Moishe House Williamsburg - Luanna's Post

For many years I often joked that one day I was going to move to New York, live in some crappy neighborhood in Brooklyn, and have the perfect job in a Jewish Non- Profit. This is definitely what I got, so I recommend being careful what you wish for. I was lucky that this was a good wish. From the neighborhood, I learned to be more humble, from the job I learned to put all my heart and soul into it. All was great, but being in New York for almost a year, I began to feel that there was something lacking. I began to realize that I spent so much time building community for others, that I had no community myself. Being in a city where over a million people are Jewish, one may think finding community may be very simple, but truly it was not. A lot of events targeted at my age group were very impersonal and not continuous. It was then that a friend who lived in a Moishe House in Buenos Aires let me know about the houses that were about to open in New York. Everything Moishe House stood for was exactly what I was looking for. Building community for people in their 20s and 30s that were post-college did not have a place to explore their own Jewish identities. I had the luck of being selected to be part of a house in December of 2011. Since then I have truly learned a lot about myself, others, been able to truly build a community around my house. Our community members all with their different personalities have truly become friends I cherish, and look forward to seeing them both inside and outside the house. Being part of Moishe House has definitely given me the tools to build a community for myself and young Jews like me, helped me grow as an individual, and a Jewish leader.