#  Hope Podcast: Featuring Hannah Snyder, MTS Candidate 

 





This week we're joined by MTS candidate Hannah Snyder. We discuss the sense of imposter syndrome she felt within her own religious community, the complications and pressures she felt as a religious community leader, and about the sense of fulfillment she eventually found as a participating member of religious community life, and more!



 

December 11, 2025

 

 

     ![Hannah Snyder headshot](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/Hannah%20Snyder%20Hope%20Pod.jpeg?h=1127b937&itok=zHxm-GGk) 

Hannah Snyder, MTS Candidate



 



 

HIATT O'CONNOR: Welcome to the Hope Podcast. I'm Hiatt O'Connor.

JORDAN AHMED: And I'm Jordan Ahmed.

HIATT O'CONNOR: This podcast is offered by the Harvard Divinity School Office of Religious and Spiritual Life.

JORDAN AHMED: Where we talk to HDS students about their spiritual lives, what hope means to them, and how they practice hope daily.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Today, we're joined by first-year Master of Theological Studies student Hannah Snyder. She and I talk about the imposter syndrome inside of her own religious tradition that she felt, complications and pressures of being a leader in her own religious community, and then the sense of fulfillment she found at being able to just participate in her religious community life.



 

 

 

 Harvard Divinity School · Hope Podcast: Featuring Hannah Snyder, MTS Candidate 

 



 

 

 

HANNAH SNYDER: Hey. Hi.

HIATT O'CONNOR: How are you?

HANNAH SNYDER: Pretty good.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Good.

HANNAH SNYDER: Just wrapped up classes, which is crazy.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Was today your last day or yesterday?

HANNAH SNYDER: Yeah, today.

HIATT O'CONNOR: What'd you have?

HANNAH SNYDER: I had Hebrew.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Oh, Classical.

HANNAH SNYDER: Local Hebrew language every day.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Do you have an exam coming up, or did you just have an in-class thing?

HANNAH SNYDER: No. We have a final on the 12th, so we have a bit of time.

HIATT O'CONNOR: That's a nice gap though to study. Well, I'm glad you could make time to come in instead of just grinding away on your Hebrew.

HANNAH SNYDER: No, I'm happy to be here.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Good.

HANNAH SNYDER: This is great.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Well, I guess we'll start with a very basic question of where is home for you? And with that, could you also maybe give us a little bit of a spiritual autobiography, whatever you're comfortable with.

HANNAH SNYDER: I would say home for me is the Bay area in California. Really just Northern California, I guess. I feel like when I think of home, it's definitely the Northern California coastline and the redwoods there. That's a huge part of-- anywhere being in the woods there and then you driving out and seeing the coast. That feels very home to me because I've moved around within the Bay a bit.

So I grew up in the suburbs about 45 minutes, an hour outside of San Francisco. But I've been living in Oakland and Berkeley the past three years, since before starting at HDS. And I think I would really call Berkeley home now. When people ask me, where are you from? I say, Berkeley.

HIATT O'CONNOR: You say Berkeley.

HANNAH SNYDER: Yeah. It just incorporates a lot of things that are important to me. And then spiritual autobiography, I guess, that is super dependent on where I grew up, as it probably is for most people. But Northern California and the East Bay specifically do not have a ton of Jews. There's not a huge Jewish population, and that's how I identify. And I'm sure you could have started with that.

\[LAUGHING\]

But yeah. So I grew up in a pretty small reformed Jewish community in-- specifically, in Lafayette. And even though there's not a ton of Jews there, I'm really fortunate that it was a super thriving community. I think that probably made it a lot stronger, too, just being like somewhat of an outsider group. And I'm super grateful for having that Jewish community.

I think I had a hard time connecting to a lot of the people in the culture and the folks in peers at my school and all the extracurriculars I did. And the Jewish community really became this safe space for me, where I felt a lot more acceptance and ability to be myself.

And so I grew up doing all the classic stuff that's very stereotypical that you can joke about Jewish youth group and summer camp. I spent I think seven or eight years growing up every summer for two weeks to a month, just like doing Reform Jewish summer camp. And a part of the day camp at my synagogue and teaching at religious school. And that was super instrumental, I think, to creating a lot of self-confidence and values that I still hold really dear were really instilled in me in being in this Jewish community.

