Emily Pincus (Courtesy of Emily Pincus)
After Emily Pincus had her bat mitzvah, she didn’t stay involved in the Jewish community.
When she went to college, she didn’t spend much time at a campus Chabad or Hillel like many Jewish students. Instead, after graduating with a degree in finance in 2016 from Temple University, it was her family’s business that brought her back to the Jewish community.
Pincus grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where she was groomed to take over her family’s business; a full-service commercial elevator company that her grandfather started in 1953. The company was first passed down to her father and now her.
In college, Pincus explained that staying connected to her Judaism wasn’t so important to her at the time.
“I was just young,” Pincus said. “I was just focused on school and having fun with my friends, and it wasn’t something that was a big priority. I mean, I still went and celebrated holidays … [but] I was not active in Hillel or anything like that.”
Once she was more involved with her family’s company, Pincus Elevator Co. Inc., she also got more involved with the Jewish Federation Real Estate Group, a part of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia — a group many members of her family were already a part of.
“I think it was when I joined JFRE,” she explained. “It was kind of just like the first time I had really been in a room of mostly Jewish people [in] a long time.”
JFRE is a networking group, a part of the Federation for real estate and related industry professionals. There, Pincus met members who were also a part of a leadership program at the Federation, and she wanted to get more involved.
“I was attending because of work, but it was really just the first time back around a lot of Jewish people, hearing about issues going on in the Jewish community, and really just feeling like a part of it,” said Pincus.
From there, Pincus said she wanted to help out more within the Jewish community, so she decided to join Tribe 12, an organization in Philadelphia that aims to connect Jewish young adults to Jewish life and community. She had known about Tribe 12 for many years — her father was a long-time board member and entrepreneurship mentor and her company has been a long-time sponsor — so becoming more involved just made sense to her.
“A lot of it, honestly, had to do with [Rabbi Megan GoldMarche], the executive director there. She’s really great,” Pincus explained. “Since she’s joined, her and I will just occasionally meet one-on-one and just talk about stuff. And she was really talking to me about how she thinks it would be great if I got more involved. I had a finance background. I work in finance, so [joining the board] might be a great fit.”
Pincus now serves on Tribe 12’s finance committee as well as being a regular member.
“I just think [GoldMarche] does a great job and think she’s really taking the organization to the next level,” she added. “[GoldMarche] just really motivated me to want to get more involved.”
In addition to JFRE and Tribe 12, Pincus has also served on the Federation’s NextGen board, playing a leading role in helping build NextGen — a networking group for young adults within the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.
Today, Pincus lives in Philadelphia where she continues to balance her responsibilities as president of her family’s company and her growing leadership roles within the Jewish community.