Chabad GW held inaugural event last week
by Ben Echitelle
Hatchet Staff Writer
Chabad GW, an organization dedicated to supporting orthodox Jewish life on campus, held its inaugural event last week, drawing more than 300 students to Kogan Plaza for a celebration of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
Nationally, GW has the eighth largest percentage of Jewish students on a college campus, according to statistics gathered by Hillel. Chabad aims to reach out to these students.
"The dream is to create a home away from home that will always be available to students," said Rabbi Yudi Steiner, who co-directs Chabad GW along with his wife Rivky. "My wife and I provide a welcoming, nonjudgmental, relaxing place for Jews to come and feel appreciated where they feel that they have a brotherhood that they can kick back with."
Chabad, an international Jewish organization, established a chapter in D.C. 10 years ago. The group organizes holiday celebrations for Jewish students at GW, Georgetown and American, including the annual Sukkot event and the lighting of the national Hanukkah menorah.
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Chabad's D.C. representative, said an increase in student interest in Chabad over the past few years spurred the need for the organization to expand, but it took two years and countless interviews for him to find the right people for the job at GW.
"Chabad has had an ongoing presence on campus for over a decade, but with the arrival of Rabbi Steiner and Rivky, things are going to go to a whole new level with more visibility, consistency and quality," Shemtov said.
Last Friday's event was held inside a sukkah, a traditional temporary structure that represents God's protection of the Jewish people that has been in use since biblical times. Students shook the lulav - a bundle composed of the leaves from myrtle, willow and date palm trees - along with an etrog, the fruit from the citron tree. This tradition represents the concept of Jewish unity, Steiner said.
Holding with the theme of unity, the Jewish Students Association, the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity and the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority co-sponsored the event.
Steiner said that in order to attract Jewish students for their programming, Chabad must work with all GW Jewish organizations.
"Traditionally we work with Hillel, but really we like to work with every Jewish organization on campus because we are an umbrella organization for the entire Jewish population at GW," said junior Josh Abrams, president of the Jewish Students Association.
Several students at the event, however, felt that there may be some unspoken tensions between Chabad and Hillel, since Hillel has an established presence on campus and Chabad is a newcomer.
"Now that Chabad is here there is a stigma that there is a conflict with Hillel," said Alex Sasson, a junior who has attended Chabad services in the past. "Chabad doesn't want to tramp on Hillel's turf."
Other students are eager for another avenue to learn about their Jewish faith.
"I'm involved in Hillel, but I'm interested in exploring all my Jewish options," said freshman Alex Wartman.
Steiner said the difference between Chabad and Hillel is a "matter of style."
Rob Fishman, executive director of Hillel at GW, agreed with Steiner.
"We use different methods to achieve the same goal: supporting Jewish students on campus," Fishman said. "There is enough room on this campus for us both, but at the same time, it is sensitive."
Chabad GW is currently located at the intersection of 22nd and N streets in the Steiners' apartment, but there are plans to move into a much larger facility on or near campus within the next year.
Current programs are limited to dinners and study groups with about 15 students at a time. In the last several weeks, however, Steiner said at least 100 students have attended some type of Jewish program at his apartment.
Showing posts with label Chabad and Hillel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chabad and Hillel. Show all posts
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Higher yearning
by Sue Fishkoff and Johanna Ginsberg
JTA and NJJN Staff Writer
May 22, 2008
For Hillel and other campus groups, outreach to Jewish students begins even before orientation week. When Arielle Walzer, a Livingston High School senior, was applying to colleges last fall, she was thinking not only about academics; she was also thinking about Jewish life on campus.
She pored over a Web-site set up by Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, particularly its on-line guide to Jewish life on campus, which provides data on more than 500 North American colleges and universities.
Walzer is one of an estimated 75,000 Jewish graduating seniors who in recent weeks have made their final decisions about where to attend college. This fall, they will be part of the largest incoming freshman class in American history.
Many of them will not consider their Jewish needs on campus until their first Jewish holiday rolls around or a friend drags them to a Shabbat dinner at Chabad or a Purim party at Hillel.
But that’s too late, said Jeff Rubin, Hillel’s associate vice president for communications, and many of the campus newcomers recognize that. “Jewish students often make decisions about what they’ll be involved in during the first week or two on campus,” he said.
To aid such students in this process, Jewish student organizations are now reaching out to incoming Jewish freshmen even before they hit campus after having spent much time and money in the past decade beefing up their campus programs, Rubin said.
“By reaching out to them ahead of time, we increase the likelihood of their being involved,” he said.