And I think I said this already, but because there wasn't a lot of other Jews in the area and there was a fair share of active anti-Semitism in the schools that I grew up in, I really leaned into this community there really more for the cultural element and for the sense of belonging less than a deep religious practice.

And then as I got older, I think I found a lot more excitement and affiliation with the religious side. It was never something that was pushed on to me by my parents or anything, or necessarily like expected. I'm definitely the most religious out of my family. Both my parents did not grow up particularly involved in Jewish community more than the high holidays. But I always felt drawn to it and then became more and more involved and interested and feeling like I found a home there.

So that was growing up in the Bay. And then I left for college. I went to Tulane in New Orleans.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Oh, wow.

HANNAH SNYDER: I wanted to get far away. I didn't have an amazing, as I mentioned, an amazing time growing up in the Bay. And I definitely did not need to go across the country, but I went far because I wanted to just try something new and figure out who I was and be a person in a new city. And I had no idea what I was doing. And I was like, when else could you spend four years living in New Orleans? So I ended up there. That was a crazy experience because it's New Orleans is, oh, sorry, not New Orleans.

Tulane itself is 40% Jewish, which a lot of people don't know. I also did not really going into it. And so that again played a huge factor in who I am today and my relation to myself and the world through that aspect of being Jewish and having it around me. I think showing up at Tulane, where a lot of the student demographics poll heavily from the South and New England,

HIATT O'CONNOR: From New England too?

HANNAH SNYDER: Yeah. New York.

HIATT O'CONNOR: I didn't know that.

HANNAH SNYDER: Yeah, and Chicago. These really heavy Jewish populations as well that I had never experienced before. And so I had Jewish culture shock showing up in a way that I wasn't used to coming from a tiny reformed community. I was all of a sudden interacting with folks that went to synagogue and shul on a regular basis. That had kosher delis in their neighborhood and threw around Yiddish slang in ways that I just didn't have. And I felt a lot of really interesting Jewish imposter syndrome.

And it was really hard at first to feel then I was Jewish enough and feel like that connection to my identity. But I'm also so grateful for it because it really opened my eyes to different ways that people practice Judaism in ways that can enrich a community by incorporating all these different practices.

And that's then where I figured out that Judaism is also an academic discipline, because I just didn't realize that was a thing you could study. And it was-- where I grew up, was just so secular. It also was completely out of left field. I went into Tulane doing Environmental Studies and Public Health, and that's what I ended up graduating with at the end, but also with the degree in Jewish Studies, because I just thought it was fun and interesting. And then what do you know, you have a minor. And then oh, my gosh, now it's a major.

\[LAUGHING\]

And I think that also greatly enhanced my spiritual journey. So much so being able to actually look at text and tradition and culture that had been so integral to my life and see that people have been doing this forever, thousands and thousands of years, and that a lot has changed and a lot really hasn't. And Jews and people and humanity have been like wrestling with the same questions of faith and ways to live in the world and ways to interact with people.

I found it really, really special to be able to see this is where a lot of the practices we do today come from. Here's the text, here's the stories, here's the people writing and talking, and also the people that didn't get to have their words written. And what does that mean for the Jewish community now? And how do we incorporate that? I found that so exciting to blend academia and spirituality. And then I guess I'll tie up this autobiography. I graduated Tulane when the pandemic was still in full force.

HIATT O'CONNOR: 2021, 22?

HANNAH SNYDER: This was '22. So it was tapering, but still definitely very conscious of it having been in school for public health. And I said, you know what? I'm not feeling a calling to this right now. This is--

HIATT O'CONNOR: Understandably.

HANNAH SNYDER: And being in the South was incredibly just disheartening to be working in the healthcare system and seeing a lot of things being ignored and not acknowledged in terms of community health. And so I needed to take a break from that for my own well being, and whatever. And I said, I'll come back to that in a bit. Let me take some time off. I'll go get a master's in public health in a year or two when things calm over. And my backup plan was always just go back to the Jewish community. They're always looking for people to do Jewish communal work. I'll go work at a synagogue, or whatever.

