Pittsburgh’s Lynda Heyman rises to national Hadassah leadership

When Lynda Heyman of Monroeville joined Hadassah 43 years ago — with a lifetime membership gifted by her mother-in-law — its mission of empowering women to effect change resonated.

While growing her family and her own tax and accounting firm, Heyman felt increasingly drawn to the breadth of Hadassah’s work, from funding health care and medical research to combating antisemitism to providing services to at-risk Israeli youth.

She became active in the Pittsburgh chapter, Rishon, and rose through the ranks to serve on the national board in 2014.

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Heyman, 69, reached a milestone in her volunteer career in August when she was elected to be a national vice president.

“I’m so excited about this,” she said. “It has been my goal for a long time and puts me on the executive committee where I can help direct us toward our next hundred years.”

Heyman’s love of numbers first earned her a seat on Hadassah’s national finance committee in 2015 and was pivotal in her new appointment.

“With my financial background,” she said, “I can help get us through some national challenges.”

They include increasing membership — currently about 300,000 — and donor support in a fluctuating economy, she said. “We have to keep an eye on things that might affect donors. We try to raise more every year, and some years we have to pivot.”

Post-COVID, Hadassah launched Hadassah Evolve: The Next Generation, a new program aimed at encouraging women under age 55 to organize small, localized groups that set their own agendas.

“The key to engaging younger people is to meet them where they are most interested,” Heyman said, noting that there are 27 Evolve groups with an additional 25 forming across the country, including in Pittsburgh. “They get to pick the direction they want to take, whether it’s advocacy for reproductive rights, hospitals in Israel, or any of the other parts of our mission.”

Heyman was 26 and a newlywed when she became a third-generation Hadassah member. She started her accounting firm while pregnant with her first child and found that working from home allowed her to integrate Hadassah with the demands of family and business.

“In those days, I was doing tax returns by hand; there was no computer. And I was working just a couple of months a year, during tax season,” she said. “I would take my kids with me to Hadassah summer conferences.”

Today she has clients in 27 states and has volunteered to do tax preparation for low-income individuals through AARP and the IRS-sponsored VITA for almost 30 years. “If I had the level of business back then that I have now I wouldn’t have been able to volunteer as much,” she said. “But it worked out well.”

Heyman sees herself as a “glass is half full kind of person” able to solve problems by “thinking outside the box.” When her congregation, Parkway Jewish Center, was unable to maintain its home, she was instrumental in finding space in a Wilkins Township office building — an unconventional move that actually boosted membership, she said.

Although her new role as a national officer in Hadassah puts her involvement on a new level, she intends to also stay active locally.

She is co-chairing the Pittsburgh chapter’s Rekindle the Flame: Be the Light of Hadassah in partnership with Classrooms without Borders, which expands Holocaust and other learning opportunities for teachers.

More than 50 women came to the inaugural brunch at Rodef Shalom Congregation in June. A series of gatherings are planned through next spring, including some featuring Avi Ben-Hur, an eclectic Israeli educator specializing in Israel studies and Classrooms Without Borders scholar-in-residence. Winter sessions will be remote to accommodate snowbirds.

“We want to engage members who haven’t gathered since COVID, and to give members who meet in person for mahj and book clubs and those sorts of things something different to do,” Heyman said. “Anyone who wants to come is welcome.”

Helping to cultivate the next generation of Hadassah began at home for Heyman, who purchased lifetime memberships or associate memberships for her two daughters and son, their spouses and all six grandchildren, the youngest of whom is nine months. Heyman and her husband Marvin Heyman, a retired Allegheny Foundry Co. executive, are members of Hadassah’s Keepers of the Gate donor society.

“We’re five generations strong,” Heyman said. “I’m paying it forward.” PJC

Deborah Weisberg is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.