Andrew Guckes | Staff Writer
Lannie Hulnick has always loved being Jewish more than anything else. When she was a kid, that meant that she embraced things like day school, camp and holidays. There was a pivotal moment as an undergraduate, though, when Hulnick realized that the love she had for her people could actually be more than a passion.
She was part of Hillel International while attending the University of Calgary in Canada and was sent by the local Hillel chapter to a conference with Jewish professionals in Toronto.
“Going from a smaller community to a larger community, I realized that this is what people do for a living. And that was my ‘a-ha’ moment, where I was like, I can take all of this work that I’m doing now in school and turn it into a career.”
Hulnick described the realization that she could dedicate her professional life in addition to her personal life to Judiam as “transformational.”
“That was the spark for me,” she said.
Hulnick works as the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s women’s philanthropy director, a role she took on just a few months ago.
“I think that engaging women in this amazing work of making the community a better place and building and supporting Jewish life, both here and overseas and especially in Israel, is something that was exciting for me,” she said. “Being a mother of a 15-year-old daughter, being able to engage and inspire women and to really be a role model for her was one of the reasons that this position seemed really exciting.”
Despite being recently hired, Hulnick has been preparing for this role for years via her extensive community work.
Hulnick comes to the Federation after working for the JCC of Greater Philadelphia, Gratz College and Kesher Israel Congregation in West Chester, where she’s a longtime member. At Kesher Israel, she was the executive director until the end of last year, when she took the job at the Federation.
“I just love the Philadelphia Jewish community,” she said.
She knew that this city was the one for her quickly.
“I was just looking for a different kind of opportunity for myself, and Philadelphia just seemed like a great place. And then the summer before I came to Philadelphia, I worked at Camp Ramah the Poconos and I met a bunch of people there and made a bunch of connections within the community, [and] Philadelphia just seemed like the best place for me,” Hulnick said.
When she got here, she met her husband — a West Chester native. That’s also where the family lives today. Hulnick’s family loves the area, and her kids have begun to take after their mother.
She said that her son and daughter — 15-year-old twins — both love BBYO. Her daughter also attends the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy.
Whether Judaism is her childrens’ passion or not, Hulnick will support them. Right now, her son is diving into a completely different type of activity.
“He’s into ‘Ninja Warrior,’ parkour and trampoline-type activities,” she said. “He works for a gym. He’s a funny kid — the minute he turned 14, he got his work papers and has been working in this gym ever since he found his passion.”
Hulnick has worked in many different fields within the Philadelphia Jewish community, but this one is special. What she has seen in the world over the past couple of years has led her to her current position.
“I come from a strong Zionist family, and the work that the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia has done since Oct. 7 was something that I just really wanted to be a part of,” she said. “I went to every single rally. I was a bus captain for the rally in Washington, D.C. I’ve been to a lot of the programs that Federation offered, and I was just so impressed and inspired by the work that they were doing that I really wanted to be a part of it.”
