Each year, The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore releases an annual report detailing the work it completed and highlighting key developments for Baltimore’s Jewish community.

This year’s edition chronicles the past 12 months, highlighted in part by The Associated’s new Goldsmith Campus in Pikesville, a massive upgrade that brings its leadership, staff and agencies under one roof.

In addition to numbers, it shares anecdotes of community members who contributed to the story of the last year. This includes Judy Schnidman, who was looking for a full-time job after stepping away from her career to raise her children and then becoming divorced. She found herself in a tough job market, struggling to find work.

Jewish Community Services, an agency of The Associated, helped her refine her resume and LinkedIn profile and guided her through the job process. Eventually, she found work at The Associated with the organization’s leadership development program, Na’aleh.

Schnidman gives a lot of credit to JCS for the process.

“It is really, really comforting knowing we are a part of a community that is there for one another,” she told The Associated.
This was also a year that reminded Baltimore Jews it is a dangerous time to be Jewish. Baltimore’s Federation notes it conducted 42 security assessments of Jewish institutions in the community and educated about 2,300 students in schools on antisemitism. On a bright note, The Associated helped secure $10 million from the Maryland General Assembly for vulnerable organizations at risk of hate crimes.

While The Associated does a tremendous amount of work on its own, there are a number of organizations under its umbrella that contributed to the well-being of the community, as well. JCS provided 9,781 mental health sessions for the community, a 28% increase from last year. Chana, another agency of The Associated, educated 3,235 people on abuse — what it looks like, how to identify it and where to go when it occurs. Another agency, Jewish Educational Services, held 3,560 sessions that helped educate those with learning differences.

The Associated created the Snacks on the Go internship program to give those with disabilities the chance to gain employment skills and practice them in a real-life setting.

With prices for everything from gas to essential goods climbing, The Associated also looked to address the local community’s financial pressures. For all Baltimore Jews, the organization created a new website that aims to be an easily usable resource for those looking to streamline and improve their financial well-being.

The Associated caters to all ages, from those learning to walk and those who are using walkers. The Associated held a conversation with local older Jews and community leaders to hear what aging looks like and what it could look like in the future.

The young also benefitted — 94% of the agency 4Front’s teen program participants that their participation in Jewish activities helped them feel strongly connected to their Jewish heritage. And 4,000 students participated in Jewish programs offered through Hillels at Goucher, Johns Hopkins, Towson, UMBC and University of Maryland, College Park.

The Associated’s report higlights Eli Friedman, a local graduate of Krieger Schechter Day School who sought Jewish community when he started attending a public high school. He became a part of 4Front’s Social Innovation Fellowship, Diller Teen Fellowship, and served on the JCC board as a member of the Gesher program.

“4Front provides so many different ways for students to really stay connected to Judaism while exploring what they enjoy,” he told The Associated.

Jewish families of all ages continue to thrive in The Associated’s Macks Jewish Connection Network. It offers a program that sees what it calls “connectors” provide a Jewish helping hand to families they relate to. Previously aimed at connectors for families with youngsters, this year saw it expand to include connectors for families with grandparents, single parents, parents of teens and LGBTQ+ parents.

Outside Baltimore, The Associated continues to support the Jewish communities in Ashkelon, Israel, and Odesa, Ukraine, places it has longstanding ties with. It reported that 100 volunteers joined a neighborhood watch in Ashkelon through an initiative it helped support from thousands of miles away. In Odesa, the Jewish community was given access to the Jewish Library of Baltimore’s online catalog of English audio and e-books as it continues to survive through Russia’s invasion of the country.

aguckes@midatlanticmedia.com