The first of the month represented a new fiscal year for the Baltimore Jewish Council. Along with the clean fiscal slate came promotions for two current employees, Sarah Mersky and Noah Mitchel. Mersky, whose former title was director of government relations, is now the BJC’s deputy director, and Mitchel, formerly program coordinator, is now the assistant director of community relations.
“In both cases they are well-deserved promotions,” said BJC executive director Howard Libit.
Libit praised Mitchel’s work with the BJC thus far calling him a “jack of all trades,” with great interest in the areas of community relations and interfaith programs.
With his promotion, Mitchel will take on many of the responsibilities of BJC’s former director of community relations Madeline Suggs, who recently left Baltimore to continue her work in Jewish community relations in St. Louis. Mitchel is excited to continue where Suggs left off.
“My predecessor Maddie was the best mentor a person could ask for,” said Mitchel. “I really became interested in interfaith work because of her, so I am really looking forward to taking that over.”
In addition to his current work with the Elijah Cummings Youth Program and Holocaust remembrance efforts, Mitchel plans to revamp the BJC’s Social Justice Teen Fellowship as it moves into its second year.
Like Mitchel, Mersky welcomes the new challenges that the added responsibilities of her new role will bring.
“What I’m really excited about is working more with community relations,” Merksy said. “A lot of our policy work can be influenced by learning about other communities, and issues effecting them that also are probably effecting our community.”
In order to fill the vacancies left by Mersky and Mitchel moving to new positions, the BJC has hired Jordan Green-Ellis, an alumnus of the Elijah Cummings Youth Program, as the new program coordinator, and has created a position for a new assistant director of government relations and communications who will report to Mersky upon being hired.
“I am happy that we’re going to have someone else in Annapolis to work full time to beef up our operations there,” said Mersky, who will still head the government relations team in Annapolis, adding that the new assistant director “will allow us to get more involved with different coalitions and spend more time advocating for different bills.”
“It’s going to be particularly important to have the added personnel this coming January given the significant amount of turnover that seems to be on its way for the general assembly,” said Libit.
There’s going to be a number of new people representing communities across the state. We’d like to make sure we build relationships with them so they understand the Baltimore Jewish community.