And I landed a job at UC Berkeley at their Jewish Life Center. So I was able to go back home, which was amazing. But not live in my parents' backyard. Berkeley's a lot cooler.

\[LAUGHING\]

And I worked there the past three years as the program manager, doing community engagement work and education for mostly freshmen and sophomores. And less involved people on campus, less involved Jewish students on campus, just building community, which was so beautiful and so wonderful and incredibly rewarding in a lot of ways to be able to turn around and create a space for people that I really relied on and to welcome people in and celebrate all aspects of the Jewish identity.

Also so complicated and so difficult to be working in a profession of something that you also want to be a member of and participate in, which I'm sure a lot of people at HDS can resonate with. But it's Shabbat, it's the high holidays. And I'm working, and I can't practice with my own community outside of that.

And then complicating the past two years of just political tension and discourse within the Jewish community, it became actually deeply, spiritually depleting and exhausting by the end of not having a separation from my work and the conversation that was happening within the Jewish community and my own practice. And I reached a breaking point and realized I needed to move on. And now, I'm at HDS, which is completely different.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Thank you for sharing all of that. There's a couple-- I wanted to touch back before we move forward.

HANNAH SNYDER: Sorry I was just going and going.

HIATT O'CONNOR: No, no, no. I wanted to go back to-- you mentioned having imposter syndrome, like Jewish imposter syndrome. But then after your four years in Tulane, you went back to Berkeley and then started to work as a community leader. So did you feel any of that imposter syndrome there, or was that in the back of mind when you were there? Were you working with other students who might have felt like that?

HANNAH SNYDER: Yeah, I felt a lot of it still, and I felt it throughout Tulane. I had moments all the time, every time I would go to a Jewish community event or even in class or something of just oh, this person knows a lot more than me, and not in a way of oh, I can never learn something. I'm not like, oh, I'm not smart enough or something. But it's this deep cultural understanding and way of being that I didn't have. And I felt that so much when I started the job, too.

I have such defining moments in my mind of working the first Shabbat service, and they started singing blessings that I'd never heard before, and I was supposed to be the person that was holding the space. But I grew up really reform, and I'd never heard these conservative tunes. And it really threw me off for a bit. And I had to really grapple with what does it mean to show up as a leader in this space and be a person that other people can turn to when I'm also feeling somewhat inadequate. And I was honest about that with students too. I think that's huge.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Yeah, I agree.

HANNAH SNYDER: With a person that's like creating that community to let other folks that are feeling left out that, hey, not everyone has all the answers and that's OK. And I think that helped me be able to connect to a lot of people that were feeling similarly.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Yeah, that demonstration of authenticity goes a long way like when I've worked with students before just to be forthright. But I also, this pivots us to my next question. But all of what you were saying about how to occupy that space as a community leader, how to define that space, and also how to balance between work and life when there is no distinction between those two things when you're in that role. I'm wondering if you're engaging with any of that now that you've come to HDS, or if any of that was the reason why you ended up coming here? Can you just tell us a little bit about that?

HANNAH SNYDER: Yeah, it was a long journey figuring out that grad school and then sticking with Judaism or Jewish Studies, which is what my focus is here or more broad religious studies instead of going back to public health. But I just found so much joy in the teaching aspect and the learning that I had been doing the past three years, and I wanted to continue doing that. So I was on a path of wanting to be some Jewish educator down the road. And I didn't know that divinity school was a thing.

\[LAUGHING\]

I think I heard about it from a friend that's a second year here. And I was like, that's great. I don't want to be a chaplain. And then I realized that there's a lot more within these halls. But yeah, so I was just looking at Jewish studies master's programs. And then I'm so glad I landed here because it has really incorporated a lot of what I was saying earlier about intersection of faith and academia and questioning and studying, and whatever. And then I guess to your question, I was balancing being Jewish and then studying it or being in the community,

HIATT O'CONNOR: Jewish Community leader.

HANNAH SNYDER: It's really funny because I totally came here and throughout the whole process of applying to grad school, I was like, oh, this is my chance. I can just show up and be Hannah and be a person and be a participant. And then I was really excited to come here and be like, oh, there's Jewish clubs and stuff. I'm just going to come sometimes and see what's happening. And there's so much other Jewish orgs in greater Boston area that I'll be a participant again. And then of course, I found myself like stepping into roles of helping to organize spaces.

But it's so different being here than when I was working at Hillel. And it is funny. I've been talking to my friends about this too, actually. And when you're getting to create and plan programming for peers and your own community in a different way that share similar mindsets or political views or questions or ways that they're approaching a space, it's so different.

