Alumni Spotlight: Rebecca Leeman '13

Rebecca Leeman (’13) has made a career out of making Jews comfortable in the workplace. Her Jewish foundation is clear: “being at Heschel gave me a foundation of knowledge around my Jewish identity and helped me love being Jewish,” she says. “I’ve actively pursued loving being Jewish since graduating [Heschel].” She was involved at the University of Michigan as the Hillel religious life chair, and went on a gap year in Israel on Nativ. 

But in the workplace? Not so much Jewish culture. “I’ve been an organizational consultant for a few years, and in each of the places [I worked] I was working on important workplace issues like culture, intellectual growth, and DEI, but I was missing the Jewish part at work.”

So she set out to create some Jewish affinity, which has been more essential than ever. The first Jewish Employee Resource Group (ERG) she founded was of a pedagogical bent, and hosted an educational seminar on the Holocaust. Their movement grew to 200 people.

“Companies need to be doing better,” Rebecca says. “I felt motivated by not knowing how exactly to speak about calling out antisemitism. That was when I realized it was bigger than having a nice support group—we had an avenue for people to be Jewish and to educate others about it. I learned those values at Heschel—about speaking up, finding your own voice in something that historically people didn’t talk about or hid in the workplace (like not drawing attention to Jewish identity).” 

The ERG hosted candid panels with over 100 people, a few of whom shared Jewish stories and helped highlight Jewish diversity within the Jewish experience. “It felt like the right thing to be doing at the time when there was a lot of fear for the first time for folks about being Jewish in America.” They did a Passover seder in the Metaverse, a conversation about the themes of Passover, of intergenerational teaching and redemption. For some, it was their first seder, and for some people it was just a seder in the gear-up to Passover and something they talked about with their families. 

Rebecca saw real change at her company. They started to accommodate Kosher options, had increased awareness and education, and interfaith experiences. She even wrote about her experience creating an ERG for eJewish Philanthropy.

Since October 7th, the importance of Jewish solidarity and kinship in non-Jewish spaces has never been clearer. “If people are looking to be ambassadors in their workplace and need support, I’d love to hear more,” Rebecca says. “I’d love to hear people’s stories—we need to stick together in solidarity.” She is happy to distribute relevant articles and resources to provide tools for Jewish ERGs, and would love to hear from her fellow Heschel alumni!