Meet Fritzi K. Hallock


Fritzi Kolker Hallock may have spent her formative years growing up a mere 20 miles from Pikesville, but in many ways it may have been a world away.

For when Fritzi was 12, her family moved from the heart of Northwest Baltimore to Columbia, Maryland. She went from a place where she says, “being Jewish was like having brown hair,” to a community in which everyone’s life story was different.

“I remember as a child lining up at Cross Country Elementary with my Jewish classmates to take the bus to Beth El Religious School … or walking to the Park Heights JCC after school to learn how to sew. All my friends were Jewish, and I didn’t think that was odd. In Columbia, I suddenly was meeting all kinds of people, most of whom were not Jewish.”

Although her family joined a Reform Temple in Howard County, now many of Fritzi’s Jewish memories continued to take place in Baltimore over Shabbat dinners with her grandmother and holidays with relatives. And, as one of only six Jewish students in her graduating class of 250 at Wilde Lake High School, she came to realize what it meant to be Jewish in a diverse world.

Returning to Baltimore

Upon high school graduation, Fritzi went on to the University of Pennsylvania and shortly after college, moved back to Baltimore. Having left the area at an early age, she began looking to make new friends and to volunteer her time.

Fritzi first reached out to The Jewish Big Brother Big Sister League and volunteered as a Big Sister (part of Jewish Community Services) for a young girl who was being raised by a single father. She also started visiting Jewish prisoners with the League and had her first experience on an Agency board.

Both were eye-opening experiences.

“Until then, I had never engaged with people who were Jewish and had needs. And, not just financial needs but emotional ones as well. When I visited the prisoners, many had come from challenged families, and we were sometimes the only visitors they had. I realized how important human connection was in making a difference in people’s lives.”

Service on the JBBBSL (Jewish Big Brother Big Sister League) Board work brought her to her involvement with The Associated. Fritzi joined its Young Leadership program and began attending a monthly downtown luncheon speaker series, Associated Way. (In fact, it was there that she first met her beshert – her husband, Bob Hallock — who she began dating several years later when a mutual friend and board member of the JBBBSL suggested they go out.)

Soon, Fritzi also began expanding her sense of what it meant to be Jewish in the global world. Her father, Jonathan Kolker, served on the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) board, eventually becoming its chair.

“We don’t have family in Israel and I only really knew about local Baltimore Jewry. Through JDC, I became aware what it meant to be Jewish in the global sense … how we are connected to Jews from the former Soviet Union, to Jews in South America, not just the towns from which my own family had emigrated in the 1800s. It made me understand that we are part of a larger Jewish world and allowed me to ask, ‘what more could I do as a volunteer?”

Getting More Involved

As Fritzi’s professional life grew, so did her involvement with The Associated. Her philosophy became, how can I continue to volunteer where I can be useful?

She became president of CHAI, leveraging her 20 years of experience in real estate consulting toward supporting CHAI’s mission of strengthening the northwest Baltimore neighborhood and developing affordable housing for the community’s seniors. Later, when her work moved into finance and investment portfolio management, she began to participate with Associated Jewish Charities (AJC), the asset holding arm of The Associated system.

She served on the Financial Committee of The Associated. After chairing The Associated’s Finance Committee as Treasurer of The Associated for four years. While in her Finance role, Fritzi also devoted time to an Investment Committee of AJC, eventually joining the AJC Board and now she is AJC president.

“Over the years, The Associated has developed an amazing network of volunteers. As president of the AJC, I hope to leave behind a similar culture of volunteerism and engagement on this side of the house.”

In fact, throughout her volunteer experience, she admits she’s learned so much from the professionals she’s worked with along the way.

“They taught me to be a better volunteer,” she says. “And a better professional.”





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The Associated is a home for everyone in the Baltimore Jewish community. We offer several email lists to help people find a community, engage with their peers and support Jewish journeys around the world.

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