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If you’ve been out and about in Arlington (or at GatherDC’s December Happy Hour), there’s a pretty good chance you’ve run into one of Adam, Jacob, and Renee — they’ve spent the last few months making Moishe House Arlington their home, and join us in today’s blog post to chat about what brought them here, how they’re approaching community-building, why they love hosting, and more!
Samuel: What brought the three of you to Moishe House Arlington?
Renee: We all have fairly different stories. Personally, I was not familiar with Moishe House before I moved to DC a little over two months ago. I was living abroad in Spain the past year. Coming back to the States, I was thinking about how I would form different communities, how I might enjoy spending my time, how I might meet people. I’ve always been someone who loves planning and hosting events, so I thought Moishe House would be a really fun way to be very actively involved and get to know people as I joined a new city and community.
Jacob: I was born and raised in Montgomery County, Maryland – not too far from Arlington. I’ve been coming to Moishe House events for the past two years in the area. I’ve been going to all the Moishe Houses and Jewish orgs that I could, and I really fell in love with the model of events being planned and executed by community members. I feel like you get a different experience versus activities put on by older leaders in the community. I’ve been trying to join Moishe House for the last year, and had the unique opportunity to join in Arlington. I’ve been loving it.
Adam: I just moved to DC as well. I grew up in Philly. For me, I’d gone to one or two events previously at different Moishe Houses. I was coming down here for a job, and the more I heard about Moishe House, it just seemed like a good opportunity to meet a lot of good people and form the Jewish community that I was interested in. I enjoy the creative side, trying to come up with interesting things to do and finding new things around the community to get involved with. This felt like a nice way to get a whole group going and doing a mix of a lot of different, interesting things.
Samuel: What’s been your favorite experience you’ve hosted or planned so far?
Adam: There’s a lot of directions to go with this. One of my favorites was our Paint and Sip. It was unexpected because I’m not an artist at all, and probably hadn’t painted for years before that…but it was a few weeks into our time in the house, and we had a lot of different and new groups of people. It just felt like a really great community, and I was able to have long conversations with a few different groups of people.
Jacob: For our Shabbats, we usually get upwards of forty or fifty people, and I just love seeing everyone in the community all come together. I love that we have the ability to host such a large amount of people without it feeling uncomfortable, and there’s something special about being able to cook a homemade meal for everybody. Since I’ve been coming to events in the past year, I’ve seen our community shift a bit. Everybody who comes is good-hearted and willing to put into the community to make it better, rather than just showing up.
Renee: The people are wonderful. The community is wonderful. It just makes it a joy to be putting on these events.
Samuel: I had no idea your Shabbat dinners were getting forty or fifty people. Why do you think that is?
Renee: I mean, people like a free meal. But aside from that, it’s such a nice time to know that you can come together and sit down with people in the community. There are a lot of people who are busy during the week, who might not have free time otherwise, but who make an effort to come to a Shabbat dinner. You can connect and relax and enjoy a homemade meal. I know we all love bouncing around talking to all the different community members throughout Shabbat. I think we all put a lot of love into it, and I’d like to think that our community feels that.
Adam: It also helps that, from the start, we’ve been very deliberate about making a community that we enjoy. The three of us enjoy spending time with each other a lot. We’re at every event, meeting everyone together, so it’s really just been a good dynamic. I think that resonates, because everyone else is excited to be here, too.
Renee: Something we said right at the beginning was that, if we’re going to put on seven events a month, we should plan events that we would want to go to. I think we’ve been able to do that. Anytime one of us is like “I want to do this thing,” we make it an event and can have a community around it.
Jacob: This isn’t a job – we’re lucky to be able to put on events that we would want to go to. We don’t come into it like “Ugh, I have to do this, I have to do that.” We get to do this.
Adam: I mean, last night we were at a trampoline park with fifteen people. It’s like: Who else gets to randomly plan a trip to a trampoline park on a Thursday night?
Samuel: It’s great – and feels important – that you all like each other and get along. I know so many people who have early 20s just-moved-to-DC roommate horror stories…how have you avoided that?
Renee: It boils down to communication. It’s a cliche, but I think it’s true. We have differences and disagreements even though we get along really well, but we’ve been intentional about communicating and talking with each other. We actually have it scheduled into our recurring meetings to check in about our house and personal dynamics. That’s really helpful.
Samuel: How are you thinking about the role Moishe House plays in the larger DMV Jewish ecosystem?
Adam: We all probably see it a bit differently but, in my view, Moishe House is casual and get-what-you-want. It’s about what the residents and community members want to make of it. The way I look at it, I want to find my community within the Jewish community. Moishe House gives me the platform to have events where I’m meeting other Jews – whether that’s through Torah study or going to a baseball game.
Renee: I think it’s really special that Moishe House is peer-led. It’s being led by your equals, and happening in our house. We’re inviting people into our space, and that’s really unique. It feels like opening your door to friends.
Jacob: I would say it fosters more small groups – more small groups of friends, more house hangouts. If you go to a Moishe House events, it’s not going to be overwhelming, because there’s going to be hanging out and schmoozing but there will also be content to the events.
Adam: It’s sort of funny – there have been a few times where we’ve hung out with friends here and we’ve all looked at each other and realized: This could be a official Moishe House event! Because that’s how we look at it, it’s just like hanging out with your friends and doing something interesting.
Samuel: You are hosting Shabbat dinner and can each invite one person. Who would you bring?
Renee: I would bring someone I recently met, Dottie Bennett. She’s on the national board of Moishe House and is such an interesting and wonderful woman. She’s 82 but has the energy of someone our age. I would love to sit down with her over Shabbat dinner and just learn, trade stories, and chat.
Jacob: I don’t have a particular name, but I went to the Capital Jewish Museum a while ago. The museum used to be the original Adas Israel synagogue building. I’d want to invite one of the people that started the synagogue, who laid the groundwork for what it means to be Jewish and grow up in DC. I’d love to talk with them about how everything is now in the robust greater community and just how lucky we are to be Jewish at this time in this area.
Adam: Both your answers are so, like, formal.
Renee: If it makes you feel better, I was about to say Jack from AJR.
Adam: I’m going to share two answers. They vary so much that I think it would be weird to say one without the other. I’d invite Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy. He has some interesting ideas about education and technology. And then I also want to invite Lil Dicky.
Samuel: Last one. Finish the sentence: When Jews of the DMV gather…
Adam: Something funny and thought-provoking will happen.
Jacob: It will be a lactose intolerant happy hour.
Renee: You might find your next new hobby.
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