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Hannah and I stop by Dupont Coffee Collective one summer morning and sit near Dupont Circle. From park benches, we chat about living near family, event planning, adjusting plans and expectations, Mother Goose-ing, and jalapenos in tuna salad.
Samuel: What brought you to the DMV?
Hannah: I grew up in Rockville, Maryland and went to undergrad at the University of Virginia. So, I’ve been around for a while. I was looking to move to Tel Aviv after college but things didn’t line up the way I expected, so I started looking for jobs in the DMV and New York. I fell into my [current] job, and it was the perfect opportunity, so I thought: Why not back to the DMV? I knew it would be a transition, but not an aggressive one, and I’ve been living in DC proper for almost a year now. Things are going well.
Samuel: Where at?
Hannah: In Logan Circle, with all the other 23-year-olds. My building is…I live in what I’d call a haunted house. I don’t believe in ghosts, for the record. Off the record, there are totally ghosts in my apartment. It looks haunted. It’s a little creepy. It has so much character and I love it.
Samuel: What has kept you in the area?
Hannah: This is the first time since I moved out of the house that my whole family has lived in a 20-mile radius of each other. I’m here, my parents and brother are in Rockville, and my sister’s at UMD. It’s a fun time – we get together a lot.
I like that DC is a smart city, and most people you meet have something they’re passionate about that’s a little bit niche, a little bit weird, a little bit interesting. People are passionate about their jobs. I would consider myself an ambitious person, so I like meeting people who also care about their work, care about weird things, and are kind of nerdy.
Samuel: You’re an event planner. What brought you to that work?
Hannah: In college, I was a double major in History and Foreign Affairs, and was pretty dead-set on going into a career in foreign affairs. After October 7th happened, I organized a vigil and a bunch of other events, getting people together, getting the community together around this tragedy. I was politically exhausted, and wondering: How can I use what I’m good at? I wasn’t ready to go into [the foreign affairs] world. But I’m organized, and I can juggle a lot of things, I’m very good with people – and I’m very humble, obviously. I’m working on that.
But, I switched gears, and was really lucky to get a job really quickly. The company I work for is Scott Circle Events. We’re really cool – we plan conferences for nonprofit organizations, mostly, but also some corporate events, and a lot of our clients are Jewish. We plan everything, soup to nuts – venue, catering, photography, videography, everything you could need.
Samuel: How do you think doing that sort of work has affected you in your life outside of work?
Hannah: It’s getting funky. I’ve become so aggressively scheduled. I’ll talk to my Mom and ask: What are you doing three weeks from now? I could probably see you on this day. And she responds: Hannah, no one but you knows exactly what they’re doing three weeks from now.
I know exactly how long I need to get from point A to point B, and how long I’m going to spend at each point, and what happens if I go over, and how much cushion time I need…all of my weekends are very planned out.
You would think that would make me less flexible, but I am flexible. I have plan As and plan Bs. I just need to make sure all my other plans get rearranged in the right way. All of my ducks are in a row. Even relaxing, it’s like: Now I will take two hours to take a nap. On a similar note, I’m Mother Goose at the club: I make sure everyone is having the best time they could be having and that everyone is in the right place. It’s all very silly. Nobody needs that, but that’s what I’m doing. I don’t know if I would be like this if I wasn’t planning for work.
Samuel: You also teach spin, right?
Hannah: Yes! I teach spin at the YMCA on Thursday nights at 6:15 p.m. I got into it after getting into outdoor biking during Covid. I was biking like 15 miles a day. During college, I started spinning, and taught a class through Hillel and really liked it. Now, I teach Thursday nights, and I try to sub whenever I can – I love it. It keeps my head on my shoulders, and I like my regulars.
Samuel: What’s your Jewish community look like right now?
Hannah: I’m definitely still growing into it and figuring it out. I started being serious about building my Jewish community in November of 2024, when I went to my first Shabbat Cluster. I had an OK time, but thought: I need to keep trying this. I have a good cluster of 20-year-olds, and I’d like to expand on those friendships in other ways. But, scheduling is difficult!
Samuel: What else feels alive for you Jewishly?
Hannah: I go back to Rockville a bunch for Shabbat dinners with my parents. In an ideal world, I would be having Shabbat dinners every week. That’s how I grew up, and I want to get back on it and reprioritize it. Other than that, I think just, personality-wise, I’m pretty aggressively Jewish.
Samuel: What do you mean by that?
Hannah: I think I come off as Jewish to people who are also Jewish. For people who aren’t Jewish, less so, obviously. It’s not a bad thing or a good thing – there’s obviously the stereotype of the Jewish woman who is very organized, and she has her opinion, and she’s going to say that, and that’s exactly how I am.
I’d also say that my demeanor is less American Jewish, more Latina Jewish. My dad is from Costa Rica and my mom’s dad is from Mexico, though everybody is from Eastern Europe [originally]. So like, I’m 100% Ashkenazi, but grew up speaking Spanish, and my family is also in Costa Rica. I grew up with an understanding of the Costa Rican Jewish community. I don’t know if any of that specific practice has carried over into my life. I do add jalapeno peppers to my tuna salad, but I don’t know if it’s anything much more tangible; it’s a way of being, more than something I could actually describe.
Samuel: Okay, a few quick ones to close. What’s something you love about Logan Circle that not enough people know about?
Hannah: Let me think…I am not always the kindest to my neighborhood. Logan Circle has a lot of restaurants for taking good pictures, not good food. But there are some good places – there’s a Pho restaurant on 14th Street that does a $13 lunch deal. It’s the best Pho I’ve found in DC.
Samuel: What are you feeling proud about right now?
Hannah: I didn’t expect my professional and personal life to look like this right now. Because I’m such a planner, I was very strict about what I wanted things to look like, and where I wanted things to be…I’m proud of myself for letting a little bit loose on the big picture of my life, and letting go a little bit, letting life happen. I am proud of where I am professionally and personally.
I had all these preconceived notions of what adult life would look like and what it would mean. Some of it has held true. But ultimately, life is for living, and I’m allowing that to be the case right now.
Samuel: You can invite any three people to Shabbat dinner. Who are you bringing?
Hannah: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kermit the Frog, and my sister, who will cook.
Samuel: Finish the sentence: When Jews of the DMV gather…
Hannah: Small talk becomes not-so-small talk.
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