USCJ is pleased to announce the hiring of Gulienne Rollins-Rishon as our first ever Racial Justice Specialist. Gulienne is an Interracial Dialogue and Racial Identity Development Specialist with over a decade and a half of experience helping communities navigate social identity, race, and social justice. She was raised in New City, NY, has lived in both Boston and NYC, and recently relocated to the Philadelphia suburbs.
Gulienne describes herself as the proud granddaughter of German Holocaust survivors and Southern Black Americans, raised on a steady diet of tikkun olam and social justice work. She has been driven since childhood to use her identity and experiences to foster understanding, tolerance, and acceptance of intersectionality and diversity in all communities where she belongs.
Gulienne’s formal education is in racial identity development, the dynamics of racial constructs in various cultures, and group dynamics. Additionally, she has received training in mutual aid and collaborative liberation, and applies that to her own social justice work. She has also been recognized for her work in various communities as a Hakhel grantee, participant in the Meorot Fellowship at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, and with an invitation to The Jewish Week‘s The Conversation.
Gulienne has spent most of her career as a public speaker and workshop developer, collaborating with Jewish organizations to engage their audiences in education about bias, the impact of personal identity in social justice work, interracial dialogue and cross-cultural understanding, and the terminology involved in diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Her facilitation work has included a workshop centered on exploring the impact of Ashkenazi Jewish identity with a synagogue in NY, a workshop exploring what it means to have Ashkenazi heritage or as a Jew of Color at JOC Convening, and a social justice workshop centered around personal identity and heritage.
She is also an avid reader, loves to travel, and spent most of 2021 exploring the United States in a pop-up camper and motor home.
USCJ is very excited for Gulienne to bring her passion and her expertise to the organization and help build its capacity for programs and training around issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
