PILLARS OF THE COMMUNITY
Debbie Snyder
Debbie and Giorgio moved to Potomac in 1995 and joined the Beth Sholom community after a warm welcome from Rabbi Tessler following the birth of their son, David. During her lengthy tenure spent in the basement youth programs as a parent of 3 young children at the shul in the late 90's and early 00's, Debbie volunteered alongside some awesome teen leaders. In 2011, as Ariella's Bat Mitzvah approached, Debbie and Giorgio asked that the Rabbis permit the first women’s Shabbat shacharit Bat Mitzvah in the shul officially naming it a Bat Mitzvah. This format allows girls and women to chant Torah and Haftorah with 9 men behind the mechitza. Since then, Debbie has been a leader in the Women's Tefillah shacharit, and relearned how to chant Torah, to daven, and do Hagbah. She has worked to ensure regular women’s tefillah, build a core committee of volunteers, and encourage women to learn and take on participatory roles. Debbie worked alongside other shul lay leaders to help launch the initial Torateinu, a women's retreat program at Capital Camps. Over the last 10 years, Debbie has spearheaded Shir On Shabbat, a program bringing vibrant Jewish multigenerational acappella groups to Beth Sholom in order to enhance community and spirituality through song. Beth Sholom provided the structure and love to help raise the Kulp kids, David, Ariella and Ethan, in the beauty of a shomer Shabbat community.
Alan Fisher
Alan and Hannah Fisher (along with sons David and Evan) have been Beth Sholom members for approximately 20 years. Alan produces and distributes weekly Devrei Torah (Potomac Torah Study Center) and coordinates the Beth Sholom late Ma’ariv. He is a vibrant presence at daily minyanim, and works tirelessly to ensure that minyanim are available for those saying kaddish. Hannah, a retired trademark attorney, has represented victims charging discrimination by government agencies and now pursues various creative ventures. David (Katrina) is a supervising attorney for Social Security; Kat is office manager for New York Life in Bethesda. They have two sons. Evan (Heather) is Chief Nephrologist for Wright Patterson Air Force Base Hospital. Heather home schools their two sons. After earning his Ph.D. in economics (University of California), Alan taught price theory and opera at Cal State Fullerton and then worked at the Federal Trade Commission. Alan also coordinated the FTC Mincha Minyan for approximately 23 years. He maintains a substantial dahlia farm and has been on the Board of the American Dahlia Society for nearly 30 years. The Fishers are members of six shuls, four in Montgomery County and one each in Birmingham, AL and Dayton, OH.
BSECC Staff & Teachers
The Beth Sholom Early Childhood Center has been an integral part of the Beth Sholom community for many years. With purposeful thinking and planning, the BSECC administrative team and teaching staff work extremely hard to create a warm and loving environment. Our staff of 25 have been working at BSECC, ranging from several months to over 3 decades. Many of our staff members have also been parents & grandparents to children at the ECC. In addition to all the hard work our teachers do with children in the classrooms, they also enhance their profession knowledge by attending continuing education workshops throughout the year. They join in community and shul events on their own time and give back through participating in various chesed projects to benefit children everywhere. Many of our teachers are shul members; some even help run the weekly Shabbat programming. At BSECC, our children are given a hands-on journey of learning where they are encouraged to explore, experiment, engage, question and play. Through our Judaics curriculum, our teachers work to instill a sense a love of Judaism and Israel on a daily basis through stories, songs and acts of mitzvot. BSECC is a learning community, built around the relationships among all the children, families and staff. Together, we provide the highest quality Jewish early childhood education available. BSECC is a place where children love to learn!
TEEN HONOREES
Ethan Kulp
Ethan has been a Beth Sholom B’nei Akiva leader, and is currently on the Teen Advisory Board. He is best known for is his role as a leader to the evergrowing youth acappella music scene at Beth Sholom. Under the guidance of the leadership trio of Tova Rubin, Caryn Malkus
and Joy Sturm, Ethan has stepped up to volunteer as the student director, first for Kol Tuv, an elementary/middle school group formed in 2017 as well as the high school group, Kol Teen which debuted in 2019. As important, however, are Ethan’s personal traits of compassion, caring and kindness. Ethan will be graduating from CESJDS in February 2020. He is excited to head to Israel with his classmates and will be attending Tulane University where he hopes to continue his Jewish and musical interests.
Dani Schwartz
Daniella Schwartz is a senior at Berman Hebrew Academy. She serves as Beth Sholom's Rosh Bnei Akiva, is an active participant in Women’s Tefillah, and tutors girls ages six to twelve in Torah reading and Judaic studies. She is part of her school’s coed A Cappella group, and performed at Shir-on-Shabbat at Beth Sholom.
Dani is treasurer of her grade’s Student Council. She organized a grade Potomac Shabbat that took place at Beth Sholom, and was co-captain of the Berman soccer team.
Next year, she plans to study at a seminary in Israel. She is excited to continue to grow religiously and continue to give her parents a hard time!