Building Cultures of Care

Why Family and Medical Leave Matter in Jewish Workplaces

Behind every policy are people. 
A manager quietly caring for aging parents. 
A senior leader grappling with a heartwrenching fertility journey. 
An executive director grieving a painful family loss.
A young associate anxiously welcoming a new baby. 

Each story reminds us that family and medical leave is not about time off — it’s about dignity, compassion, and belonging.

Join SRE Network for an honest conversation about how Jewish communal organizations can better support their employees through family and medical leave, fertility challenges, and caregiving responsibilities. 

Together, we’ll learn from leading voices in this work about ways that family and medical leave policies can serve as an expression of our deepest values of care, equity, and dignity. This program will highlight models, policies, stories, and resources to help Jewish workplaces implement meaningful, compassionate approaches to family and medical leave.

Register Now

Details

      • When: Monday, December 8 at 12:30 pm ET/9:30 am PT (60 min)
      • Where: Zoom - link provided upon registration
      • Cost: Free to attend

Speakers

Featured Resources on Family Leave & Fertility Sensitivity

This program is free and open to all. SRE Network is deeply committed to supporting the dignity and belonging of all individuals across our diverse Jewish community. This includes our radical acceptance of LGBTQ+ folks, Jews of Color, and Jews of all abilities, backgrounds, races, ethnicities, and sexual and gender identities.

This program will be recorded.

Meet the Speakers

aimee baron (1)

Dr. Aimee Baron

Aimee Baron MD, FAAP (she/her) is the founder and executive director of I Was Supposed to Have a Baby (IWSTHAB). Its mission is to transform how the Jewish community cares for people struggling with fertility and loss by providing mental health support, educational resources, and a warm, nurturing space through digital platforms, communal convenings, and connections to wider support networks. We comfort people on all fertility journeys, including infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, infant loss, termination for medical reasons, donor conception, adoption, surrogacy, etc., and envision a supportive, compassionate, and responsive Jewish community where people on a fertility journey feel validated and held.

Long years of secondary infertility and multiple miscarriages left Dr. Baron with the acute awareness that the Jewish community was not adequately supporting those trying to build a family. People in crisis need to be comforted and validated, and the rest of the community needs to know how to help. She is passionate about being a voice for those who are unable or ready to share their story but want the world to know of their suffering so that no one should go through it alone again.

Dr. Baron was formerly the Director of Innovation and Growth at NechamaComfort. She has also worked as an Attending Pediatrician in the Newborn Nursery and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital before taking a leave of absence after her third miscarriage. She lives in the New York area with her husband and children.

amy becoom

Dr. Amy Beacom

Dr. Amy Beacom (she/her) is the founder of the field of parental leave consulting and coaching, which she began creating at Columbia University in 2006 after the birth of her first child. Today, Dr. Beacom is the Founder and CEO of the Center for Parental Leave Leadership (2014) and the RETAIN Coaching Institute (2022). Drawing on nearly 30 years in executive leadership development and coaching, Amy consults with Fortune 100 companies, international organizations, working parents, and more to transform the way our workplaces and our world engage with the parental leave transition - from policy to programming to practice. To help advance the field, Dr. Beacom has also developed the first evidence-based parental leave transition coaching model (RETAIN Coaching™), the Parental Leave Transition Assessment™ tool & PLTA Report complete with Risk Score™, and the first book to offer practical insights, resources, and steps for this stage of work and life, The Parental Leave Playbook: Ten Touchpoints to Transition Smoothly, Strengthen your Family, and Continue Growing your Career (published by Wiley in 2021).

Dr. Beacom has trained and certified parental leave coaches in over 36 US States and eight countries. The manager-focused training program she created has been used in over 80 countries around the world. Dr. Beacom is recognized as the United States’ premiere expert on the personal and professional interplay around parental leave for employers and employees. She regularly appears on expert panels, conferences, and podcasts and has been quoted in such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Money, and World@Work. Amy holds a BA in Sociology/Anthropology with a minor in Gender Studies from Lewis and Clark College, an MA in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, and a doctorate, also from Columbia University, combining Organizational Psychology, Women’s Leadership, Work/Family, and Applied Anthropology. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and their two children.

mary zamore (1)

Rabbi Mary Zamore

Rabbi Mary L. Zamore (she/her) is the Executive Director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, a partner organization of the Reform Movement. For over 45 years, WRN has worked to narrow the wage gap, promote paid leave, create safer, respectful Jewish communities, and promote equity, while also supporting and advocating for WRN rabbis. Rabbi Zamore has been named a T’ruah Rabbinic Human Rights Hero,
and a WRJ Women’s Empowerment Recipient, is a member of Elluminate’s Collective, and was fellow in UJA/NY Federation/Columbia Business School’s Institute for Jewish Executive Leadership. She is the editor of The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic (CCAR Press) and The Sacred Table: Creating a Jewish Food Ethic (CCAR Press), designated a finalist by the National Jewish Book Awards.

Dr. Guila Benchimol

Dr. Guila Benchimol

Dr. Guila Benchimol (she/her/hers) is the Senior Advisor on Research and Learning with the SRE Network and was one of the key advisors who guided its launch in early 2018. As a researcher and public educator on sexual violence, she has crafted standards and policies for Jewish workplaces, institutions, and communal spaces and has been invited to address Jewish professionals and clergy across Canada and the US, as well as other faith communities. Guila is also trained in restorative and transformative justice facilitation.

Guila holds a PhD in Sociological Criminology and an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Guila serves as a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence, where she works on projects related to homicide and domestic violence deaths, and sits on the board of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). She was the Director of Judaic Studies at Tiferes Bais Yaakov where she also taught grades 9 through 12. She was also the Managing Director for the National Conference of Synagogue Youth in Canada, where she founded and directed an international camp for high school girls. Guila lives in Toronto and was raised in the Spanish Moroccan Jewish community there which was built by the families who fled Tangiers.

For questions, email info@srenetwork.org.

 

SRE Network mobilizes Jewish organizations to advance gender equity and cultivate inclusive workplaces and communal spaces where all individuals can thrive and drive change.

Scroll to Top