Fritzi Kolker Hallock may have spent her formative years growing up a mere 20 miles from Pikesville, but in many ways it may have been a world away.
For when Fritzi was 12, her family moved from the heart of Northwest Baltimore to Columbia, Maryland. She went from a place where she says, “being Jewish was like having brown hair,” to a community in which everyone’s life story was different.
“I remember as a child lining up at Cross Country Elementary with my Jewish classmates to take the bus to Beth El Religious School … or walking to the Park Heights JCC after school to learn how to sew. All my friends were Jewish, and I didn’t think that was odd. In Columbia, I suddenly was meeting all kinds of people, most of whom were not Jewish.” Although her family joined a Reform Temple in Howard County, now many of Fritzi’s Jewish memories continued to take place in Baltimore over Shabbat dinners with her grandmother and holidays with relatives. And, as one of only six Jewish students in her graduating class of 250 at Wilde Lake High School, she came to realize what it meant to be Jewish in a diverse world.
Returning to Baltimore Fritzi first reached out to The Jewish Big Brother Big Sister League and volunteered as a Big Sister (part of Jewish Community Services) for a young girl who was being raised by a single father. She also started visiting Jewish prisoners with the League and had her first experience on an Agency board. Both were eye-opening experiences.
Upon high school graduation, Fritzi went on to the University of Pennsylvania and shortly after college, moved back to Baltimore. Having left the area at an early age, she began looking to make new friends and to volunteer her time.
