When she began as a staff member at Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C., Emma Fensterheim didn’t need orientation or a building tour. She grew up there.

Now, the Cleveland Park resident serves as the membership and program manager at the Conservative shul.

“I work on welcoming new members to our community from that first spark of interest in Adas all the way through now you’ve joined, and we’re making sure that you’re able to find your niche and make this frankly large place feel a little smaller, so I help with that,” Fensterheim said.

She also helps ensure members who have belonged to Adas for decades still feel connected. It also helps that Fensterheim considers the shul her second home.

“I think having grown up here gives me a little bit of a unique perspective on [working in Adas’ membership] because I can speak to what it was like growing up here and what the community has meant to me,” Fensterheim said. “I have a little bit to draw on that isn’t just from the past year working here.”

Her favorite part of the job? “Getting to see people feel the impact of this place the way I have.”

Originally from Bethesda, Fensterheim attended the Gan — preschool — and religious school, and became a bat mitzvah at Adas Israel. Some of her earliest memories include her “Gan Shabbat,” her turn to invite her family to a classroom Shabbat.

“Judaism was a big part of my life, and it was always shaped by what was happening here at Adas Israel,” she said, adding that she and her family weren’t as engaged with the Jewish community outside the synagogue walls.

Fensterheim worked as a classroom assistant as part of Adas’ Madrichim program, then went on to be a religious school teacher there on Sundays for eight years.

Teaching was her profession for a time. After graduating from the University of Maryland, Fensterheim taught high school for five years. She later worked at George Washington University as an academic advisor, a role that took a project management turn in helping run a first-year experience program.

“As much as I loved the teaching and advising pieces, I really liked the program management,” Fensterheim said. “It scratched an itch in my brain that hadn’t been scratched since high school when I was doing stage crew.”

The pandemic offered her time to reflect on what was working and what wasn’t.

“I started to really ask myself what kind of environment I wanted to be working in, and just felt this really strong pull to be in the Jewish world,” Fensterheim said. “It just felt right. It felt like that was what I needed to be doing.”

She found her way back to Adas, where she happily works in program management and administrative-type duties.

“Even 5-year-old Emma knew that this place was special,” she said. “But young child Emma had no idea what it took to make that actually happen. The version of me that had my bat mitzvah here, the version of me that felt so comfortable running through these halls … the version of me that felt so at home here … at that age truly did not understand how many people and what it takes to actually have something like this available to the community.

‘Child Me’ didn’t understand the effort that goes into creating such a robust, wonderful community. ‘Adult Me’ knew that there was a lot of effort and so many people who work and volunteer here to put everything on.”

Now that she works full-time at the place her Jewish identity first took root, “it sort of peeled back the curtain.”

“What’s changed is just how much I truly appreciate all of the people who are putting in so much of themselves to make this place what it is,” Fensterheim said. “I don’t think it takes away the magic at all to know how much is going into making it happen. I think it actually makes it more magical.”

Fensterheim looks forward to continuing to develop Reva, a rebranding of Adas’ young professionals cohort, alongside Rabbi Anina Dassa. The Adas community held its first Reva event in August — Kabbalat Shabbat service followed by dinner drew about 140 attendees.

“The first year of Reva is very exciting, and I’m really looking forward to the programming that we’re going to be able to offer and the way that we’re going to be able to build this community,” Fensterheim said.

zbell@midatlanticmedia.com