And not to discredit the work that I did or that work that's being done with undergrads on campus or something, or to be like, it's wonderful to be in a little bubble of same ideas, but sometimes it is just really nice to be like, I'm a part of something with people that I really care about that's wanting to create something really beautiful together around shared values.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Absolutely. It doesn't have to be either or. Even if we can say that, we often fall into the habits of either or rather than both and. So it's a nice thing to be able to recognize when you get here. They're like, oh, OK, I can just be in a community of like-minded people for two or three years and then go back out into the world.

HANNAH SNYDER: Yeah, so it's been really nice that I've been able to-- when I'm get invited to or feel like i want to , I can step up and help with Shabbat, but I can also totally just be a community member again. And that's been so wonderful. It's been so rejuvenating to be in some of the Jewish spaces at HDS and in Boston and just be Hannah again, that doesn't have to wear a hat of some job description and I can just celebrate being Jewish. It's been really, really wonderful.

HIATT O'CONNOR: It sounds really liberating.

HANNAH SNYDER: It is. It is. Yeah, I definitely had these moments in the first few weeks because it's the high holidays, when you start school. And I freaked out at first because I didn't where I wanted to go and these are really huge days. And also, some of my favorite holidays, and I've been in spaces where the liturgy doesn't feel familiar and it really takes me out and it's really hard.

And I felt so overwhelmed at the options that I had with and being able to go to different services with different people that I'm friends with now. And I had moments that felt like you said, just really liberating. It felt like so cheesy, but I was close to crying a couple of times. Oh, my gosh, I get to just exist and just show up in these spaces and be Jewish and for myself.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Yeah, that doesn't sound cheesy at all. Yeah, it sounds like a culmination too. Yeah, it's what you've-- well, at least from what you've said and from what I'm hearing of what you've said, that it after the years of one, leaving your hometown, which was difficult, coming to Tulane, which had its own difficulties, but of a slightly different color, and then going back to Berkeley and having other difficulties of similar colors, but with this string going through it, of always having to wear a hat or not being able to feel like you fit in. And so on, and so forth. And then finally you get here, and there are those moments where it all seems to click.

HANNAH SNYDER: Totally. And of course, it doesn't all go away like I still am. Oh, I hope, oh my gosh, someone in class is going to know or have this experience I don't have, or whatever. I'll still go to a new synagogue in Boston and it's like, oh, I don't this song, but it doesn't feel the same. It feels like, oh, I can still be welcome and learn it or. Or it's fine if I don't know it and I don't have to learn it and that's OK.

HIATT O'CONNOR: The pressure is off.

HANNAH SNYDER: The pressure is off a lot.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Well, this is actually a nice transition as well. We're talking so much about liturgy and different practices. I wondering if there are any insights or practices that you have from whatever tradition, whether it be Judaism or anything else that you engage with regularly that support you, give you hope.

HANNAH SNYDER: Yeah, I think-- I don't know if this is necessarily a practice, but the first thing that comes to mind is just being in community.

HIATT O'CONNOR: That's certainly a practice.

HANNAH SNYDER: Yeah, it's a practice. And it's so significant to Jewish ritual and practice. You have to be in community to be able to do a lot of elements of Judaism. You need a certain amount of people to say prayers and blessings. And I don't necessarily like ascribe to that all the time or something. But Judaism relies on community. I love a shared meal around the table and that feels really Jewish to me. I love celebrating even the littlest holiday. Just like acknowledging it with friends and with community and being able to lean on each other.

I think another thing that I really value in Judaism is the focus on learning and asking questions. There's a lot of support for just being inquisitive. And I think that's really cool that Judaism celebrates learning and not knowing and being able to ask and being able to discuss with people openly. I think that's huge being able to learn from each other and being able to engage in dialogue, which I think is so critical right now.

