Posted by David Meyer on 3/11/2010 3:27:00 PM
Hip-hop duo Axum is spending the semester at Emory Hillel as part of the Schusterman Visiting Artist Program, in which Hillels across the country host artists from Israel.
Gilor Yehuda and Reuben Aragai — who perform as Judah and Tedross, respectively — blend Ethiopian and Middle Eastern sounds with Israeli-style hip-hop and reggae. As artists-in-residence, they run various workshops and public concerts meant to engage Jews and non-Jews at Emory and all of greater Atlanta. These include a Multicultural Seder, a discussion on diversity, a “Dumming-Up iFest,” a workshop on entrepreneurship, and a slam poetry jam.
On Saturday night March 6, Axum performed at the Apache Cafe with Athens, Georgia-based reggae band Dubconcious. The show was a huge success, drawing a crowd of about 150 people. According to Emory Hillel director Michael Rabkin, “There were Dubconscious fans who heard about it from a jam band website, members of the Black-Jewish coalition of the Atlanta chapter of the American Jewish Committee, college students, Jewish Federation YLC members, Limmud participants, and more.”
According to Rabkin, the band is beginning to develop connections with local Atlanta rappers. “In fact, the guys told me after the show that it felt just like being at home. They felt the love from Atlanta!” Rabkin says.
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Arts and Culture Campus Life Israel Education News)
Posted by David Meyer on 3/11/2010 3:25:00 PM
Under-the-weather students at the University of Minnesota no longer have to wait out their sickness without their parents’ warm, tasty soup. Hillel at the University of Minnesota has begun an initiative to provide students across campus with a free bowl of soup upon request.
All parents and students have to do is email SoupforU@ujews.com and they’ll have a bowl of soup delivered within two days. In addition to soup, students will receive a get well card, a booklet of jokes (because laughter is the best medicine), tea and honey to soothe their throats, vitamin water to replenish electrolytes, and tips on how to fight the common cold and flu from Boynton Health Center on campus.
According to Executive Director Sarah Routman: “Hillel created Soup for U because we’re not just a Jewish center; we’re a Jewish community center. We take pride in our positive interaction with all university students, faculty, and staff. Our students remind us every year that it can be a challenge to adjust to a new life on campus and a struggle to get through the stress of finals, roommate drama, or the dreary winter months. Soup for U is a direct result of these concerns. Sometimes, a bowl of steaming, hot soup and a friendly face can make all the difference!”
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Campus Life Student Programs)
Posted by David Meyer on 3/11/2010 3:23:00 PM
Students across the country are spending their spring break on service projects organized through Hillel.
Hillel has partnered with City Year to create weeklong service programs in Los Angeles, New York, and Miami in which students from over 25 campuses provide assistance to at-risk communities. You can read more about it on the Hillel-City Year blog.
Jewish students are also doing service work down in New Orleans, helping the rebuilding process that has been on-going since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Read more about it at the Hillel New Orleans blog.
But Jewish service projects are not restricted to cities. This year, Penn Hillel is sponsoring, along with the Jewish Farm School, an alternative break at the Terra Miguel Farm in Pauma Valley, CA in which students learn about sustainability, environmentalism, and their connection to Judaism. Read more about it here.
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Alternative Break Student Programs Tzedek-Social Justice)
Posted by David Meyer on 3/11/2010 11:18:00 AM
Westboro Baptist Church brought its message of hate and intolerance to four Richmond, Virginia institutions on March 2, including Hillel of Richmond. Local students took a stand against the group’s message and held an anti-hate rally on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University.
While counter protests were held across the city, the students did not want to give any press or attention to the church, and instead decided to hold a separate event altogether. “They didn’t want to give WBC the press they were seeking and they didn’t want to counter-protest at any of the locations,” says Hillel of Richmond Director KB Levin. “AEPi, AEPhi, and Hillel decided to hold an anti-hate rally in the VCU Commons Plaza at the same time that the WBC people planned to protest Hillel at the JCC.”
More than 350 people from all walks of life attended the rally and heard from a variety of speakers on unity and diversity. More information on the Westboro Baptist Church’s protests in Richmond can be found here.
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Campus Life Tzedek-Social Justice)
Posted by Anonymous on 3/9/2010 4:31:00 PM
After nearly six years at the helm of GW Hillel, Dr. Robert Fishman announced last week that he plans to leave his position as director in August to focus on fundraising for the organization.
Many members of GW's Jewish community said they consider Fishman - who they call "Rob" - a mentor who has profoundly impacted their lives and shaped their college experiences.
"Rob created a warm, vibrant and diverse Jewish community that, after four years at GW, became my family," senior Eric Gallagher said. "It was Rob that encouraged me to go to Israel with Hillel my freshman year. I took his advice and I've been back five times since. Rob played an instrumental role in my development of a positive Jewish identity."
(From the GW Hatchet.)
