Lisa Huberman, 39, fuses a love of Judaism and working with students as the social action engagement associate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Hillel.

After growing up in Ohio, Huberman went to Bradley University and majored in theater with minors in French and Creative Writing. After completing that degree, Huberman attended the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University to receive a master's degree in playwriting.

Lisa Huberman currently lives in Baltimore and belongs to Hinenu Baltimore.

A lot of my work is focused on creating opportunities for students to do social action. Sometimes that looks like packing lunches to donate to local nonprofits to feed people experiencing food insecurity.

We've been through a partnership with Adamah, and we've been engaging with environmental justice work. So, that's finding opportunities to do campus litter pickups, and I've also been working to help build connections between Hillel and the rest of our campus community.

I think in the post Oct. 7 landscape, there was a need to think outside the box in how Hillel builds community with other groups on campus. I have a lot of diverse Jewish experiences and a background as an activist and in community organizing. I bring a fresh perspective.

I always wanted to be engaged with the Jewish world, but I didn't necessarily know where was the best fit for me.

As a queer person when I was growing up in college, theater had given me more openings to express myself and explore different parts of myself, but I think there's been a real explosion of different kinds of creative Jewish learning and community-building opportunities.

From a professional standpoint, I was trying to do theater in New York, I was teaching part time at colleges and working at Trader Joe's. When the pandemic hit, that was not the most sustainable path, but I had gotten to a point in my own Jewish learning journey and I'd started doing service leading. I'd started to feel like I had something to offer the Jewish world as a leader, not just as a learner.

During the pandemic, I started teaching full time in the Hebrew school at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn. I got to bring a lot of my theater and arts background to that work, working with second graders and fifth graders.

So, even though on the surface it looks like I've made a career shift in many ways, I'm bringing a lot of my skills and experience as a theater artist to the work I'm doing.

When this opportunity through Hillel came up, it seemed like a real melding of both the experience that I had been doing the last couple of years, but then also bringing back the work I'd been doing with college students teaching English for so long.

I love the students at UMBC. Everyone is really kind and curious, and I really like helping them realize their ideas and feel that their perspective and their story is important, valuable and worthy to be celebrated, even if they might sometimes feel like an outsider.

As someone who for a lot of reasons in Jewish spaces always felt like an outsider, I really like being able to celebrate and uplift my students.

I identify as a Jewish art nerd. I was raised Conservative. There are a lot of different communities that I build community with. I think it's important for people of different kinds of Jewish backgrounds to be able to be in community and learn from each other.

I work in pluralistic spaces right now, but I've also worked in Reform spaces. I've worked in Conservative spaces. I'm also really involved right now with the National Havurah Committee.

It reminds me a lot of theater because it's about creating Jewish spaces anywhere and bringing what you have. For me, it's less about the denomination but about the people who are really excited to collaborate and do something meaningful, nerdy and creative.

I really love to cook. I love exploring Baltimore. I love checking out the all the museums here. I live right near Patterson Park, so I love walking in the park and I'm also part of a silent book club. It's a group that meets in the park when the weather is nice and then they'll meet at a coffee shop in the winter, and everyone brings a book to read silently and then we talk about them.

I also enjoy getting to know the Baltimore Jewish community. Even though there is a community that I maybe spend the most time in, I've also really enjoyed going to new spaces and appreciating the rich diversity of Jewish life here. I look forward to continuing to make those connections.