Toni Weiss
Toni Weiss was born in Indiana in 1964. She grew up in the Midwest until her family moved to Tucson, Arizona, when she was five. Toni grew up in a Conservative congregation and is currently a member of Shir Chadash in Metairie, Louisiana. In 1985, after Toni graduated from the University of Redlands in California, she moved to New Orleans. At the time of Hurricane Katrina, she worked as a full-time adjunct professor at Tulane University. Toni was married to Gary Remer, a professor in the Political Science department at Tulane University, and they have three kids together. She is actively involved with the Jewish Community Center and the Jewish Federation. At the time of the interview, Toni served as President of the New Orleans Jewish Community Center in Uptown, New Orleans.
Toni talks about her early childhood in Tucson, Arizona, and being raised in a Conservative synagogue. She shares her journey to New Orleans, finding work there, and starting her family. Toni describes the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina. She evacuated to her ex-husband's home in Shreveport with their children, who stayed and enrolled in a Catholic school there. Toni's home was flooded and badly damaged by the storm. She reflects on living in Shreveport near her ex-husband, a professor at Tulane University, and attending the same shul services with him and his new wife. This experience helped Toni grow and learn what she was capable of as a single mother and Jewish woman. She learned to ask for help and pull together networks for assistance. As the president of the JCC, she entered the leadership of the Federation on her own terms. After Katrina, Toni's positioned change. Tulane reorganized and got rid of adjunct professors, so Toni began teaching math at Dominican High School, an all-girls Catholic School in New Orleans. She has since returned to a new position at Tulane University as an applied economist. Toni has also remarried and is settling into a blended family of Orthodox Jews. After Katrina, Toni has done a great deal of consulting for Total Community Action and speaks about race, class, and the need for social as well as economic capital. Finally, she reflects on the Jewish community's challenges, giving back to her community, and finding a spiritual home for herself.
