On any given day, Jordyn Barry can work from anywhere across northern Virginia, building connections with young Jewish adults in local cafes and coffee shops.
“A couple weeks ago, … one day I was in Reston, then I was in Leesburg, and then I came back to Fairfax,” Barry said.
The Springfield, Virginia, resident is George Mason Hillel’s first regional engagement director, a job she assumed in August. Part of her role is to facilitate one-on-one coffee chats to get to know college-age community members in the area.
Barry belongs to Temple Rodef Shalom, where she previously worked in education and teen and youth engagement.
Tell me about your Jewish upbringing and background.
I grew up in New Jersey, where I was really involved in my local synagogue, Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel, and youth group. I had an awesome Jewish upbringing with a really strong Jewish identity. My dad converted to Judaism before I was born, and my parents raised my brother and I with this strong belief of choice through knowledge and this want to learn and connect to our family’s history. My mom’s father was a Holocaust survivor, and his father was in Dachau. We always grew up with that as a part of who we were, and I was always so curious about that, so I studied the Holocaust.
When I went to college, [I] decided to study religion and history, and got interested in studying Jewish studies and Christianity and [its] history. I went to Israel many times and that really stuck with me. As I continued to study what I was interested in and remembering my family roots, I kind of fell into working in the Jewish community.
Have you always wanted to pursue a Jewish communal career?
When I was young, I don’t think I ever thought, “I want to do this when I grow up,” but when I graduated from college and was looking for what was next, [I] ended up going to grad school and getting my graduate degree in Jewish-Christian relations. After I graduated, I tried to figure out, “What do I do with that?” [My degree is] such a niche thing.
I remembered my youth group director, my rabbi growing up and all the people who shaped me into who I was — I wanted to be that for other people. I started working with teens at a Jewish community center, where, as I progressed in my career, I was able to work in the camping world, where we were a Jewish camp, but we served non-Jewish campers. It showed me the connection within the community — how we might believe different things, but we all come together in this Jewish context.
This all stemmed from the strong foundation my parents instilled in us and the connections I made at my synagogue growing up. Everything goes back to that.
Do you use your interfaith foundation in your current role?
In a couple of weeks, I’m actually leading a trip to Israel through Maccabee Task Force, which is for non-Jewish student leaders at George Mason to go to Israel and learn and see with their own eyes what is happening there currently, and also to learn about the history of the space. I’m really excited to go back to my roots of what I learned about and what got me started in this world.
What are your responsibilities with Mason Hillel?
I am excited to be in this position. I started in August, and my role is predominantly off campus. I have been brought in to create a new expansion program for George Mason Hillel, which is working closely with anyone college-age and [college] stage in northern Virginia — anyone at NOVA Community College’s four campuses, anyone who’s coming back to Virginia to visit during the summer, students taking a gap year and living here, graduate students living here and students taking classes online.
We have an awesome Jewish summer mentorship program called NOVA Summer Network, which I’ll be taking over, revamping and making more well known.
What’s the best part of your job?
The best part of my job is I get to take all these people out to coffee. I get to try out all the new coffee shops in the area — I always try to go someplace different, and I say, “Tell me about yourself. What are you looking for? And if we don’t have it in our community, let’s create it and see where we can go from there.” We’re in the fun preliminary stage of this project, and it’s been thought out over the past four years with our former executive director, Rabbi Daniel Novick. I met with him when I was working at Temple Rodef Shalom to dream big with this, and I’m excited to now be in the role, to be this person who gets to implement it.
What are your goals?
My goal is to meet as many people as possible and create as many relationships. Right now, I see myself as a connector and a relationship builder. I want to meet as many people who are in [the] college age and stage, and that’s self-selective. If you’re going to school, if you are the age to be going to school, but you’re not going to school, any of those and anywhere in between, I want to meet you.
