Meet Nomi Adams

October 1, 2024 | People in Our Neighborhood

Nomi Adams is The Network’s Pearlstone Partner Connector and Baltimore Hebrew Congregation’s Teen & Family Engagement Specialist. Originally from Philadelphia and now living in Maryland, Nomi combines her passion for family engagement, experiential learning and even crochet!

 

Tell us about yourself and your background.

My parents are from New York, but I was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Maryland (Silver Spring and then Pikesville). I went to Baltimore Hebrew Congregation Day School for middle school and Pikesville High School. I grew up in a conservative household and had my Bat Mitzvah at Chizuk Amuno. I went to Habonim Dror Camp Moshava from when I was 9 until I graduated from college.

After high school I did a gap year in Israel with Habonim Dror, where I lived on Kibbutz Nativ ha’Lamed Hey and in a town in the north called Migdal HaEmek. I studied English at McDaniel College, where I met my husband Keith, who was a music major. After graduating, I worked at McDaniel for two years before getting an apprenticeship job at Pearlstone. That turned into a full-time job for four years.

Keith and I got married at Pearlstone in July 2016, our daughter Bina was born in August 2017, and our son Hallel was born in May 2021. Bina is in second grade at Krieger Schechter and Hallel attends Goldsmith ECE. Our family engages in Judaism through music and celebrating in community. We love attending services together and hosting Shabbat dinners and holidays at our home. We live in a small row house in Charles Village, but we manage to fit a lot of people into it!

 

Thank you for partnering with us on the Rosh Hashana Apple Picking event! What are some Jewish Holiday traditions your family loves to do together?

A lot of our favorite traditions involve cooking! Making Hamantaschen on Purim and latkes on Hanukkah, and it’s become a tradition to make a specific coffee cake on Rosh Hashanah and now my daughter asks for it every year.

 

You’ve had a diverse career path, from clinical social work to Jewish community engagement. What inspired you to return to the Jewish community after five years of clinical work?

While I loved clinical social work, it was a lot of working with individuals and I missed the communal atmosphere. I love being able to create experiences for people and bring people together.

 

As the Teen & Family Engagement Specialist at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, how has your background in social work influenced the way you connect with families and teens in the Jewish community? Additionally, what challenges have you faced in your role?

I honestly feel like this position is a culmination of all my education and training. It’s experiential education, it’s social work, it’s Jewish communal work, it’s relationship building, and it’s all with the best people. My social work background helps me understand what’s going on with the teens and families I’m working with on a developmental level, which I think is especially important coming out of Covid, and with the current political climate.

 

As our Pearlstone Partner Connector, how do you incorporate your love for nature and experiential education into your work?

I try to spend as much time outside as possible. I think that especially comes out when I run Camp BHC and the activities that I plan throughout that week. I have also worked with Pearlstone to plan several programs there. Additionally, I try to incorporate experiential education into all the teaching that I do. I know that our teens and all students get enough of sitting and learning during the week, and I want to make it feel different here. I also like to impress kids with my ability to identify plants and birds.

 

What do you love about the Charles Village neighborhood and how do you balance your busy work life with your home life?

I love the community vibes of Charles Village. Many of my closest friends live within a three-block radius. I can’t imagine raising kids anywhere else. We have friends who we met because we’re neighbors, but also friends who have lived in the neighborhood I’ve known for ages—from high school or college or camp. There is a big Jewish community there and it just feels very cozy. We love to spend Saturday mornings on our porch chatting with people as they walk to and from the farmers’ market (come say hi!).

I don’t know how I do balance my busy work life with my home life.  It helps that a big part of my job is working with families so I can bring my family along—my kids love coming to BHC.  I will say that my husband and I are a good team and there’s no one else I would rather be doing this with.

 

What inspired your passion for crochet, and how did you get involved in selling your work at markets

My grandmother and mom taught me how to crochet when I was in high school. When I was in my gap year after high school, we spent a lot of time in deep community conversations that would go on for hours. A lot of us would knit and crochet during those meetings so that’s when I really started getting into it. During college, I made a lot of silly hats for friends. I think it was about two years ago that I started seeing TikTok videos of Amigurumi, which is the cute crocheted stuffed animals, and I got super into making them. I had so many that I started selling them.  My neighborhood has a Street Fair every year, so I sold there and did really well. I also have an Instagram! @nomi_made_that