Jewish Women’s Power Lunch

The term “power lunch” has taken on new meaning for professional Jewish women in the Baltimore area.

A new monthly learning program called Jewish Executive Women’s Network, or JEWN, brings together women who are executives, entrepreneurs or in private practice for a monthly Torah learning session.

The program was designed by Lubavitch of Maryland’s Rachel Kaplan, to empower Jewish women in leadership positions. Kaplan says these women “are mostly out there on their own and share a unique common ground. The learning sessions are geared to their roles as female Jewish leaders in the business community.”

The sessions take place in participants’ offices on a rotating basis and provide them with the unique dual opportunity of spending 45 minutes in a Jewish learning and discussion forum and a chance to exchange business cards and network with other Jewish women professionals.

The opening session was held at the office of immigration attorney, Cynthia Rosenberg who said that her hope for this group is that “we will learn not only from each other, but from our forebears.”

Teresa Alpert Leibman, a local orthodist, said that the monthly learning sessions will have a “trickle-down effect” in each woman’s workplace.
“We all belong to lots of groups” she said. “But this will give us an opportunity to learn something and to acknowledge all of the Jewish women who have come before us.”