Amy Steinberg

Maggie Burks

by Maggie Burks
April 23, 2008

When your job requires you to drive across the southeast two weekends every month, it’s sometimes difficult to find pleasure in the monotony. But for Amy Steinberg, 23, the time she spends at the destination outweighs the stuffy car ride. An education fellow for the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, Steinberg travels to small, isolated Jewish communities in the South with the purpose of helping sustain Jewish life and culture. She leads services, interacts with families and teaches young people the mitzvot, or God’s commandments.

Despite the short length of these visits and long time between them, Steinberg says she can see the impact on the community and herself. “What I love most about it is the opportunity to make an impact in young Jewish students’ lives and whole community’s lives. The whole community changes when we’re there for a weekend,” Steinberg says. “… Just the chance to be such a resource to the people is something that’s so great.”

Originally from Memphis, Steinberg attended the University of Missouri where she began studying education, but quickly changed her major to human environmental science. “I was looking to teach more than just young students, and I wanted to be part of a whole family experience, not just students at a school,” she says.

When she graduated in 2006, Steinberg was unsure of her plans. She knew she wanted to go to graduate school, but wasn’t ready, yet. Family friend and Beth Israel Rabbi Valerie Cohen told her about the two-year education fellow position at the Institute, and Steinberg soon joined five other fellows traveling around the South.

Coming from a large Jewish community in Memphis to a much smaller one in Jackson was an adjustment for Steinberg, but she also had to transition to living in a new place about which she knew little. Being on the road so often didn’t help her transition, either, but Steinberg has made a point to stay plugged into the Jackson community. She says one of the major highlights of her time in Jackson has been Mal’s St. Paddy’s Parade. “It was definitely a hilariously fun weekend,” she says. “It was something I wanted to experience before I left.”

While the road does get monotonous, Steinberg and the close-knit group of other fellows try to make it fun, often stopping to take photos of peculiar road signs and venturing to places like the Chunky Harley Davidson Store and Jerry’s Catfish Igloo in Florence.

“People always say I should write a book,” Steinberg says, laughing.

 
posted by on 04/23/08 at 06:17 PM. [printer-friendly version]