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Matt Lipson. Courtesy of Matt Lipson<\/p>\n Matt Lipson. Courtesy of Matt Lipson<\/p>\n
Growing up in Bryn Mawr, Matt Lipson explained, he was cognizant of his Jewish identity but it wasn\u2019t central in his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to the Haverford school, which wasn\u2019t particularly Jewish, I was always in the minority there. My family belonged to Har Zion, and with all respect to my grandmother, I would say the Conservative setting didn\u2019t exactly stick with me. I know who I\u2019m speaking to right now, so I\u2019m trying to be very careful with my words!\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n
His perspective changed, Lipson said, once he attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
There, he joined AEPi fraternity, \u201cwhere I really started connecting and I became more aware and proud of my Jewish roots,\u201d he said. \u201cGoing to Haverford, I was always a proud Jewish kid, but being surrounded [at GWU} by so many different and great Jews from all different backgrounds who I really got along with connected me further.\u201d<\/p>\n
The connection has stayed strong ever since. Today, Lipson, a commercial real estate broker by trade, is co-chair of the Jewish Business Network, a program sponsored by the Chabad-affiliated Jewish Heritage Program.<\/p>\n
About once a month, JBN hosts a happy hour, a panel discussion, a speaker or similar type of event for Jewish professionals in the Philadelphia area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just did one with [real estate developer and former City Council member] Alan Domb, who told our group about his story, what he\u2019s working on, what he sees coming next for Philadelphia and it was fascinating. Our group gets a lot of value out of those talks,\u201d Lipson said.<\/p>\n
JBN was the brainchild of Rabbi Menachem Schmidt, founder of the Lubavitch House at the University of Pennsylvania, Lipson noted, and started out as a mentoring program for students at Penn and other local schools, \u201ctrying to connect the local business leaders of tomorrow with the ones who are doing it today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s become an all-ages networking group. \u201cThese days, it\u2019s really important to feel connected to your Jewish neighbors and your Jewish community, so we love to build that,\u201d Lipson said. \u201cBut also, how can we help people in our group flourish professionally? We love to attract a group of young professionals, [plus] people who are a little more seasoned, and folks who are a little further down the road who can offer a lot of great mentorship, job opportunities and introductions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking for a job, looking for a business lead, just trying to make a friend \u2013 we try to create an environment that caters to all those needs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lipson also attends events run by JFRE, the Jewish Federation Real Estate group, \u201cand I\u2019ve been loving those events,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Jewish Business Network caters to a less industry-focused crowd, he explained. \u201cJBN caters to every industry, which for what I do \u2026 I\u2019m looking to meet people across the board, all different types of companies, non-profits, you name it. It\u2019s a wider audience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lipson once thought he\u2019d go into the publishing world. For close to 80 years over three generations, his family owned and operated Philadelphia magazine before selling it to the non-profit Philadelphia Citizen late last year.<\/p>\n
For a couple of years after college, Lipson worked in the digital marketing field for a large media brand in New York City.<\/p>\n
He and wife Rhea, another native Philadelphian, always planned on moving back to their home city, \u201cbut COVID kind of expedited that,\u201d he said. The couple came back to Philadelphia in 2020, when Lipson took a position with local real estate firm Binswanger.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we are so happy we did,\u201d Matt said. The Lipsons now live in Center City, across the street from Schlesinger\u2019s deli, with their 1-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve created a nice community, and our family is here,\u201d Lipson said, noting that his grandmother is a proud Philadelphia Jewish Exponent subscriber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Lipson. Courtesy of Matt Lipson Growing up in Bryn Mawr, Matt Lipson explained, he was cognizant of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8396,38181,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-73590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-jewish-business-network","tag-matt-lipson","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}