And then I guess this is not Jewish at all, but I'm sure you could connect it. But I find so much value being in nature. And I think that's totally because of where I grew up. But I just love to spend time, a lot of times usually, by myself, of just like going out solo hike sitting by like a body of water or something, and just like being able to watch the sun, feel the sun like on you. And yeah, I definitely really feel supported by just like being able to leave behind a city or things that are built up and just be outside and

HIATT O'CONNOR: Yeah. You and I are in the same boat. I grew up on a farm. This is the first city I've ever really lived in. When I went to undergrad, I lived on campus, but the campus in Southwest Virginia, you can see the Blue Ridge mountains from it. And it was only a 10-minute drive to being on back roads. Yeah, and I grew up on back roads. So then to be here and hearing trash trucks like every other day and light always coming through the windows and not having crickets at night. It sounds trivial but--

HANNAH SNYDER: But it's different.

HIATT O'CONNOR: It's different. It affects you in a way you don't really realize until you-- well, for me, at least, I wouldn't-- I didn't really I knew it was going to affect me in some way, but not till I got here and I knew I was taking where I live for granted, but didn't realize to the extent to which I was until I got here. It was rare to have to plan to go back to a green places.

HANNAH SNYDER: But I've been trying to do that here. I've just been figuring it out

HIATT O'CONNOR: Now that it's December--

HANNAH SNYDER: It's rough.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Dark at 4 o'clock.

HANNAH SNYDER: I'm not used to it. It was interesting too. It was hard in New Orleans at first too because the campus is in the city, not like downtown, but it's all pretty city. So you just had to learn to appreciate nature in a different way to I would go to the swamp, and I was like this is really awesome and beautiful and a completely different way than the redwoods I'm used to.

HIATT O'CONNOR: I never even thought about that. One, I didn't realize that Tulane was downtown or not downtown, but in the city. And the stark difference between where you grew up in the Bay Area versus New Orleans. So even for you to have to acclimate again in that way, to acclimate within acclimation, within acclimation. Wow. Well, thank you for sharing, I appreciate it. Before I let you go, do you have maybe a podcast or a book or a movie or a poem, anything, or any things plural that you would recommend to our listeners who might want or need a little hope or just a nice pastime now that it's getting dark early here?

HANNAH SNYDER: Yeah, this is a funny question because, I don't know, of the media I consume is like fantasy and sci-fi and is not related at all.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Well, like you said about nature and Judaism, you could probably put the two together in some way.

HANNAH SNYDER: OK. It's also the day of the infamous Spotify Wrapped.

HIATT O'CONNOR: It is today.

HANNAH SNYDER: It's out. Everyone go check if you're still on Spotify. I know there's issues there.

\[LAUGHING\]

HIATT O'CONNOR: We'll let it pass. We'll let it slide.

HANNAH SNYDER: Let's see. I'm not going to suggest my nerdy podcasts.

HIATT O'CONNOR: You could give us one.

HANNAH SNYDER: I'll do music, I guess. Let's see. I actually I was really into this album this year that came out by the band called The Beths, which is a New Zealand band. It's fun because you can hear their accent sometimes. But they released an album called straight line was a lie or something. It was long, but some of the songs I heard, I was like, oh, my gosh, this could be such an HDS song.

But it's very beautiful. I don't know if all the songs are necessarily hopeful, but they felt very nostalgic to me in a really beautiful way, and touched on elements of community and support and ancestral generational connection and stuff. And that's pretty Jewish.

\[LAUGHING\]

But yeah. So go check out The Beths.

HIATT O'CONNOR: OK.

HANNAH SNYDER: Yeah.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Anything else for us, or are you going to leave us off with The Beths? I think that's a good place.

HANNAH SNYDER: I would also say. Oh, my gosh, I didn't talk about this. But you should join the Jewish ritual, Havurah.

HIATT O'CONNOR: OK. I will.

HANNAH SNYDER: No, but no, thank you. Thank you. This was fun to talk.

HIATT O'CONNOR: You got another year here. You're an MTA?

HANNAH SNYDER: Yes, I another year. So I'm excited to go. I want to explore Boston more and see what nature is out there. I want to--

HIATT O'CONNOR: If you haven't been North to the Ipswich area, there's a lot of good marshlands and preserved beaches. But for all of the potential students who are listening, if you're here next year, Jewish ritual, Havurah, will be here. And they're glad to have you.

HANNAH SNYDER: Oh, yeah.

\[LAUGHING\]

HIATT O'CONNOR: Thanks, I appreciate it. Bye, everybody.

HANNAH SNYDER: Peace.

HIATT O'CONNOR: Tada!

\[BIRDS CHIRPING\]



 

 



 

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