Do high school students care? It’s a “significant criteria” for kids at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union, according to head of school Dr. Joyce Raynor. “For different kids, the emphasis can be on different things, but most are looking at the number of Jewish kids on campus, whether or not Hebrew or Jewish studies classes are offered, and whether or not there is a Hillel or other extracurricular Jewish activities center. Some are looking at more than one criterion. And for some, the ability to eat kosher food on campus matters. But it is very important for students in this school,” she said.
Walzer, who was an elementary school student at Solomon Schechter in West Orange and attended Jewish summer camp, said, “I feel very culturally connected to Judaism. That, combined with the fact that I live in Livingston, means I’m used to being with Jewish people. I have non-Jewish friends, and I look forward to making new ones, but it’s important to me to stay connected to the Jewish community.”
Walzer will attend Emory University in Atlanta, which has a Jewish enrollment of 33 percent.
Her mother, she said, encouraged her to look for schools with Jewish populations of over 10 percent, “so I wouldn’t feel awkward being Jewish and would be able to find people to celebrate holidays with.”
“As long as the community was active enough to have events for holidays,” Walzer said, “I didn’t need a huge population.”
Not all Jewish high school students are as motivated to stay connected, educators say. And not all of them go to colleges that have a strong Jewish student life.
“There are 12 to 15 universities where the most active Jewish students go, and after that it’s hit or miss,” said Richard Moline, the director of Koach, the Conservative movement’s campus organization.
Two years ago, Hillel launched a major effort to bridge the gap between high school and college in partnership with the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization; the Jewish Educational Service of North America; and the Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jewish youth movements.
In 2006 Hillel began publishing an Internet e-zine, Chai Wire, filled with information about Jewish life on campus, which it sends quarterly to 50,000 high school juniors and seniors. Last year it held focus groups and sent out a survey to 20,000 Chai Wire readers to find out what those teens wanted.
Six hundred readers responded, Rubin said. Three-quarters said Jewish life on campus was an important factor in their college choice. Nearly 40 percent said they had consulted Hillel’s on-line guide to Jewish student life during the application process.
Last summer, Hillel began to collect names of Jewish high school seniors and pass them to Hillel directors at the schools they would be attending, so those directors could communicate with the students over the summer.
By the fall of 2007, Hillel had 5,000 names. This year it hopes to collect even more.
Rubin said the process is arduous. Some names are provided by high school youth groups or, less often, by synagogues. Some can be accessed through lists of incoming freshmen at private universities; public universities don’t collect such data.
Hillel also solicits names through Chai Wire, asking students to e-mail their contact information and where they are attending college.
Andrew Getraer, Hillel director at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, with 5,400 Jewish undergraduates, said the project really just started last year.
“There’s a bigger, more aggressive push this year, but we’re not relying on that for our efforts,” he said. “About 1,250 Jewish freshmen will come to Rutgers this year. Until we have all of them, we need to increase our efforts.”
He uses Facebook, e-mail, flyers distributed on campus, students trained as peer recruiters, staff recruiters, and massive efforts during the first few weeks of school, “when students are the most open to checking everything out and getting involved,” Getraer said.
He said he wishes local communities were more involved in identifying Jewish students coming to campus. “Synagogues don’t send names. Youth groups don’t send names. Camps don’t. I wish they did, but most are understaffed and underfunded. It’s a difficult thing for them to do, on top of their own work, although it makes sense.”
Orthodox connections
Tova Diamond, right, studies with Shoshana Porath of the Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus program at Rutgers
Tova Diamond, right, studies with Shoshana Porath of the Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus program at Rutgers.
Outreach efforts have intensified in the past two years with the introduction of Chai Wire and with JESNA asking the heads of its 55 community Hebrew high schools to send the names of graduating seniors to the Hillel directors on the campuses to which they were headed.
Devorah Silverman, who heads that project at JESNA, said the Hebrew high schools sent about 350 names last year.
Also last year, the Orthodox Union launched an internal effort to funnel Orthodox high school students to appropriate Jewish groups on campus.
“For 15 years I’ve been telling the OU they need to do this,” said David Felsenthal, who heads the OU’s new alumni department of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth.
Some 6,000 high school seniors are involved either in NCSY or in Jewish Student Unions, the OU-sponsored Jewish clubs in public schools. Felsenthal said he had gathered 300 names by May 1; his goal is 1,000 by the end of the month.
Chabad does its own outreach to incoming freshmen, said Rabbi Hershey Novack, the codirector of Chabad at Washington University in St. Louis. Community Chabad emissaries tell campus emissaries about incoming freshmen via an internal Chabad on-line system, and the 125 Chabad college representatives do personal outreach to the new students when they reach campus.
Collecting and passing on names is only part of the overall effort to involve Jewish students in Jewish life on campus, however.
“Honestly, even if a Hillel director follows up, that doesn’t mean the kids will be meaningfully engaged,” Silverman of JESNA admitted. “But it’s a start.
