14
CityAndStateNY.com
If you didn’t work in politics/ government, what would you do? Museum curator at the AMNH or the Brooklyn Museum. Definitely one that has either a mummy chamber or a planetarium, huge plus if both!
October 17, 2016
Birthday: 9/30 Twitter:@JennieBergerNYC Where did you go to college? Cornell University
W
Jennie Berger COMMUNITY LIAISON, OFFICE OF SPEAKER MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL
HEN JENNIE BERGER GE TS asked about being a Jewish woman in government, it doesn’t faze her. Her answer is there aren’t enough Jewish women in politics – and there aren’t enough black women, Latinas or Asian and Pacific Islander women, either. “There aren’t enough women, period,” Berger says. Nor does Berger accept anyone who pigeonholes the Jewish community, which she interacts with frequently as community liaison for Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. “When people ask about any one community – and it doesn’t matter whether it’s religious or ethnic – any selfidentifying community, when it comes down to it, the struggles that everybody’s facing are the same across the board,” Berger says. “And just because they talk about them with slightly different language or different descriptive words doesn’t mean that we’re not all the same as New Yorkers.” Berger, who has been in her role since May 2014, also is the City Council’s liaison on health, mental health and general welfare issues. In fact, the two areas overlap, she says, since issues affecting Jewish communities – hunger, child care, special needs – affect all New Yorkers. Her work on hunger and providing for Holocaust survivors has been especially rewarding. “The city’s budget has an unprecedented level of financial commitment to trying to ensure that every New Yorker can actually put food on their table,” she says, “because unfortunately way too many can’t, even the ones who are working full-time have trouble at the end of the month making ends meet.”