If you go to a Jewish event in Greater Philadelphia involving young leaders, you are likely to run into Alex Freedman.
On April 12, she was inducted with her lacrosse teammates into the JCC Maccabi Hall of Fame at the Kaiserman JCC. (They won gold at the 2012 JCC Maccabi Games.) Four days later, she helped organize the JNF-USA Tree of Life Award Gala in Center City, featuring former hostage Omer Shem Tov and his mother, Shelly. Freedman is the board president for JNFuture Philadelphia, the organization’s local chapter for Jews ages 22-40. And at the beginning of May, she will receive a lay leader distinction at Tribe 12’s Jewish Philly Under 40 Awards in Old City. Freedman will be honored for the work she does at JNFuture and in the community in general.
Freedman, 30, who lives in East Falls and works as a wealth advisor, spends much of her free time engaged in Jewish community life. She even still belongs to her childhood synagogue, Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El.
Jewish community life has always been important to her. Her parents were big supporters of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.
“I truly find that every day I’m thinking about the things I’ve learned in terms of Jewish values. I feel grateful for that and want to continue that tradition,” she said.
When she was younger, Freedman was convinced that she wanted to continue that tradition in Israel. She visited the Jewish state for the first time as a middle schooler, studied abroad there in high school and college, and made aliyah in her early 20s.
But after a year and a half, she decided to return home. She was working in a job with other English speakers, so she wasn’t fully integrating to Israel’s Hebrew-based culture. She admitted that living in the Jewish state could be hard, as it’s far more difficult to do things like schedule a doctor’s appointment or catch a bus than it is in the U.S. She also missed her family.
Freedman came back in 2019, months before COVID hit.
“I had very fortunate timing,” she said.
Yet, since returning, Freedman has only worked harder to build up the Jewish community and nation.
In the first half of the 2020s, she served on the Federation’s NextGen board for Jews under 40. According to a 2021 blog post on jewishphilly.org, Freedman, at 25, became the youngest member of the Levin Society, “a giving level named in honor of local hero and fallen Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier Michael Levin.” She also served on the Federation’s Partnership2Gether Committee, which helped build up the organization’s partnership regions in Netivot and Sdot Negev.
“My parents have been involved with Jewish Federation for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was young, they instilled in me the importance of giving back to my community, and so when I moved back to Philly in 2019, I made a strong effort to join committees that were meaningful to me,” Freedman said in that blog post.
She’s been a part of JNFuture’s board since 2020, but in recent years, after leaving NextGen, she has risen to more of a leadership role. She served as Israel Education and Advocacy chair before joining the Israel Envelope Task Force, a group dedicated to rebuilding the area near the Gaza Strip. Then, last fall, she became board president for a two-year term.
Her role includes cultivating new donors, maintaining current donors and planning events.
“You’re driving around in Israel, and you see a sign: JNF built this road; they built the water system; they built the housing. They’ve been everywhere,” Freedman said.
Freedman’s “passion project” at the moment is a new multisport field with a track that JNF is working on in Sha’ar HaNegev. Freedman used to coach on that field when she lived in Israel and coached in the Israel Lacrosse Association, but it recently flooded.
“There’s a need, JNF found it, and it’s going to make the community a better place,” she said.
That’s what Freedman tries to do, too. The 30-year-old, who grew up in a Conservative Jewish community, called tikkun olam her favorite Jewish value.
“Treating others the way you want to be treated is a big one. I think we have an obligation to leave the world in a better place than we found it,” she said.