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East Coast Kallah Brings Hillel Professionals Together on Issues of Jewish Learning
October 29, 2002Comments (0) | Add | E-mail this to a friendOver 50 Hillel professionals from across the East Coast, including 19 Steinhardt Jewish Campus Service Corps fellows, recently gathered at the Pearlstone Conference Center outside of Baltimore for the Joseph Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Learning's second annual East Coast Kallah. The professionals spent two days engaged in text study, created programs with Jewish content, explored Jewish learning opportunities in the academic calendar, and developed skills such as writing a D'var Torah.
The opening learning session dealt with texts about Chanukah and Thanksgiving. Participants looked at the stories from perspectives they had not seen before. "The Chanukah texts were particularly exciting because they focused on lesser-known aspects of the Chanukah story, such as the story of Judith," said Joanna Mass, Steinhardt JCSC fellow at Syracuse University. Based on their understanding of the texts, participants created programs for Chanukah and Thanksgiving, such as a self-defense class for women and "A Week of Blessings" program.
After workshops on such practical issues such as Friday night programming and Jewish texts for the academic year, Meyerhoff Center Director Rabbi Avi Weinstein led professionals in a provocative discussion of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. "By comparing Dr. Martin Luther King's words with that of the Talmud, we were able to show how contemporary issues can be used in the context of Jewish learning," said Weinstein. "At the end of the discussion we looked at a variety of ways in which Jewish learning can be incorporated into fun activities; among the many ideas we came up with was to do joint programming with African-American students."
The last day of the retreat included a special session for the Steinhardt JCSC fellows on how to engage college students on campus. After the session, the fellows discussed their experiences on campus so far.
The Kallah closed with a text study on how to use Tzedek (social justice) to build community. The director of the Weinberg Tzedek Hillel Initiative, Julie Resler Epstein and the Weinberg Tzedek fellow, Brianne Nadeau, showed how to reach out to students through social justice programming and by creating Tzedek programs inspired by Jewish text.
"It is important to make students understand that as Jews we not only have rights in society, but we also have responsibilities to each other and as members of the community," said Nadeau. Participants were then split up into several target populations -- such as Greek students, Republicans, and environmentally conscious students -- to plan events using the theme of social justice.
There will be a Midwest Kallah on November 11 and 12 at the St. Louis Hillel at Washington University, and a New England Kallah on March 4 at Tufts University Hillel. For more information or to receive text studies and resources from the Kallah visit the Jewish Learning section of Hillel's Web site or contact Elliot Kaplowitz, the Iyyun Fellow at the Schusterman International Center.
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