Jacob Cooper loves being a leader and bringing young Jewish adults together in the nation’s capital through meaningful social events.
He’s spent hours researching the Jewish history of coffee, then shared that knowledge with fellow young adults in Washington. He and his two roommates also host regular home-cooked Shabbat meals for the District’s young Jews.
These are just some of the events Cooper coordinates as a resident of Moishe House Arlington.
While pursuing his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Maryland, Cooper attended events with MEOR Maryland, a campus-based organization dedicated to Jewish learning.
“When I left UMD, I felt like there was a big void in my life” in terms of ways to meet Jewish peers, Cooper said. “I missed all the Jewish programming that I fell in love with growing up.”
He was excited to participate in similar programming in Washington, D.C., attending events at Adas Israel Congregation, Mesorah DC, GatherDC, the Edlavitch DC JCC and local Moishe Houses, then becoming a community leader himself.
Tell me about your Jewish upbringing and background.
I grew up in Potomac and attended Congregation Har Shalom with my family. Throughout my childhood, I would say my family and I were very active Jewishly. We attended a Conservative synagogue, I went to Jewish sleepaway camp at Camp Airy and then in eighth grade, I started being active in BBYO, and I was in the Einstein AZA [chapter]. A combination of going to Camp Airy, as well as later joining Einstein AZA, were very influential in not only my Jewish identity, but I feel like they gave me fantastic leadership opportunities and lifelong friends.
What made you want to become a Moishe House resident?
After attending all the Moishe House events for two years in the area, I wanted to be able to give back to the community, my friends and my peers after seeing how much work was put in to make these programs available that were more organized as opposed to casual hangouts. They were welcoming to anyone in the community and willing to build an amazing community of diverse young Jewish professionals, and I was reminded of the experiences I had at BBYO. I really wanted the opportunity to host people, more than just attending events.
What’s it like for you to live with Jewish peers?
It’s great. I feel like there’s a mutual understanding of personal values — that we wind down for Shabbat every Friday, we know how the different holidays will affect our actions. So, around Purim, we start to get more festive, dress up and hang out with people at different Purim events. Around High Holidays, there’s a sense of renewal that non-Jewish people don’t really feel in late September and early October.
How do you decide what events to host?
We try to host events that are fun and social, and we do our best to create low-stress events to welcome not only people that are familiar with the community but also new people to the area. Especially around the end of summer, a lot of people move to D.C., and we get a lot of new people looking for a Jewish community. We do our best to foster events that welcome them while still being enjoyable for the existing community, and we try to anchor most of our events with a Jewish theme.
For example, we partner with Kesher Israel [Congregation] for Torah on Tap, where we go to a bar and Rabbi [Hyim Shafner] will give a brief discussion on something relevant, like the parshah of the week, and we’ll break out into small groups to discuss the parshah before coming back together. This is all happening not only as a Torah study but as a happy hour, so we get the best of both worlds.
Why do you put so much effort into your events?
I host between five and seven events a month, and I feel like people will come and have a fun time at the events, no matter what. But as community leader[s], we have an obligation to put on the best events for the community.
We could just say, ‘We’re going to happy hour; meet at the bar.’ It can be an informal hangout — and every once in a while, we’ll do something like that — but I feel like I have this unique opportunity to be a real leader for the community and put my best foot forward to make meaningful programs for the community [of] young Jews in the area because that’s what they deserve to have.
What do you enjoy about your community involvement?
I’m really enjoying being able to be a leader, hosting events and standing in front of the crowd at my own events, and being able to attend other organizations’ events as a participant. I frequently go to other Moishe Houses and enjoy their amazing events. Moishe House is my focus for now, as it’s a lot of work and time-consuming, and I really love hosting. When it is my time to leave Moishe House, hopefully I’ll be able to continue being a leader.
