Firm

UNCOMMON CULTURE

BTShalom brings together Barnes & Thornburg’s Jewish teammates and allies to celebrate Jewishness, to educate and drive awareness relative to matters critical to our Jewish teammates, family and friends, and to ultimately help further cultivate a culture of inclusion and belonging. BTShalom creates space for our Jewish teammates and allies to support one another and serves as a deliberate effort on the part of the firm to ensure that our Jewish colleagues are seen, heard and valued. BTShalom meets monthly and like our other talent resource groups, is open to all.

“The mere existence of the group also highlights the welcoming and supportive nature of our law firm, which is made up of people of different backgrounds, cultures, geographies and experiences,” said Ken Gorenberg, one of BTShalom’s co-chairs.

Community conversations and other activities

The members of BTShalom are lawyers and business professionals in many Barnes & Thornburg offices across the country who have different ways of practicing or identifying their Jewishness, and with varying opinions about complicated issues that impact our Jewish teammates and allies. The group’s community conversations and achievements to date include:

Hosted several internal conversations and roundtables which brought together individuals to discuss world events with a team-first approach offering emotional support in response to global current events
Provided food treats as a platform for celebrating Jewish holidays and traditions with other firm personnel
Focused outreach efforts, initiated by leadership, to support teammates in communities we serve
Coordination with other talent resource groups to create and deploy programming designed to promote understanding and inclusion by working together to promote collegiality and understanding across all issues
Barnes & Thornburg signed a letter from major law firms to law school deans condemning anti-Semitism

For more information regarding BTShalom, please contact BTShalom co-chairs, Kenneth Gorenberg and Khrystle Rader.