Moishe Pod hosts create a welcoming home for Pittsburgh’s young Jews

'We want our house to be warm and welcoming, like an open door'

Two young professionals who have benefitted from Jewish communal warmth are seeking to pay it forward by opening their home, planning events and building connections as Moishe Pod resident hosts.

Since August, Yael Karin, 23, and Riley Crow, 25, have invited guests to their Squirrel Hill-based pod and partnered with local organizations while attempting to grow a demographic.

“As much as I love being a participant, I also felt like I wanted to be a doer in that scene,” Crow said.

“I moved here recently, and I wanted to participate in more events, and to meet new people,” so becoming a Moishe Pod resident host made perfect sense, Karin said.

Pittsburgh isn’t new to Moishe Pod. Previous residents and hosts have worked with overseeing organizations Mem Global and the Moishe House network to connect young Jewish adults.

Typically aged between 22-32, Moishe Pod residents and hosts design several Jewish communal programs each month and use the events as opportunities to connect similarly-aged Jewish individuals. In exchange for their service, Moishe Pod residents and hosts are provided rent subsidies, a program budget and training.

Both helping young Jews connect and bridging a demographic is essential, Crow explained.

Several local organizations, including Chabad Young Professionals, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Young Adult Division and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, offer meaningful opportunities for engagement; bringing these organizations even closer by introducing individuals from each of these groups fosters new relationships and deepens bonds within the community, Crow said. Whether by hosting Shabbat dinners, combined Torah study, Israel football watch parties, or simply having an open home, this is a way to help people “meet in the middle.”

Crow, a University of Pittsburgh graduate who serves as marketing and communications coordinator at Pittsburgh’s JCC, said he recognizes the importance of providing ways for community members to coalesce and make new meaning.

Karin, the facilities manager at Friendship Circle of Pittsburgh, agreed and said that after completing her service in the Israel Defense Forces, she visited multiple American communities and observed the critical need to connect young Jewish adults.

During nearly 18 months of travel, the Israeli-born Jewish professional was almost always a community’s newest member. People often invited her in, introduced her to their families and enabled a sense of belonging, she said. “I want to be that person for other people.” Whether it’s for individuals who’ve been here for years, or just arrived in Pittsburgh, if they “don’t know anyone, they can come to us, and we’ll be the bridge that connects them to other people.”

Crow’s lengthy journey to the Squirrel Hill-based pod also prompted a similar desire to give back.

“Growing up, I had very little connection to my family’s Jewish roots,” he said.

Much changed after Oct. 27, 2018, and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting — at the time, Crow was 18 years old. That event “kind of made me think about this vague Jewishness we had,” he said. Questions — including “I’m Jewish, right, what do I do with this now?” — prompted introspection and awareness.

Crow said he noticed the community’s reaction to Oct. 27 and felt “as though I’m on the outside looking in.”

In response, he reached out to the synagogue closest to his childhood home — Temple Ohav Shalom — and connected with its then-rabbi Jeremy Weisblatt.

“I learned with him for a while, and then I went off to college and got connected with Hillel and Chabad, and over the years I studied,” Crow said. “I went on a couple trips to Israel. I went on Birthright, where I met Yael for the first time. And then, I knew in my adulthood I was going to live an involved Jewish life, which I didn’t really do as a kid.”

Being a Moishe Pod resident host, like being a Jewish communal professional, not only allows Crow to continue meeting members of this community, he said, but also enables him to organize “some of the programming that was so meaningful to me.”

Both Crow and Karin hope members of Pittsburgh’s young Jewish community feel welcome in the Squirrel Hill-based pod.

“I understand how some environments can be intimidating. Big crowds, where you don’t know who to walk up to and talk to, can be a little scary,” Crow said. Moishe Pod is a quieter space, and “there’s no barrier to entry. We want to meet you.”

“We want our house to be warm and welcoming, like an open door,” Karin said. “People can come to us with anything, and, as who they are.” PJC

Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.