ELI Talks's video: Samantha Steiber: Class and Money in Jewish Spaces A Story of Exclusion

In Fall 2017, ELI Talks partnered with the Silverstein Base Hillel in Chicago to produce the first-ever 'Voices by ELI' - a program that cultivates teen and young adult voices in Jewish communities. Ten speakers selected by Base Hillel worked with ELI Talks to find and hone their inspired Jewish idea. Charles Cohen, Executive Director of Metro Chicago Hillel, emceed the event where three undergraduate students and seven young adult Basers shared 5 minutes of wisdom, to over 60 attendees, on topics ranging from "Politics: It's a Mitzvah", Judaism and Magic: My Conflicting Passions, Good Grief: How the Jewish Mourning Process Can Heal the World and Class and Money in Jewish Spaces: My Story of Exclusion (and Eventual Inclusion). Silverstein Base Hillel is a project of Metro Chicago Hillel. Samantha Steiber -- or Sam, for short -- lives in Chicago. She is a social worker with the Exoneration Project, a program at the University of Chicago Legal Clinic that works on wrongful convictions. She's also worked in the fields of community mental health and substance use treatment. She sees herself as a hitchhiker on the road back to Judaism, which she hopes will be explained more in her talk. She is also passionate about the relationship between mental health and poverty and spends her off-hours volunteering locally on issues related to mental health reform legislation. She enjoys serious books almost as much as she enjoys laughter. Want to bring Voices to your community? Message us for more information: info (at) elitalks (dot) org.