Alumni Profile - Zoe Bernstein, Class of 2010

 

 

By the DJDS Marketing Department

 

Zoe Bernstein Is An Agent for Change

The Seeds for her Public Service Career Were Planted at Denver JDS

 

When Zoe reflects on her years at Denver JDS, tikkun olam – the Jewish obligation to repair the world – is one of the first things she thinks of. “I graduated with a service-oriented mindset,” she says, adding, “Our education taught us to think beyond our community.” For Zoe, the focus on helping others ultimately became a career path, leading her to AIPAC, law school, and ultimately to her current role as a deputy public defender at the Denver trial office of the Colorado State Public Defender. 

 

Zoe shared that her Denver JDS education provided strong academics and unique opportunities for her and her peers to find their place and move into leadership. Specifically, she credits Mr. Cogan for helping her to become a strong writer, a skill she notes has served her well in college and professionally, and she also fondly recalls moments where quieter people unexpectedly found a moment to shine, in Color War, or during a Shabbaton, and how those moments nurtured self-esteem. Zoe says she is grateful for those experiences and how they helped her choose a career advocating for others. “Leadership roles at school were very helpful in preparing me to be accountable and utilize the support around me,” she said. “I took a lot of skills from school into my professional life.” Zoe points to the school’s pluralistic approach as one of the most important components of her education. “I worked at AIPAC for four years, dealing with people of all Jewish backgrounds and learned that diversity is beyond race and ethnicity. It’s hard to realize that there’s so much difference between people that are supposed to be ‘like you,’ but that pluralist environment opened my mind and helped me learn to engage with people of different perspectives.”

 

Importantly, Zoe says, “We were never given direction about how we should see anyone. Instead, we were given the space to build our own relationship with Judaism while respecting others. We were taught that Judaism is dynamic and personal – never monolithic, and that’s a beautiful lesson that I’ve found to be so important personally and professionally.”

 

Today Zoe is back in Denver and engaged to fiancé Jake Burns, a fellow University of Colorado Boulder alumni. They plan to get married this May in Morrison, Colorado.

 

Congratulations and welcome home, Zoe! We’re thrilled you’ve brought your talents back to the Colorado community.