WE ARE FAMILY. WE ARE MANY. AFROJEWISH, BORICUA, NATIVE MEXICAN, SEPHARDI, EUROPEAN, PERSIAN. QUEER AND HETERO, AND MORE. WE ARE NOT A RACE, WE ARE PEOPLE.

THIS IS US

We are a learning community for Latinx Jewish families and individuals who hold a wide diversity of identities. 

At Olamim, we cultivate and enjoy our family identities, and build community through it!

Our mission

Olamim is a Latin Jewish learning community for families and individuals. Together, we generate greater access to heritage language and culture, bridge diverse communities, and create a foundation for Latin inclusion and belonging in Jewish communal life.

These are our values

Simcha, Alegria

Offering each other a joyful experience of being Latin, Jewish, and other aspects of who they are is a powerful way to pass on to our children what we most care about, and to build resilience as parents.

Brit, Compromiso

Our commitment to families is the core element of our program success. They drive our research, our partnerships, and our program design. We also ask that they commit to each other and the mission of Olamim through their participation.

Shutafut, Contribuir

Everyone contributes. Our intergenerational community is full of talent, vision, and an incredible capacity to generate a culturally-responsive setting for each other.

Aylu v’Aylu, Co-Existir

We are family. We co-exist as many. Afro-Jewish, Boricua, Native Mexican, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Persian. Queer, and Hetero. And more. We are not a race. We are people. Together we strive to engage the wholeness of who we are, not just our parts.

Shomrei Adamah & Tarbut, Respeto

Connection to and respect for nature and culture are interrelated and just as important. Both are sources of strength, joy, and resilience for our communities. We also know that beyond conservation, we are also involved in transformation.

Kehillah, Comunidad

Olamim drives change through its impact in concentric areas - the family, communal institutions, and our broader understandings and narratives about identity, learning, and community. In this interrelated way, we build greater inclusion and belonging within and across communities.

These are our values

  • Offering each other a joyful experience of being Latin, Jewish, and other aspects of who they are is a powerful way to pass on to our children what we most care about, and to build resilience as parents.

  • Our commitment to families is the core element of our program success. They drive our research, our partnerships, and our program design. We also ask that they commit to each other and the mission of Olamim through their participation.

  • Everyone contributes. Our intergenerational community is full of talent, vision, and an incredible capacity to generate a culturally-responsive setting for each other.

  • Connection to and respect for nature and culture are interrelated and just as important. Both are sources of strength, joy, and resilience for our communities. We also know that beyond conservation, we are also involved in transformation.

  • We are family. We co-exist as many. Afro-Jewish, Boricua, Native Mexican, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Persian. Queer, and Hetero. And more. We are not a race. We are people. Together we strive to engage the wholeness of who we are, not just our parts.

  • Olamim drives change through its impact in concentric areas - the family, communal institutions, and our broader understandings and narratives about identity, learning, and community. In this interrelated way, we build greater inclusion and belonging within and across communities.

Family leadership

Our families are the core element of our program success.

We are full of talent, vision, and incredible capacity to generate what we want for our children. 

Olamim cultivates family participation and cultural responsiveness as the foundation for inclusion and belonging in the larger Jewish community. 

We truly are the ones we've been waiting for. For us, self-definition and family leadership is always at the core of program growth and development. 

Join us in developing our community offerings! 

Liliana Lucia Peliks

marketing & operations Consultant

Liliana Lucia Matos-Garcia Peliks (she/ella/mami) is a Mexican-born, Dominican woman, and mother of a Jewish household. She is also the grandchild of a self-taught kindergarten teacher, and an oil artist who shaped her childhood and still informs many of her choices as an adult. Liliana is committed to putting her professional and personal skills to work at the intersection of spiritual fulfillment, social justice and environmental sustainability through educational experiences. She spends a lot of her time learning from her colleagues and senior educators at Jewish LearningWorks.

Liliana and her family take pride in elevating all parts of their overlapping identities. She comes alive listening to her daughters speak in Spanish and Portuguese, praying in Hebrew, dancing Dominican merengue, goofing around with a Brazilian berimbau, being kind to people and other animal friends, and learning the lessons you can only learn in a garden.

Education & Awards

  • Bachelors in Business Administration (Valedictorian), Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo

  • Masters in Marketing Management, IE Business School

  • Marketing for Nonprofits Certificate, Duke University

Vivian Santana Pacheco

Community Educator and PARENT LEADER

Vivian Santana Pacheco is Chicana, daughter and granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, and has worked to retain her ability to speak her familial language and pass it on to her son. Vivian is also an urban farmer dedicated to relearning ancestral food ways, and reclaiming sustainable ways of living on this land. She currently helps run Alemany Farm in San Francisco and was trained at UC Santa Cruz’s Agroecology farm.

Vivian is excited about supporting others in nurturing Spanish in their family and bringing her training and knowledge of early childhood education, farming and nature to Olamim. Vivian is passionate about the role of music in bringing community together, and offers Olamim the best songs and tunes for the party and the playgroup. As an Olamim parent and program educator, Vivian makes families feel welcome in their own uniqueness, and lovingly engages our community in how to creatively merge Latinx and Jewish identity through family life.

Education & Awards

  • Bachelors in Sociology, Pomona College

  • Masters in Public Policy, UC Berkeley’s Goldman School

  • Child Development Certificate, Merritt College

“Olamim is one of the only spaces where our family’s Latin Jewish lineages come together. We are grateful for this opportunity to co-create a container where kids feel accompanied in the complexities of their identities. And we love the orientation to nature as space holder”

— Mer Al Dao