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Kate and I hop on a Zoom sometime between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to chat about journalism, finding your community multiple times, getting out in nature, curiosity, Bad Bunny, and a culinary tour of Fairfax.
Samuel: You’re from the DMV. What’s kept you here?
Kate: The main thing is my family. Almost everybody in my family is still here. I just really like being able to go back to Fairfax and hang out with them. I also think that the community in DC is so great – DC is a great place to be in your 20s. I wouldn’t describe it as affordable, but it’s more affordable than New York. I feel really happy here, and I feel like I’ve made a lot of friends. People in DC are willing to make friends. When I talk to people, I don’t feel like they’re looking to advance or network or get ahead. People are just eager to get out and meet people.
Samuel: What’s your Jewish community like?
Kate: I used to joke that I joined a Shabbat Cluster when I got to DC, made a bunch of friends, and then stopped meeting people. That was true for a couple of years, but it’s not anymore. Recently, I’ve made a couple new friends, and I’m so happy to have them in my life.
There’s a couple of ways that I’ve made Jewish community here. One is definitely Shabbat Clusters. I’m very excited to lead a Shabbat Cluster in the Fall.
I go to a lot of one-off events, like the Gather happy hours. But the other way I’ve met people is through Adas Israel; they have really good Young Professionals programming. They’re really dedicated to [experiences for 20s and 30s], so I go to a lot of programs there. You also meet people at Shabbat dinners there. Adas has been a very supportive community for me. And, it’s an easy walk from my apartment.
Samuel: What are you focusing on as a Shabbat Cluster coordinator?
Kate: It’s very important to me to make sure people are able to make friends with each other, and trying to cultivate an environment in which people feel like they can do that. It might just amount to having events in between different clusters, making sure everybody feels included. I want to be creative with where we host them – like, you can do it at a beer garden that allows outside food, or do it in the woods. I like to cultivate community in the ways that I can outside of Shabbat Clusters, but the support of the JCC in putting those together is very vital. I’m excited.
Samuel: Where would you love to host a Shabbat dinner, if budget and logistics and all that weren’t a concern?
Kate: Definitely Shenandoah National Park. That’s my happy place. Over the summer, we got support from OneTable to host a Shabbat pretty close to Shenandoah, and I planned this weekend retreat and invited a bunch of friends – many of them new friends. So we got the funding from OneTable, and went to Kroger, and got stuck in this horrible rainstorm. I felt like I had several people’s lives in my hands, driving in the car to get groceries. But it passed, and we were fine. I’m very familiar with that area, but pretty much no one else on the trip was. It felt like I was opening a part of myself up to those people.
Samuel: You’re a journalist. What brought you to that work?
Kate: I’ve been doing journalism since I was in high school – I worked at my student newspaper and then again all through college at my college paper. There were some very serious things that happened while I was in college – a defamation case involving Rolling Stone, the Unite the Right rallies – and I got to cover those right when I got to the paper and the next year. Then, I got a fellowship through Report for America and went to South Carolina for a year, covering housing and workforce issues. I’ve been at the Chronicle covering education, and we’re a national publication, so I’ve learned a lot in the four years I’ve spent at my paper.
Samuel: Journalism is not the easiest industry. What’s kept you in that field?
Kate: I feel like a very curious person, and there’s always more for me to learn. I love talking to people. I love filing records requests. I find that very cool. There’s always more to uncover and more accountability to be [had]. There’s a place for me in it.
Samuel: You mentioned earlier off-mic that you’re very interested in your Cuban-Jewish identity. How does that manifest for you?
Kate: So, it’s on different sides of my family. I’d be very interested to meet people who are entirely Cuban and Jewish, like Ruth Behar. For a while, it felt like I wasn’t “enough” of either and couldn’t be both, or that people wouldn’t consider me “enough.” I kind of just stopped caring about that; if people don’t want to consider me one or the other, they can decide that. But I’m going to continue building space for people like me, Latino Jews, and I have a couple friends who fit into that category…it’s fun to talk about! We can talk about Bad Bunny at the same time as we’re talking about High Holiday services. I’ve had rice and beans and pickles on the same plate. I’ve never done a Cuban Shabbat, but maybe that’s something I could do – I have all my grandmother’s recipes.
Samuel: Okay, a couple quick ones to close. What’s something in Fairfax that has your stamp of recommendation?
Kate: There’s an Indian restaurant called Woodlands that is really good. There’s a lot of Vietnamese restaurants in Fairfax County that are worth it. There’s Woody’s Ice Cream. Fairfax Bakery for their muffins. And finally, I think Main Street Bagels are the best in the DMV. They’re soft and chewy. I also like Bethesda Bagels, I acknowledge that they’re valid, but I really enjoy Main Street Bagels.
Samuel: What’s something you’re bad at?
Kate: Understanding the rules to games.
Samuel: What are you feeling proud about?
Kate: It’s been a difficult year for me, and I’ve been able to pick myself back up. I think the me at the beginning of the year wouldn’t have believed that I’d be able to do that. But I did do that, and I feel good about going into next year.
Samuel: You mentioned that you got your MFA in May from American University. What was that like?
Kate: I did it full-time while I was working full-time, which was a crazy thing to do. My thesis was a lot of personal essays, but also about 20 pages of poems translated from Spanish by this writer Elisa Díaz Castelo. I asked her permission to translate and possibly publish them. My first priority is my day job where I get paid to write, so that hasn’t happened yet, but it’ll happen one day.
Samuel: I don’t think collectively we’re reading enough essays. Who should people be reading more of?
Kate: Sloane Crosley. She wrote a great book called Grief is for People. I was very moved. It’s more memoir than essays, but she also writes essays that are so funny – you’ll just be laughing to yourself at the gym. I just love her and her work. She had a great essay in the New Yorker last year about losing a pet.
Samuel: You’re hosting Shabbat dinner and can invite any three people. Who are you bringing?
Kate: Amy Winehouse. Stephen Sondheim. My favorite Sondheim musical is Company. And then maybe a cooking writer, like Joan Nathan or Claire Saffitz. I don’t want to choose between them. Joan can bake her challah, and Claire can make some kind of dessert. I think we could be good friends, the five of us.
Samuel: Last one. Finish the sentence: When Jews of the DMV gather…
Kate: Anything is possible!
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