Harel and Randi Turkel
Randi Turkel believes in karma.
“We’re very lucky; we couldn’t ask for anything else,” the Pikesville resident says, alluding to her family and their comfortable lifestyle. “I believe if you’re a good person, good things come to you.”
That’s why she and her husband, Harel, both Baltimore natives, and even their young children, Maia, 7, and Elan, 4, give back to the local, national and international community.
For Randi, who helps out at her husband’s office but is primarily a stay-at-home mom and busy lay leader, that means co-chairing Krieger Schechter Day School’s annual campaign and the corporate sponsorship committee for the school’s Schechter on the Move 5K. To honor her contributions to the community, Randi will receive the Fred Walpert Young Leadership Award from The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore later this month.
That they have the wherewithal to be philanthropic is due, at least in part, to Harel’s successful business, SOS, an information technology consulting firm he founded 13 years ago. Nowadays, his role at the company’s helm allows him the flexibility to spend time with his family, travel and serve on boards and committees of a number of nonprofits including The Associated, Jewish Community Services, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the American Jewish Committee, LifeBridge Health and the Baltimore Child Abuse Center.
“I joke with Harel that it’s OK to say no sometimes,” says Randi. But Harel says donating his time and resources to nonprofits feels like the right thing to do.
“My business is not a nonprofit. If I can do well on the for-profit side and contribute my time and resources to the nonprofit side, we’re not just taking, we’re also giving back,” he says.
Though the Turkels make it a point to set aside plenty of family time, there are instances when the fast pace of their lives catches up with them. Like in February when Harel was preparing to go to India as part of the Jewish Federation of North America’s National Young Leadership Program and missed Maia’s siddur ceremony at KSDS.
“Maia asked me, ‘Why are kids in India more important than me?’” he recalls. “So I explained what we were doing, educating on hygiene and vaccines, and I showed her pictures of the kids and how they live. So she went in her room and got one of her necklaces and asked me to give it to the kids. As our kids grow up, it’s important they know about Jewish values and tikkun olam.”
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