Over the past five years, Ariela Ronay-Jinich has founded and led Olamim, an organization cultivating Latin Jewish belonging among families in the Bay Area. What began as a playgroup to connect Latin Jewish families, grew into an intergenerational program blending Jewish learning with Spanish language and Latin culture. Ariela witnessed Olamim’s impact in the deepened Latin Jewish identities of the children who participated and the sense of community and support felt by their families. With that foundation in place, she knew it was time for Olamim to take its next step and reach families in cities across the country. In this piece for Jewish&, Ariela shares the journey that brought her to Redes y Raíces—A Rooted Network.

You are invited to join Ariela, Olamim, and the growing network of individuals, families, and organizations ready to share in the joy of Latin Jewish belonging. Learn more here. 

“I’ve lived here for nine years and still don’t know another Latin Jewish family. I’m raising my child in Spanish, but I’m doing it alone.”

When one mother shared those words with me, I immediately recognized myself.

Long before I founded Olamim, I knew what it felt like to move through Jewish spaces carrying multiple identities that rarely seemed to exist together. I wanted my daughter to inherit not only Judaism, but also Spanish, Latin culture, family stories, music, recipes, humor, and ways of seeing the world. I wasn’t looking for a program. I was looking for people—for families whose lives reflected a similar, beautiful complexity as ours. 

The point was to meet people I could not otherwise find. The first step was building those relationships. The point was also to create the conditions for people to develop meaningful relationships with each other, and not just me.

The playgroup, the program, the curriculum, and the organization came as a vehicle to strengthen what I was building. 

The educational experiences mattered, of course. But I soon realized they weren’t the reason families kept returning. Children came back because they had made friends. Parents came back because they found people who understood them. Grandparents came back because they could share traditions that felt fully Jewish and fully Latin. Again and again, what families were seeking wasn’t simply programming—it was belonging.

That realization has shaped everything we’ve built since.

From 2021 to 2024, Olamim had the privilege of being incubated by Be’chol Lashon. During those formative years, Be’chol Lashon gave us not only institutional support, but also something equally valuable: the confidence that our community mattered and that the future of Jewish life depends on embracing the full diversity of the Jewish people. We are deeply grateful to Be’chol Lashon for helping us transform an idea into a thriving organization, and we are proud to continue growing as an independent nonprofit.

Now that we are six years into operations, we are doubling down on the primacy of relationships. Programs may bring people through the door, but meaningful relationships are what create community.

Today, Olamim is entering an exciting new chapter.

What began as local family programming in the Bay Area is growing into a national network of partnerships with synagogues, JCCs, schools, and PJ Library communities across North America. Together, we are asking a different question than we did a few years ago.

Instead of asking, “How do we create a meaningful program?”

We’re asking, “How do we build a communal ecosystem that empowers, activates and sustains a wide diversity of Latin Jewish families to lead meaningful lives within the larger Jewish community”

That question has led us to develop Redes y Raíces—A Rooted Network.

The name reflects two truths that families have taught us.

First, that Jewish life grows from roots (raíces, in Spanish): the stories we tell around the dinner table, the songs our grandparents sing, the languages we dream in, the recipes we cook together, and the values that shape everyday family life. These roots are not separate from Jewish identity; they are part of how Jewish identity is lived and transmitted.

Secondly, families need networks. No family can sustain belonging alone. We need ways to celebrate holidays and milestones together. We need educators who understand our histories. We need institutions that recognize our full identities and can operationalize inclusion and diversity at every level. We need communities where children see themselves reflected and where parents don’t have to explain every part of who they are.

Belonging happens when roots and networks grow together.

We want synagogues, JCCs, schools, and PJ Library communities to become places where Latin Jewish families feel not only welcomed, but deeply known. But we also want families to have their home base, an affinity space, that does not rely wholy on institutional framing but rather on a home-grown, authentic, familial kind of responsiveness. 

And so we are building not just a program, but an ecosystem, which includes the resources, pathways, and mechanism for Jewish life to better reflect its own growing diversity.

That insight has inspired us to think less like a program provider and more like an ecosystem builder.

This fall, we are launching Olamim Family Learning Circles around the country.

We are putting that ecosystemic approach into practice through Redes y Raíces—A Rooted Network for Latin Jewish Families, a new national model for cultivating Latin Jewish family community from the ground up.

At the heart of Redes y Raíces are small, locally rooted circles where families gather throughout the year to learn, celebrate, and build relationships. Olamim equips parent leaders with a supportive stipend, bilingual Jewish learning resources, training, and coaching to create community in ways that feel authentic to their families—around a Shabbat table, in a living room or park, or in partnership with a local Jewish institution.

But the circles are only the beginning. Through a national community of practice, local leaders learn from one another and become resources for their communities. At the same time, Olamim partners with synagogues, JCCs, schools, PJ Library communities, and other organizations to help them better recognize, reach, and engage the Latin Jewish families around them.

In this way, Redes y Raíces works simultaneously from the family outward and from the communal ecosystem inward. 

Families gain an intimate home base where they can experience Jewish life in the fullness of their languages, cultures, and histories. Parent leaders gain the resources and relationships to become community builders. And Jewish institutions gain partners, knowledge, and pathways for becoming places where these families are not simply welcomed through the door, but deeply known, reflected, and connected.

The potential impact extends well beyond any single circle. A parent who begins by gathering six families around a Shabbat table can become a leader who helps a synagogue understand its changing community. A JCC that partners with a local circle can develop programming that reaches families it previously did not know how to engage. Families who once experienced themselves as isolated can become visible to one another—and, collectively, more visible within Jewish communal life.

That is what we mean by building an ecosystem: not only creating a beloved place for Latin Jewish families to belong, but also strengthening the relationships, leadership, resources, and institutional capacity that allow belonging to travel with them wherever they encounter Jewish life.

When those communal experiences reinforce one another, belonging deepens. When they remain disconnected, families often feel like they are starting over each time they enter a new space. Our work is increasingly about weaving those experiences together, because every space should signal a welcome to Jewish families.

As we expand nationally, I often think back to that mother’s words.

“I’m raising my child in Spanish, but I’m doing it alone.”

My hope is that, one day, no Latin Jewish parent will have to say that.

Instead, they’ll know another family down the street or even across town, but they will know when and how to find them. Their children will have friends who share their stories. Their synagogue will celebrate the richness of multilingual Jewish life. Their PJ Library books will spark conversations that continue around the Shabbat table. Their local institutions will see every part of who they are—not as something extra, but as an essential part of the Jewish story.

That is the future we are building.

One family, one relationship, one partnership, and one community at a time.

We hope you’ll join us in the next chapter of our journey. 

We hope you’ll join us in building a Jewish future where Latin Jewish families and all multiethnic Jewish families can find one another, put down roots, and shape the communities they call home.

To join Redes y Raíces—as a family, leader, partner, or supporter—please reach out directly to info@olamim.org, or visit us at www.olamim.org.  Apply to become a circle leader or join an existing circle by October 15th at https://www.olamim.org/redes-y-raices.

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