Hillel Featured In The Cleveland Jewish News!

It has been a while since our last update. Those of us at Hillel have been busy carrying out exciting new programs and continuing old favorites.

This past friday we held our annual Ethiopian Shabbat and this coming weekend we have our first ever Murder Mystery Night and Havdallah Service. We will be sure and let everyone know how this program turns out but in the meantime be sure and check out the article below that features Hillel.

Special thanks to Amy Newman Smith



Jewish involvement on campus: what students want

By Amy Newman Smith
Published: Friday, February 13, 2009 1:10 AM EST
College students are preparing for careers, but they are also preparing for life ... sorting out who they are and who they want to be. For Jewish students, that often means deciding what ties they want tothe Jewish community.

Luckily, even on campuses with smaller Jewish populations, they have choices. From services to social events, from social justice to Israel programs (which took on added significance as Operation Cast Lead began late last year) and everything in between, Hillel, Jewish fraternities and sororities and other groups offer programs designed to meet the needs of a diverse student population.

What sells?

Students looking for a religious connection on campus often find their way to Hillel. Mariessa Shein, a sophomore at Ohio University (OU) in Athens and a Hillel intern, says the biggest turnout is always for High Holiday services. But Hillel and other groups go beyond Shabbat and holiday services, offering social programming, cultural events, Jewish learning opportunities, and social action projects.

Tal Rosen, Hillel’s executive director at Miami University, says diverse events attract different kinds of students. Shein agrees, noting that students who wouldn’t come to a religious service will attend social programs like speed dating, an event that has produced a few matches. Dan Albert, a junior at Miami University, finds the same to be true on his campus. On a recent bus trip to see Jewish rap singer Mattisyahu in Cincinnati, he met several people he had never seen at a Hillel event. And Shein, who lives in an off-campus Jewish housing co-op, says people who never come to Hillel events can often be found hanging out at the co-op house.
Jonathan Lopatin, a junior studying economics at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), says the Jewish Student Group, an organization that plans social activities, often schedules events around Jewish holidays like Purim, but without the religious component a Hillel event might include. As a result, these events often draw a different crowd.

A broad spectrum of students gets involved in community service projects. Rabbi Danielle Leshaw, Hillel’s executive director at Ohio University, says students work at a food bank in nearby rural Appalachia. Hillel is also sponsoring a bone marrow registration drive in late February in partnership with the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi, with a goal of collecting 1,000 swabs that could lead to life-saving transplants. Jewish fraternities and sororities offer another center for Jewish students to make connections.

Involvement with Jewish groups offers other benefits. Intern programs build resumes. Raphael Bendriem, a senior studying biochemistry at CWRU, appreciates the career skills he’s acquired through Hillel. (He met his girlfriend there too.) Opportunities to explore leadership, planning and delegation skills taught him the importance of isolating what makes an idea work. The key to any successful on-campus event, he says: “Free food.”

Israel

Support for Israel is one of the centers of Jewish life at CWRU, observes Lopatin. That appears to be true on other campuses as well. Rabbi Leshaw, at OU, says Israel-focused events, whether a film or speaker, draw consistent crowds.

Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s move into Gaza, was very much on student’s minds when they resumed classes in January, after winter break.

Returning to OU, Shein says the friends she’s made provided support as she watched news coverage and worried about her fellow Jews. While she’s spoken to friends on campuses where protests have turned acrimonious or even violent, she hasn’t experienced that at OU.

Tal Rosen reports a pro-Israel rally at Miami was attended by Jewish students he called very aware and well informed. Dan Albert notes that Miami Students for Israel works to educate students on campus about the issues. The group recently “held a vigil for victims on both sides of the conflict.”

At CWRU, both Lopatin and Bendriem say on-campus conflict has stayed under control. Lopatin says while strongly worded letters to the editor bounce back and forth on the issue, it doesn’t get explosive. The students who feel strongly about the issue, he says, aren’t “entrenched” and want to do more than just “yelling across barriers.” Like other students, he knows his situation is somewhat unique. Friends in schools back east label their campuses “very angry.”

In contrast, Bendriem observes that even groups as far apart on the issues as Hillel and Students for Justice in Palestine were able to gather together for a moment of silence for victims on both sides of the conflict. Both sides have worked to make it that way, creating opportunities for people to share strong opinions in a way that doesn’t foster increased conflict.

Gary Coleman, executive director of Hillel of Northeast Ohio, calls the Jewish-Muslim dialogues lessons in “learning how to agree to disagree” and how to walk the fine line between free speech and intimidating speech.

Moving … on and off campus

Coleman says on the campuses his organizations oversees-including Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, and Oberlin College-affiliation numbers are rising slightly. Organizations are sprouting in some unlikely places. A Jewish club recently started at Jesuit-run John Carroll University and Notre Dame College approached Coleman about its own Jewish student group.

In addition to increasing numbers and branching out, Coleman says Hillel of Northeast Ohio is working hard to get students off campus to strengthen their ties with the Jewish community of Cleveland. Students are matched with synagogues and families for Shabbat and holiday meals. There are also professional mentoring programs for graduate students and summer intern programs for undergrads in conjunction with the Jewish Federation and the Cleveland Foundation.

Dan Albert says even the changes brought by slimmed down organizational budgets have led to positive outcomes. They’ve begun partnering with other campus organizations they’ve never worked with before. Led by professional staff and student leaders, Jewish life on campus is staying vibrant and varied.

Feel Free to read the article at the following link:http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2009/02/13/education/doc49945522b7c7c020978175.txt

Have a great week,

Dan Albert
Hillel Engagment Intern
Albertds@muohio.edu