Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 31, 2022

The mission of on-campus Jewish organizations is to connect and engage Jewishly with interested Jewish freshmen students of all denominations and levels of affiliation.

Inherent in that mission is a great deal of challenge and nuance, especially as there is so much diversity in Jewish expression. Sara Alevsky, co-director of Chabad at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland; Adam Hirsh, executive director of Hillel at Kent State University; Nicki Greenberg, Metro Hillel Campus Innovation Springboard Fellow at Cleveland Hillel Foundation, and Jill D. Ross, Metro Hillel campus director and assistant director of Cleveland Hillel Foundation, talked about the ways they connect with next generation freshman Jews.

Often the first interaction involves a combination of outreach and inreach. An organization receives lists of interested freshmen and participates in student fairs during freshman orientation week.

Every year, we get a list of students who express interest, plus we do outreach, Ross said. Having info ahead of time is ideal.

Students also hear about Jewish organizations and activities by word-of-mouth, and many activities are offered during orientation week, including smaller fairs, info drop-in sessions, Shabbat dinners, and tables around campus.

Hillel at Kent State prioritizes having at least one touch-point with every incoming Jewish student prior to their arrival on campus, Hirsh said. By doing so, we can learn about their areas of interests and Jewish identity to connect them with our many student organizations and upcoming initiatives. In order to ensure we have that engagement, we host a table at all university sponsored admissions fairs and incoming student orientations, host summertime student meet-ups in the Cleveland area, and finally a full week of fun events, open to the entire campus community, during KSU Kickoff.

Alevsky said, We are part of every fair, and we have a big, well-known and well-attended barbecue.

She described the front-and-center presence maintained by herself and co-Chabad representative and husband Rabbi Mendy Alevsky and, often, their children.

We are out there on campus, very visibly, Alevsky said. We travel around with a mobile sukkah on Sukkot. We introduce ourselves to everyone personally. We go to fraternity and sorority houses and bring apple pies. We cannot just sit there and wait for people to come to us. We go to them.

Cleveland Hillel Foundation attempts to get as much info as we can get out. We hired first year engagement interns to do peer-to-peer engaging, Ross said. Hopefully, every student will have info about Hillel. The idea is to hit all Jewish students and they are very interested ... this year we had a tremendous amount of first-year interest.

Both Hillel and Chabad make it a top priority to be welcoming and open to every Jewish student.

We helped the students develop their expressed interests for these communities, including Keshet for LGBTQ students and the Hillel Volunteer Collaborative, Ross said. Hillel is always a safe space that gives students a place to be authentically themselves. ... We are thrilled that we can afford the Hillel undergrad leadership committee this opportunity everything is based on student input and desire, otherwise, its not going to work. We work with the students to create an environment thats comfortable for them.

Hirsch said Hillel is an organization unique to itself.

There is nothing like it in the Jewish world pre- or post-college, he said. Students often come to campus without an understanding of what Hillel truly is, and if they have heard of it, they think Hillel is a synagogue, JCC or youth group, as thats what they are familiar with. In reality we are a student center with wonderful resources and staff, thanks to our supportive community, with the goal for the students we serve to simply succeed academically, outside the classroom and in their journey as a Jew.

Both Chabad and Hillel regularly offer Shabbat-related activities. Hillel has a Shabbat committee, sometimes featuring an activity based in tikkun olam, sometimes a pluralistic approach to Shabbat services, including Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative and traditional choices.

Recently, they requested a traditional egalitarian morning minyan and we made that happen, Ross said.

Chabad offers weekly Shabbat dinners, Orthodox davening, holiday meals and classes, all warm, beginner friendly, welcoming and open to every Jewish student, Alevsky said.

Students can count on us to offer the same warm traditional Judaism every time they come through our doors, she said. We bring the people closer to the Torah versus the other way around.

Lisa Matkowsky is a freelance reporter.

Continued here:

Many ways to engage Jewishly as college freshman - Cleveland Jewish News

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