By Lucy Y. Steinitz, Ph.D.
Editor’s Note: Kulanu is fortunate to have many people from around the world who are committed to our mission and who volunteer their time in Kulanu communities abroad. Lucy Steinitz is one of our wonderful volunteers. Here Lucy shares with our readers how she became part of Kulanu.
My Jewish background was shaped by the fact that I grew up as the only child of Holocaust survivors. After getting my doctorate in social work, I served as the Executive Director of Jewish Family Services in Central Maryland for almost fifteen years (1981-1996). Given that my husband was born in Germany and our two children born in Guatemala, it seemed perfectly natural that I would be interested in the diversity of Jewish communities worldwide. After getting to know Aron and Karen Primack as we volunteered together (with our children) in Zimbabwe for the American Jewish World Service in 1994, the Primacks invited me to join them for the first Kulanu trip to the Abayudaya in Uganda. Of course, I jumped at the chance. That was in 1995 and I got so excited by what I saw that I became a lifetime Kulanu member!
The next summer I returned to the Abayudaya, this time with my husband and children (then, ages 10 and 8). My husband had the additional honor of bringing the Abayudaya their first Sefer Torah, initially as a long-term loan because the community had not yet officially converted to Judaism. When we arrived after dark at the synagogue at Nabugoye Hill, their only light came from a car battery that powered a blank TV screen, but the energy from everyone singing and dancing lit up the whole village. We stayed almost a week and had a wonderful time making friends and partaking in village life.
I mean, who couldn’t get hooked after all that? By comparison, life in the United States was feeling predictable and boring and by year’s end I had a full-fledged mid-life crisis. Consequently, six months later, we ended up back in Africa once again with the whole family. This time we went to Namibia, ostensibly for a one-year adventure but liked it so much that we ended up staying 13 years—with me working mostly on issues related to HIV & AIDS and my husband teaching at the local technical university.
After our years in Namibia, we traveled around the world for a year and found ourselves in Ethiopia where I got another job. This is where I got involved on behalf of Kulanu with the Beit Avraham Jewish community that is based in the Kechene neighborhood of Addis Ababa (a breakaway branch from the bulk of Ethiopian Jews who stem from the Gondar area of the country). Some Kulanu readers may remember the article in a previous newsletter about the album of Jewish music from that community that we put together—still on sale via Amazon at bit.ly/temesgen
Since 2014, my husband and I have been back in the USA but I still travel a lot, mostly for my current work as Senior Technical Advisor with Catholic Relief Services. In addition to the longer time we spent in Namibia and Ethiopia, over the years I have been fortunate to visit Jewish communities in India, Zimbabwe, the Congo, Ecuador, Cambodia, Kenya, Uganda and most recently, Nigeria.
Kulanu has been such a source of knowledge and and support for many Jewish communities around the world, and I am honored to be a part of an organization that seeks to serve others and to help these communities become stronger in their Judaism.