When dramatic storyteller Jennifer Rudick Zunikoff performs, biblical figures speak, rabbinic Midrash leaps off the pages of the Talmud, and Judaism’s rich folklore dances to life. Jennifer’s contemporary stories challenge her listeners to respond to the issues confronting the Jewish community today. She uses storytelling as an educational tool to inspire children and adults to explore Judaism and their spirituality.Jennifer is a certified Interplay leader. As written on www.interplay.org, "InterPlay is easy, fun, and life changing. It is based in a series of incremental ’forms’ that lead participants to movement and stories, silence and song, ease and amusement. In the process, we unlock the wisdom of our bodies and the wisdom in our communities."
Jennifer uses Interplay in the Jewish community, using her knowledge of Interplay forms to create stories that dance and play. She also teaches Interplay to the mothers of young children who want more story, movement and creativity in their lives. She teaches Interplay to the elderly at Jewish Convalescent Nursing Home in Baltimore.
Jennifer believes storytelling and story listening are important steps toward attaining peace in our communities and within ourselves.
For the third year, Jennifer will use her experience with storytelling and Interplay to co-teach a Holocaust studies class this fall at Goucher College in Baltimore. In the class, "Oral Histories of Holocaust Survivors - An Experiential Approach", Jennifer works with students who have interviewed Holocaust survivors. She helps them learn these sacred stories and perform them as a gift to the survivors and the future generations who will continue to hear them.
In the Fall of 2002, Jennifer participated in the first “Compassionate Listening for Jewish-German Reconciliation” project, traveling to Germany with 14 other Jewish individuals from throughout the United States to listen to and share stories with German participants. Since her return from Germany, Jennifer has shared "And We Listened," the story of her experience, with adult and teen audiences.
In May 2002, Jennifer created and performed another original piece, "Remember our Dance" for the annual meeting of the Women’s Department of the Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore. In the summer of 2002 Jennifer presented her workshop, "Teachers Telling Tales" at the National Storytelling Network’s conference in Chicago.
After September 11, 2001, Jennifer began interviewing Muslim-American children, college students, professors, and imams about their experiences in America before and after the terrorist attacks. She has performed her program “Isaac and Ishmael, Jews and Muslims: Are we our brother’s keeper?” for synagogues, middle schools, high schools, and colleges.
Jennifer has taught several storytelling workshops for the Center for Jewish Education in Baltimore and the Board of Jewish Education of Greater Washington, teaching Jewish educators about the benefits of storytelling and how to use storytelling in their classrooms. She has performed at the annual conference of the National Alliance of American Jewish Youth Workers and at the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education conference in 2000.
Jennifer served as a keynote speaker at the Baltimore Girl’s Project annual conference in December 2000. She created and performed “Emily,” a dramatic performance for pre-teens and parents about a teenage girl struggling with body image, popularity and self-esteem.
Jennifer loves to bring to life the women of Torah through her first-person stories of Sarah, Rachel, Miriam, Ruth, Esther and others. She also tells family stories and stories about her experiences in Israel, as well as Jewish folktales.
Jennifer’s program, “The Answer is in Your Hands” deals with the issues of peer pressure and rejection in a Jewish context. Her storytelling and “creative communication” workshops encourage participating students and teachers to view themselves as storytellers and to create and perform their own stories in a supportive atmosphere.
Presently, Jennifer works as a staff storyteller at Beth Israel Congregation, Chizuk Amuno Congregation, Beth Tfiloh Congregation, and Beth Am Synagogue, all in Baltimore, Maryland. Throughout the past five years, she has performed insynagogues throughout Baltimore and in Frederick, Arnold, Columbia, Rockville, Potomac, and Washington D.C. Jennifer has performed and facilitated staff workshops at Jewish camps in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Michigan. Jennifer is a member of the National Storytelling Network and the Healing Story Alliance.
From the fall of 1998 through the spring of 1999, Jennifer toured the western United States, telling stories in Jewish communities in California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado. Jennifer began her storytelling career in 1994 while living in St. Paul, Minnesota.
