1. What brought you to our congregation?
I knew I wanted to join a Conservative synagogue when I first moved to Canada three years ago. However, my first flat was in Gatineau, so all Conservative shuls were just a little too far away to get there on foot. My friends had attended services at KBI a few times and knew I would enjoy them, too. I did make the trek once, but it was during a snowstorm, and it took me almost two hours to get there, so that wasn’t a very smart decision. When my friends and I moved the year after, we were lucky enough to find a house within walking distance to KBI, and I’ve been a member ever since.
2. What do you love most about being part of this community?
How incredibly welcoming it is. Even though I didn’t know anyone when I first started coming to KBI, and I can be a shy bean in unfamiliar environments, the openness and friendliness of pretty much everyone I met meant that I felt at home in no time. I also really like how KBI manages to find (for me at least) the perfect balance between egalitarianism and halachic observance.
3. Where did you grow up?
I was born and raised in Germany. I grew up in Frankfurt am Main, where the Jewish community has about 10,000 members, and my siblings and I attended the Jewish nursery and primary school there. Conservative/Masorti Judaism isn’t really a thing in Germany, so we attended services at a small Orthodox shul, but started going to a Liberal synagogue, too, when I was about 10, so I could read Torah at my Bat Mitzvah. I left Germany at 19 for university in Scotland, and I also spent some time in Israel and Sweden before coming to Canada in 2023.
4. What’s something people might be surprised to learn about you?
Even though I’m bookish to an almost stereotypical degree, I’m surprisingly handy. When I was younger, I was in charge of putting together my little sister’s dollhouses and Playmobil sets. When the Jewish Society at my undergrad university had the ambitious plans to build a Sukkah from scratch, I somehow became the building site supervisor, and my housemate has made me her personal IKEA assembler.
5. If you could have dinner with any Jewish figure (past or present), who would it be and why?
I would have to say Rashi’s granddaughter, Alvina. She was a highly educated woman whose religious customs very likely became the basis for later halachic rulings. I would want to ask her what it was like growing up as a Jewish woman in the turbulent times around the crusades, and if Rashi’s daughters really wrapped Tefillin. Plus, her first name is my middle name (albeit with a slightly different spelling), so I feel like we have a special connection.
6. What book is on your nightstand?
I’m currently reading Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, which is a British detective story from 1868, J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, and (re-reading) Hermann Hesse’s Das Glasperlenspiel (“The Glass Bead Game”). Because I’m doing a PhD in English Literature, I found that my leisure readings have to be very different from the things I read for school, otherwise I’ll start thinking about them in academic terms (which isn’t fun). I’ll read any book in German, or from the Victorian period, or the fantasy genre; as long as it’s not related to my studies, I’m happy to read it in my free time; and it doesn’t have to tick all three boxes!