It's Who You Know! The Podcast · Michelle W. Malkin: Nonprofit Jewish Professional

The Impact of Free with Alex Zablotsky - Managing Director, PJ Library - Harold Grinspoon Foundation

·45 min·2 clips

Harold Grinspoon linked Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library with a Passover seder to create PJ Library.

Michelle opens with Alex Zablosky. He explains that moving back to West Hartford and networking for a job led him to the foundation, which is why the role still feels accidental to him. Michelle frames PJ Library as an important part of the Jewish communal landscape. The conversation then turns to how the program reaches families and what makes people feel comfortable enrolling. Free is not always an easy sell. Some families do not trust things that cost nothing, and others worry that the program is not really for them. That hesitation matters. Alex says some people quietly decide they are not Jewish enough, even though the program is meant to welcome them in. Michelle widens the lens to mixed households, reduced observance, and uncertainty about how to raise children with Jewish practice at home. Alex points to relationship-based marketing, saying it works best when it starts with a friend, a local professional, or a parent connector. Word of mouth remains the strongest channel. He says about forty percent of new enrollments come from friends and family. The episode closes on a small domestic image. Michelle says she made her son write a thank-you note to the local foundation that supports the books they receive, and notes that her child knows what a golem is.

As heard by us

A clear look at how PJ Library tries to make Jewish belonging feel reachable.

Alex Zablosky's path into the Harold Grinspoon Foundation lands with a little less polish than a formal origin story, which helps. The conversation is strongest when it reaches the hesitation underneath the outreach work: some families hear "free" and wait for the catch, while…

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Why you'd press play

For when you want to hear how a free book program becomes a relationship-first invitation.

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