JTA and NJJN Staff Writer
May 22, 2008
For Hillel and other campus groups, outreach to Jewish students begins even before orientation week. When Arielle Walzer, a Livingston High School senior, was applying to colleges last fall, she was thinking not only about academics; she was also thinking about Jewish life on campus.
She pored over a Web-site set up by Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, particularly its on-line guide to Jewish life on campus, which provides data on more than 500 North American colleges and universities.
Walzer is one of an estimated 75,000 Jewish graduating seniors who in recent weeks have made their final decisions about where to attend college. This fall, they will be part of the largest incoming freshman class in American history.
Many of them will not consider their Jewish needs on campus until their first Jewish holiday rolls around or a friend drags them to a Shabbat dinner at Chabad or a Purim party at Hillel.
But that’s too late, said Jeff Rubin, Hillel’s associate vice president for communications, and many of the campus newcomers recognize that. “Jewish students often make decisions about what they’ll be involved in during the first week or two on campus,” he said.
To aid such students in this process, Jewish student organizations are now reaching out to incoming Jewish freshmen even before they hit campus after having spent much time and money in the past decade beefing up their campus programs, Rubin said.
“By reaching out to them ahead of time, we increase the likelihood of their being involved,” he said.
Do high school students care? It’s a “significant criteria” for kids at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union, according to head of school Dr. Joyce Raynor. “For different kids, the emphasis can be on different things, but most are looking at the number of Jewish kids on campus, whether or not Hebrew or Jewish studies classes are offered, and whether or not there is a Hillel or other extracurricular Jewish activities center. Some are looking at more than one criterion. And for some, the ability to eat kosher food on campus matters. But it is very important for students in this school,” she said.
Walzer, who was an elementary school student at Solomon Schechter in West Orange and attended Jewish summer camp, said, “I feel very culturally connected to Judaism. That, combined with the fact that I live in Livingston, means I’m used to being with Jewish people. I have non-Jewish friends, and I look forward to making new ones, but it’s important to me to stay connected to the Jewish community.”
Walzer will attend Emory University in Atlanta, which has a Jewish enrollment of 33 percent.
Her mother, she said, encouraged her to look for schools with Jewish populations of over 10 percent, “so I wouldn’t feel awkward being Jewish and would be able to find people to celebrate holidays with.”
“As long as the community was active enough to have events for holidays,” Walzer said, “I didn’t need a huge population.”
Not all Jewish high school students are as motivated to stay connected, educators say. And not all of them go to colleges that have a strong Jewish student life.
“There are 12 to 15 universities where the most active Jewish students go, and after that it’s hit or miss,” said Richard Moline, the director of Koach, the Conservative movement’s campus organization.
Two years ago, Hillel launched a major effort to bridge the gap between high school and college in partnership with the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization; the Jewish Educational Service of North America; and the Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jewish youth movements.
In 2006 Hillel began publishing an Internet e-zine, Chai Wire, filled with information about Jewish life on campus, which it sends quarterly to 50,000 high school juniors and seniors. Last year it held focus groups and sent out a survey to 20,000 Chai Wire readers to find out what those teens wanted.
Six hundred readers responded, Rubin said. Three-quarters said Jewish life on campus was an important factor in their college choice. Nearly 40 percent said they had consulted Hillel’s on-line guide to Jewish student life during the application process.
Last summer, Hillel began to collect names of Jewish high school seniors and pass them to Hillel directors at the schools they would be attending, so those directors could communicate with the students over the summer.
By the fall of 2007, Hillel had 5,000 names. This year it hopes to collect even more.
Rubin said the process is arduous. Some names are provided by high school youth groups or, less often, by synagogues. Some can be accessed through lists of incoming freshmen at private universities; public universities don’t collect such data.
Hillel also solicits names through Chai Wire, asking students to e-mail their contact information and where they are attending college.
Andrew Getraer, Hillel director at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, with 5,400 Jewish undergraduates, said the project really just started last year.
“There’s a bigger, more aggressive push this year, but we’re not relying on that for our efforts,” he said. “About 1,250 Jewish freshmen will come to Rutgers this year. Until we have all of them, we need to increase our efforts.”
He uses Facebook, e-mail, flyers distributed on campus, students trained as peer recruiters, staff recruiters, and massive efforts during the first few weeks of school, “when students are the most open to checking everything out and getting involved,” Getraer said.
He said he wishes local communities were more involved in identifying Jewish students coming to campus. “Synagogues don’t send names. Youth groups don’t send names. Camps don’t. I wish they did, but most are understaffed and underfunded. It’s a difficult thing for them to do, on top of their own work, although it makes sense.”
Orthodox connections
Tova Diamond, right, studies with Shoshana Porath of the Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus program at Rutgers
Tova Diamond, right, studies with Shoshana Porath of the Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus program at Rutgers.
