I was born in Rochester, NY, in the Highland Park neighborhood.
My parents raised me to value community. I grew up in a strong Jewish community that I am an active member of to this day.
Attending the Genesee Community Charter School taught me to think critically and how to make and then test a hypothesis. GCCS is an expeditionary learning elementary school. Our teachers would bring us into the community on field trips to explore our environments and learn more about the people around us. They had us test the water in the Genesee River, attend local performances, and explore local parks and museums. I still value these experiences and want more children to access these learning opportunities.
At the School of the Arts, I learned the value of daily exposure to the Arts and diversity of thought. Playing music in the orchestra and for the high school musicals helped me keep in sync with the people around me. We challenged ourselves to learn pieces that required delicate timing and coordination between all sections. I also played a variety of sports. Participating in individual sports like swimming, X-Country, and golf, I learned to value healthy competition and focus on improving my game instead of worrying about winning each match.
In High school, I committed an enormous amount of time to the local Jewish youth group, United Synagogue Youth, or USY, despite being a student, playing varsity sports, being in the pit for the high school musicals, a private school orchestra, and taking private cello lessons.
USY was my first organizing experience. I enjoyed the events I went to, so I signed up to help plan the local events. From there, I got more and more heavily involved in the student leadership of the organization. I joined the local chapter, Sababa, here in Rochester. I got involved with the regional, almost state-wide, region of Tzafon USY.
As the Vice-President of Membership and Kadima for the Tzafon Region, I worked with local chapters to enroll new members for USY and Kadima. I was responsible for planning icebreakers and other programs at four regional conventions. I'm not fond of standard icebreakers, so I focused on bringing fun activities to spark more natural conversation between the participants.
I then went on to become the Regional President for Tzafon.
In this role, I started to focus more on the operations and structure of the organization. Throughout my year as President, I restructured the application process to run for the board, set up file systems for each board member to use, and saved things for future administrations. I learned the importance of thinking carefully to ensure that I could accurately explain each situation and help move each board member forward in their own way. This experience challenged me to separate my personal feelings from my professional responses to help reach the best outcomes possible.
As Regional President, I worked with youth leaders nationwide on important issues. We spent time learning from each other's successes and failures and supporting each other's efforts. We also had the opportunity to allocate over $100,000 to charities of our choice. We discussed the relative merits of each organization and decided on the amounts we would give them.
I got local organizing experience by interning on a local campaign for County Executive. I worked out of the Monroe County Democratic Committee office for nearly 40 hours per week, recruiting volunteers and managing their work, calling voters and donors, researching local issues, and attending events with our candidates. My interest in studying politics and government was solidified as an intern.
After graduating from high school, I decided to take a gap year before heading to American University. I spent the summer as a nanny, preschool camp counselor, and lifeguard. I left for Israel on the Nativ gap year program through the USCJ.
I spent the next ten months living with other Jews, learning about our ancestral homeland. While on Nativ, I studied at the Hebrew University for a semester in Jerusalem. I took classes on teaching Hebrew, Jewish texts and philosophy, and Israeli culture and history. We explored the city, played sports in the park, and enjoyed all the food we could eat. We celebrated the Jewish holidays in a way only possible in Israel and Jerusalem.
After we finished our first semester, our program split into two groups. One group went north to live and volunteer in a youth village. My group went south to a small town in the desert called Yerucham. In Yerucham, we did volunteer jobs in the community. I shared a two-bedroom apartment with a hallway kitchen with eight guys. While the space was tight, we loved cooking together and sharing our limited space. I volunteered two days a week, working on local beautification projects, laying irrigation for desert gardens, painting walls, hauling junk, building picnic tables and an amphitheater out of cement, old tires, plastic bottles, and chicken wire. Another two days a week were spent as a basic first responder in the ambulances with Magen David Adom. Riding in the ambulance and helping the patients was a taxing and rewarding experience. I learned to be calm in the face of catastrophe and to take careful, well-planned steps to remedy every situation.
I then headed to American University to study political science. While at AU, I participated in the interdisciplinary Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics, and Government degree programs, joined the Ultimate Frisbee club, worked at the Recreation and Fitness department, and interned on Capitol Hill.
I spent eight months on Capitol Hill and had many responsibilities and opportunities. Most of my work was in constituent services. Responding to these correspondences taught me to approach each person respectfully and honestly. My favorite job was leading tours of Capitol Hill. However, my most important job was attending committee hearings. Attending these hearings taught me how the committees operate and how to participate in the legislative process.
I was among the many people lucky enough to graduate from college in May 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, I was lucky enough to get a job as a Lead Generator for Asher Computing. They are a small company owned by a family friend that creates and sells software for emergency responders. I held this position for about two months before working for the Census Bureau, working to increase the response rate throughout the city. Once the census data collection ended, I went to work for the Monroe County Democratic Committee as the Office Manager/Intern coordinator. To learn more about my job history, see my resume page.
I graduated from American University in May of 2020
BA in Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics, and Government.
My interdisciplinary program allowed me to take classes in communications for both political and general purposes, conservative and liberal political theory, and each branch of the government. I took economics courses focused on poverty and public policy, and I even had a few liberal arts classes.
In college, I worked my way up to management in the university's Recreation and Fitness center, held leadership roles in multiple student organizations, and completed internships in both chambers of Congress.
Multitasking effectively
Data analytics
Customer service/client relations
Project management
CMS (Fusion, Intranet Quorum, VoteBuilder, NGP, WordPress)
Office management
Collaboration/leadership
Strong oral communications
Event planning
Volunteer management
Fundraising
Strategic Planning
Voter outreach/cold contacts
Basic website design and management