JUNE 18 • 2020 | 15

learning. And look at how we’
re 
all really connected around the 
world.
” 
Before embarking on her 
Jewish journey around the 
world, Katz devoted her energy 
to leading Metro Detroit’
s Jewish 
community. 
Katz, a Royal Oak resident, 
grew up in West Bloomfield 
and attended Michigan State 
University. After college, she 
worked for Hillel and Birthright 
Israel before getting a master’
s 
degree in higher education from 
Loyola University Chicago. She 
worked in human resources for 
the Michigan-based outdoor 
gear retailer Moosejaw and then 
for a series of local start-ups, 
and served on the boards of 
Kadima, NEXTGen Detroit and 
The Well. 
Katz found out about the 
Ralph I. Goldman Fellowship 
from an email newsletter — her 
advice to everyone is to read the 
newsletters they sign up for. She 
decided to apply on a whim. 
The fellowship is a competi-
tive, self-designed program that 
allows one Jewish young adult 
from anywhere in the world 
each year to travel to many 
different worldwide Jewish 
communities on the JDC’
s dime, 
helping Jewish organizations 
around the globe while building 
leadership skills they can bring 

back to their own communities. 
“We live in an intertwined 
and interconnected Jewish 
world,
” Shaun Hoffman, deputy 
director of JDC Entwine, told 
the JN. “The more young lead-
ers who … see Jewish identity in 
global terms and appreciate the 
richness and diversity of Jewish 
life around the world, the stron-
ger our Jewish communities are 
going to be.
”

When Katz got the call saying 
she’
d been selected, “I sort of 
had this moment like, ‘
Oh, what 
just happened?”’
 she said. 
Looking back on her selec-
tion, she said, “I always think 
anyone could do this. But I also 
recognize there is an element 
of my ability to be resilient and 
kind of just go with the flow."
Less than three months later, 
in January 2019, she found her-
self setting off on a year-long 
journey. 
Because the fellowship is 

self-designed and based on 
which world events and JDC 
projects are in motion, no two 
years look the same. Typically, 
fellows will spend their year 
divided between placements in 
two or three different countries 
working on community-build-
ing projects that use their pro-
fessional backgrounds. 
Katz’
s year looked a little 
different — because of her back-

ground in human resources, she 
spent much of the first half of 
the fellowship conducting inter-
nal HR interviews with JDC 
staff all around Eastern Europe. 
She also did research for the 
organization on their leadership 
programs across Europe.
After a few weeks in New 
York and a month in Israel for 
orientation, Katz spent every 
Shabbat from March through 
July in a different place. She 
explored Budapest, Krakow, 
Warsaw and Riga, Latvia, 

before heading back to Israel to 
regroup. Then she returned to 
Eastern Europe to visit three dif-
ferent cities in Ukraine, as well 
as Istanbul, Turkey. 
While in Eastern Europe, 
Katz came along on home vis-
its to JDC beneficiaries, often 
elderly Jews who couldn’
t leave 
their homes. She also visited 
Camp Szarvas, a summer camp 
run by the JDC in Hungary that 
welcomes 1,500 Jewish campers 
annually from 20 different coun-
tries. (Two other Jewish Metro 
Detroiters were also at Szarvas 
that summer, one as a camper 
and one as a counselor.)
Spending time in Eastern 
Europe was important for Katz. 
A large portion of the JDC’
s 
work today involves providing 
assistance to vulnerable Jews 
across the world, including in 
the countries that make up the 
former Soviet Union. Beyond 
that, though, Katz’
s time in 
Eastern Europe helped bring 
Jewish history to life for her. She 
remembers sitting on a train 
from Krakow to Warsaw, look-
ing out the window at the land 
on which her ancestors may 
have once lived. 
“I was looking out into the 
countryside of Poland where 
a huge population of Jews 
once lived. And it was just this 
moment of realizing … this is 

“Look at what I’m doing and 
learning. And look at
how we’re all really connected 
around the world.”

— JESSICA KATZ

continued on page 16

learning. And look at how we’
re 
back to their own communities.
self-designed and based on
before heading back to Israel to

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JESSICA KATZ

Dubai

Mallorca

Ukraine

(L-R) Snapshots from Budapest and Dubai; the 
view from a shabbaton in Mallorca, Spain; par-
ticipating in a Passover seder in Kyiv, Ukraine.