Name a Jewish communal organization in the Washington, D.C., area and Amanda Chorowski has probably worked there.
“My life’s passion has been to engage with the Jewish community,” the North Potomac resident said.
Chorowski is the executive director of the Greater Washington Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse, a nonprofit organization that aims to provide holistic resources for victims of domestic and dating violence in the D.C. area.
The seasoned nonprofit leader got her start in a “very Jewish area” of West Hartford, Connecticut, where Chorowski grew up surrounded by kosher grocery stores and synagogues. Affiliated with Conservative synagogues, she attended Hebrew school and became a bat mitzvah.
Chorowski studied art history at George Washington University and got involved in GW Hillel; a living room space in the building dubbed “The Pit” became her home base.
“I was the vice president of the Hillel; it’s where I made all my closest friendships,” Chorowski said. “Even today, I still have friends from my time at GW.”
It was at GW Hillel where Chorowski found a three-ring binder of local internship opportunities. As a senior in college, she interned for the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington — now the Capital Jewish Museum — and continued to work there full-time after graduation as a volunteer coordinator.
“Before [the museum opened], the red brick building part of it was a standalone building with archives and exhibits, and we would take people on tours up to see the sanctuary,” Chorowski said. “I just loved working with all the Jewish students and families and other Jewish organizations that would come into the museum.”
Her next job involved coordinating adult programs and public affairs programming for the Edlavitch DCJCC, 12 minutes down the road from her previous position. Along with the JCC’s executive director at the time, Arna Meyer Mickelson, Chorowski launched the EntryPointDC program to connect recent college graduates to the local Jewish community.
In the early 2000s, Chorowski worked for the American Jewish Committee: “That was an absolutely amazing place to work.”
She then worked with Mothers Against Drunk Driving before taking time off to be with her children. Afterwards, she served as Congregation B’nai Tzedek’s associate director for six years, simultaneously pursuing her master’s degree in nonprofit management and Jewish communal service.
“I really wanted to be making the decisions at the table, not just implementing the decisions,” Chorowski said. “I wanted that ownership [of being] an executive director of an agency.”
That very position opened at JCADA, where Chorowski has served as executive director since 2019. Although she hasn’t always seen herself in a career helping victims of domestic abuse, aspects of Chorowski’s past roles help her today.
“From my time at Mothers Against Drunk Driving, I have some understanding of how systems in the world are not set up for victims of crime and how much help people need to navigate through trauma,” she said.
Chorowski said she drew inspiration from some people in her personal life who had experienced intimate partner violence.
“When the position opened up, it was like a natural progression to be someone who could help people find a place to heal and be an advocate for those who are trying to work within systems that are not … as effective and efficient as we need them to be,” she said.
The “gift” she brings to JCADA is her ability to hire qualified professionals to work with survivors, Chorowski said. She also helps develop teen education to help them understand healthy and unhealthy relationships and collaborates with local clergy members: “We always tell teens to ‘go find a trusted adult.’ We need to train the trusted adults to know what to do when teens come to them, so that’s part of our work.”
“A lot of people turn to [their clergy] when they’re in trouble or need some guidance, and [JCADA] makes sure the clergy in our community have all the resources and education they need to be as effective as possible to give comfort to their own congregants,” Chorowski said. “We are essentially connected to every [area] synagogue, either through their rabbi or their education director or through members.”
She also maintains working relationships with local chapters of Hillel, Jewish day schools, Jewish summer camps and youth groups.
“We’re always trying to make more and more relationships with folks so that they know where to go when they need help,” Chorowski said, adding that JCADA has bathroom signs around the community that define traits of an unhealthy relationship and direct survivors to JCADA.
Now in its 25th year, JCADA is rooted in Jewish values as the D.C. area’s only nonprofit organization that’s both Jewish and responding to domestic violence.
“Pikuach nefesh, which is ‘save a life,’ is first and foremost,” Chorowski said. “What folks need to understand about the violence that people are experiencing in their relationships is that it is life-threatening. We have folks from every walk of life in our care, and the severity of what people are experiencing has been increasing in terms of physical violence. The current uncertainty stemming from job loss and unemployment turns people into ‘islands.’”
Her job is to help them feel a little less alone.
