. We hope to create more cohorts as well for other fields.
I also do the development for the school. So, grant writing, fundraising. When I started working there, a dream the school had was to build a real science lab. Thankfully, we were able to raise the money and build a beautiful science lab. It’s very meaningful work for me to support women and help them thrive.
Why do you believe in the WITS mission?
Jewish women have tremendous strengths. They’re smart. They’re hard working. They have solid values. They’re passionate. They’re idealistic. And we have so much that we can give to our community. We also have the ability, if nurtured well, to be incredible mothers and wives. I think that a big part of a woman thriving and being a good mother and wife is that she’s using her strengths, she’s using her talents and she’s making a difference. For a lot of women, that actually helps them be better mothers and wives. They’re happier people, and it strengthens everyone around them.
How much engagement do you see from these programs?
We actually just had our end-of-the-year meeting, and I went through all the numbers. So, over the course of the year, we engaged about 300 alums at our different events and initiatives. Outside of that, we sent a newsletter for Chanukah to 1,500 alums. We have around 2,300 alums in total, but we don’t have updated addresses for everyone.
It seems like Jewish outreach is very important to you.
I think strengthening the Jewish people is very important to me. Loving them, building them, encouraging them, watching them thrive, giving them opportunities, letting them taste the sweetness of the Torah and of the Jewish people and of the Jewish home. For the ones that are already religious, just reminding them of the sweetness of it and keeping them connected to their total learning and to their strong values, even when they’re out there in the secular workplace, is definitely meaningful to me.
How do you feel about the importance of Jews working in the secular workplace?
I think there’s a lot of opportunity that comes with Jews working in a secular workplace for the outside world to be exposed to how special the Jewish people are. There are certain businesses that will come back to us and say we want more of your students. They don’t make workers like this. They just have such good work ethics. They don’t bad mouth their coworkers. They’re good for their word when they say they’re going to do something.
We can’t just stay in our sheltered world. If you want to be a doctor or a lawyer, you’re going to end up out there. So, if you’re coming from a very insular background, then you don’t necessarily have the tools to deal with the bigger world.