Outreach efforts have intensified in the past two years with the introduction of Chai Wire and with JESNA asking the heads of its 55 community Hebrew high schools to send the names of graduating seniors to the Hillel directors on the campuses to which they were headed.
Devorah Silverman, who heads that project at JESNA, said the Hebrew high schools sent about 350 names last year.
Also last year, the Orthodox Union launched an internal effort to funnel Orthodox high school students to appropriate Jewish groups on campus.
“For 15 years I’ve been telling the OU they need to do this,” said David Felsenthal, who heads the OU’s new alumni department of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth.
Some 6,000 high school seniors are involved either in NCSY or in Jewish Student Unions, the OU-sponsored Jewish clubs in public schools. Felsenthal said he had gathered 300 names by May 1; his goal is 1,000 by the end of the month.
Chabad does its own outreach to incoming freshmen, said Rabbi Hershey Novack, the codirector of Chabad at Washington University in St. Louis. Community Chabad emissaries tell campus emissaries about incoming freshmen via an internal Chabad on-line system, and the 125 Chabad college representatives do personal outreach to the new students when they reach campus.
Collecting and passing on names is only part of the overall effort to involve Jewish students in Jewish life on campus, however.
“Honestly, even if a Hillel director follows up, that doesn’t mean the kids will be meaningfully engaged,” Silverman of JESNA admitted. “But it’s a start.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Shabbat 1000
The smell of traditional Jewish foods will fill Carnegie Mellon’s Wiegand Gymnasium in the University Center on Friday as students, faculty, and other members of the Pittsburgh community gather for Shabbat 1000, an annual campus event held to celebrate the traditional Jewish day of rest. The program will provide a filling three-course meal for, organizers hope, 1000 participants. Attendees will be served traditional Shabbat foods such as gefilte fish, a variety of kugels, challah rolls, salads, desserts, and several vegetarian options.
“The atmosphere will be one of celebration, joy, and unity,” said Chani Weinstein, Pittsburgh’s Shabbat 1000 administrator. Several student groups from Carnegie Mellon, including Alpha Epsilon Pi, Zeta Beta Tau, Israel on Campus, and Tartans for Israel, have joined other groups in the Pittsburgh area to help in the planning, promotion, and implementation of the event.
Shabbat 1000 is a national event started 12 years ago by Rivka Slonim, co-director of the Chabad House at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Cornell University, Harvard University, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Texas are just a few of the universities that have brought the Shabbat 1000 tradition to their own campuses.
“This unique campus event offers students an opportunity to meet and connect with others and to share in the traditional celebration of Shabbat — something special beyond their weekly routine,” Weinstein said. “The actual event is very inspiring to see so many students celebrating Shabbat and eating a delicious meal all together.”
Pittsburgh’s Shabbat 1000 is coordinated by Chabad House on Campus and the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh. This year’s event is dedicated to the memory of the late mayor of Pittsburgh, Bob O’Connor.
Dinner is free and open to everyone, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
Today is the last day for students to sign up on the event’s website, (www.shabbat1000.net). Participants can either sign up to host a table of 10 people, or sign up as an individual to be placed at a table of 10 by the event’s organizers.
Shabbat 1000 will take place Friday, February 9 at 5 p.m. in the Wiegand Gymnasium.
“The atmosphere will be one of celebration, joy, and unity,” said Chani Weinstein, Pittsburgh’s Shabbat 1000 administrator. Several student groups from Carnegie Mellon, including Alpha Epsilon Pi, Zeta Beta Tau, Israel on Campus, and Tartans for Israel, have joined other groups in the Pittsburgh area to help in the planning, promotion, and implementation of the event.
Shabbat 1000 is a national event started 12 years ago by Rivka Slonim, co-director of the Chabad House at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Cornell University, Harvard University, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Texas are just a few of the universities that have brought the Shabbat 1000 tradition to their own campuses.
“This unique campus event offers students an opportunity to meet and connect with others and to share in the traditional celebration of Shabbat — something special beyond their weekly routine,” Weinstein said. “The actual event is very inspiring to see so many students celebrating Shabbat and eating a delicious meal all together.”
Pittsburgh’s Shabbat 1000 is coordinated by Chabad House on Campus and the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh. This year’s event is dedicated to the memory of the late mayor of Pittsburgh, Bob O’Connor.
Dinner is free and open to everyone, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
Today is the last day for students to sign up on the event’s website, (www.shabbat1000.net). Participants can either sign up to host a table of 10 people, or sign up as an individual to be placed at a table of 10 by the event’s organizers.
Shabbat 1000 will take place Friday, February 9 at 5 p.m. in the Wiegand Gymnasium.
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