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EDITH KLEIN BERMAN
MON - SAT 10-6
Joanie Berger is a "rally-going,
Birkenstock-wearing,"
Federation insider — and she's
recruiting.
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Joanie Berger:
Over the "wall"
and on a crusade.
en years ago, a career in
the Jewish community was
probably the last thing on
Joanie Berger's mind.
Growing up in suburban
Cleveland, Berger attended a Re-
form religious school but didn't
get much out of it.
"I call it TV dinner religious
education because it was sup-
posed to be nutritious but it
barely tastes like anything and
you just shove it down," she re-
calls.
As a college student at the
University of Michigan, she tried
Hillel but found it cliquey, feel-
ing like people there "only
reached out to me when they
wanted money."
Now 29, Berger is the senior
staff associate, community out-
reach and education at the Jew-
ish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit. How did she make the
switch from outsider to insider?
In college, inspired by friends
who were more Jewishly in-
volved, Berger began reading up
on Judaism. After working for
two years at D.C. Cares, a non-
profit volunteer effort in Wash-
ington, she headed back to Ann
Arbor — where she still lives —
to pursue a master's degree in
business and social work.
Then she started talking to
people enrolled in Project STaR,
U-M's graduate program in Jew-
ish communal service.
"All of a sudden, I thought I
could do all of this, and maybe
Project STaR is the way for me
to get inside this big, heavy wall
in the Jewish community and
break down the wall so people
can come in," she recalls.
While she's become more
knowledgeable and more famil-
iar with Jewish ritual, Berger
does not consider herself more
religious than before.
"It's not that I'm a more ob-
servant Jew in terms of religious
practice, but I'm more observant
in terms of observing all that's
going around me," she explains.
"Not just saying the words, but
really looking into them, think-
ing 'Do I believe it? Do I not?
why not?' The real meaning of
the word observant."
Berger's job involves coordi-
nating and managing volun-
teers, staffing the New Leaders
program and working with the
finance department to help Fed-
eration agencies share
ideas and avert fiscal
crises.
It's a lot of long days
crammed with meet-
ings and phone calls.
"I think one day I'm
going to find that I
can't take the phone
away from my ear,
that it's actually con-
nected," she laughs.
Although she loves her work,
Berger says sometimes she gets
frustrated, because it leaves lit-
tle time for doing her own vol-
unteering. She also misses being
exposed to the ethnic and reli-
gious diversity outside the Jew-
ish community.
But in those few hours that
she's not on duty, you'll find
Berger hanging out with friends,
attending services at the Ann
Arbor Reconstructionist Havu-
rah or unwinding in the com-
munity plot where she does
organic gardening.
"People imagine [Federation]
work for people who are very
conservative, and I'm far from
that," she says. "I'm a vegetari-
an, rally-going, Birkenstock-
wearing person, and I believe in
social change, social action, boy-
cotting whoever's on my list ...
But there is a place in the very
organized, very old, very tradi-
tional part of the Jewish corn-
munity for people like that.
Because if we don't get involved,
then we can't make change."
By change, Berger means
greater accessibility to the Jew-
ish community for people who
are low-income, on the fringes
or intimidated by Judaism. And
the longer she's an "insider," the
more she must remind
herself of the people
who need to be wel-
comed in.
"Sometimes it feels
so natural to be part of
the community that I
have to remind myself
how it felt for me to be
outside," she says.
Which is why Berg-
er likes to share her story with
others, to tell them that her own
level of comfort with the Jewish
community came gradually, and
with considerable learning tak-
en on as an adult.
"I grew up thinking that your
last name was going to deter-
mine how you could get involved
... And you know what? A lot of
that is still true, but it's not all
true. If you don't have a lot of
money and you don't know
where the Jewish community
fits in your life, it doesn't mean
don't get involved — and it
doesn't mean you're not a val-
ued person."
Sharing
her
learning
story.
❑
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