Special Report
ON THE COVER
atch
Jodi
Berris
Connecting A Community
She'll Liebman Dorfman
Senior Writer
A
die-hard athlete with a medi-
cal history that includes three
sports-related injuries fol-
lowed by five surgeries and multiple
rounds of rehabilitation therapy, Jodi
Berris describes herself with the words
of English band Chumbawamba's well-
known tune: "'I get knocked down. But I
get up again. You're never gonna keep me
down:" she chanted. "The lyrics describe
me all too weir
Not only can't Berris be contained on
the athletic field and the ice, but she's not
one to sit around and wait for others to
make the first move anywhere. She can
typically be found at the forefront of a
promising initiative.
A native Detroiter, Berris is a graduate of
Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit
in Farmington Hills, West Bloomfield High
School and the University of Michigan in
Ann Arbor, where she was on varsity crew,
ice hockey and lacrosse teams and was
active at the Hillel Foundation.
Berris moved to Portland, Ore., a
little more than two years ago to ful-
fill her "mission to work at Nike World
Headquarters:' where she is a Nike Sport
Research Lab field testing coordinator.
While her job may have been a dream
come true, Berris, 28, discovered "not
a whole lot cooking in Portland for the
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February 1. 2007
JN
Jewish 20s and 30s singles-and-couples
crowd." So, in this city of only 25,000
Jews, with a small Orthodox community
of which she is a part, Berris set out to
change things.
After meeting peers who expressed
a desire to celebrate Shabbat together,
she planned an event through 1-800-
SHABBAT, a program that links young
adults. The first event drew 70 participants
of varying Jewish streams for a Carlebach
traditional service, Shabbat dinner and a
party at Berris' apartment.
"People came out of the woodwork:' she
said. "So two months later, I held another
one:' Since then, she's planned a slew of
programs for young singles and couples,
some drawing hundreds, under the name
Portland Jewish Events.
With a small planning committee and
a list of more than 500 potential partici-
pants, she also launched the
portlandjewishevents.com Web site.
Along with young adult involvement,
attendance in continuing education class-
es at Portland State University and work at
Nike, Berris is deeply involved in athletics.
She worked for FIFA Women's World
Cup Soccer in Washington, D.C., and at
the Salt Lake City Olympic Games and
Paralympic Winter Games. A former
Detroit JCC Maccabi Club soccer coach
and multi-event athlete, she also was
assistant director for the JCC of Greater
Washington games.
Berris swims, plays basketball and
tennis, is a hockey referee, volunteer ski
patroller and plays in the Nike intramural
softball league.
In December, she played on Team Israel
in the Women's Multicultural Hockey
Championships in Toronto, with members
wearing off-ice team apparel Berris helped
Jodi Berris in her Team Israel hockey uniform.
create at Nike. "Playing for U-M and wear-
ing the block M was the greatest:' she said.
"But having a Jewish star on my jersey and
playing for Team Israel was an unbeatable
feeling."
With no current plans to return to
Detroit, Berris admits, "You never know
where life will take you."
In the meantime, she's sticking with the
Portland Jewish community.
"The assimilation rate is so high
out here; but we have couples who met
through our events who are dating,
engaged or married," she said. And it's
also a huge thing for couples to meet other
great couples.
"I like to think that instead of having a
lot of individual people and couples in dif-
ferent parts of Portland, that we're bring-
ing them together and building a single,
strong, young Jewish community here." ri