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Campus Life)
Posted by Anonymous on 3/9/2010 4:06:00 PM
Hillel Israel's alumni association has created a new Kehillat haBogrim – a community of graduates that meets together to share new Hillel-style experiences and continue to promote Hillel's goals.
In early March, Kehillat haBogrim met in Tel Aviv's Neve Tzedek neighborhood for a Purim celebration that included an optional, free-style megillah reading. Participants took turns reading parts of the megillah, emphasizing whatever part of the story they found particularly relevant. The group discussed what Hillel means to them and what they'd like to continue doing together, to build a young community of post-university Israelis who share a common vision.
After the "free-style" megillah reading, the Hillel group joined a general Purim party of about 400 young people in two adjacent pubs, celebrating the holiday with live music and dancing in both venues plus the courtyard in between.
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Holidays Hillel in Israel)
Posted by Jodi Kushins on 3/1/2010 4:49:00 PM
Ohio Wesleyan University
Last week, Jewish students from the Small & Mighty Ohio Wesleyan Hillel hosted Hamantaschen for Haiti: A Bake Sale. Through the event, we taught our classmates and colleagues about Purim and fulfilled the mitzvah of doing community service in honor of Queen Esther's heroic actions. We sold about 200 Hamantaschen and raised $176 for American Jewish World Services efforts in Haiti
You can read all about it at
OWUJew.
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Campus Life Holidays Tzedek-Social Justice)
Posted by Anonymous on 2/11/2010 4:13:00 PM
Ohio Wesleyan University
Hillel condemns the outrageous efforts of anti-Israel students at University of California, Irvine to prevent Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren from speaking on campus during an event that was co-sponsored by Hillel of Orange County. The appearance of Amb. Oren on campus could have been an opportunity for students and community members to dialogue with an internationally renowned diplomat as well as to foster understanding and cooperation. Instead, the ill-conceived verbal attack on Amb. Oren was an egregious assault on freedom of expression that undermined the foundation of the academic enterprise.
Hillel thanks Amb. Oren for sharing his insights with students at Irvine and for the dignity with which he represented Israel and the Jewish people. We join with UC Irvine President Michael Drake and other faculty members who have denounced this incident as intolerant and intolerable.
Hillel expresses its support for the staff and student leaders of Hillel of Orange County who helped to plan this event and who are now working to heal one another and the campus.
"Hillel refuses to be deterred in our efforts to bring responsible pro-Israel voices to campus, despite verbal abuse and intimidation," says Hillel President Wayne L. Firestone. "We believe that freedom of expression is Israel’s best ally: In the free marketplace of ideas, Israel’s case will carry the day."
The incident took place on February 8, when Amb. Oren was forced to interrupt his address and leave the stage by hecklers. Eleven demonstrators were removed from the auditorium and detained by police. Press accounts indicate that the disruptions were planned by anti-Israel student groups on campus.
Orange County Hillel serves 300 Jewish students each year at UC Irvine alone. This year they won the "Vision and Values Award for Development" from Hillel, opened a new student center, and have grown their budget by nearly 10 percent. Orange County Hillel has worked hard to ensure that students are equipped to deal with anti-Israel activism. They have the benefit of a full-time Israel fellow who has worked extensively with an active pro-Israel advocacy group, Anteaters for Israel, which offers weekly advocacy trainings, student retreats and much more.
Accounts of this incident were published in the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, Jerusalem Post, and Ynet.
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Campus Life Israel Education News Newsmakers)
Posted by Anonymous on 2/5/2010 3:02:00 PM
Ohio Wesleyan University
By Douglas J. Guth
Senior Staff Reporter, Cleveland Jewish News
Published: Friday, February 5, 2010 11:29 AM EST
The common room of the Cohn Jewish Student Center, home of Hillel at Kent State University, is a beehive of activity Jan. 22, the first Shabbat of the new year. About 60 students, some in jeans and sweatshirts, some in sports jackets or blouses, and some sporting kipot, talk and laugh boisterously with their friends. But all become respectfully quiet when it’s time to light the Shabbat candles.
Busy scenes like this have become the norm at Kent Hillel since the Jewish student organization opened its $3.2 million on-campus facility last February. The sprawling, white 11,000 square-foot residential-style facility features WiFi-friendly student recreation areas, large meeting rooms for community gatherings, a laundromat, and the only commercial-sized kosher kitchen in Portage County.
Both students and HIllel officials maintain that while success has come with its own set of challenges, Jewish life at Kent has taken a noticeable turn for the better with a state-of-the-art home as its centerpiece.
Read more>>>
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Campus Life Jewish Life Student Programs)
Posted by Anonymous on 2/1/2010 4:56:00 PM
Ohio Wesleyan University
Launching a university where any academically qualified person could get an education was a radical idea in 1865, said Cornell University Archivist Elaine Engst, MA '72. In contrast to other universities at the time, A.D. White and Ezra Cornell wanted Cornell to be "aggressively non-sectarian," open to all regardless of religion, race, gender or ability to pay.
Yet at times during the university's early years, blacks and Jews who enrolled at Cornell often found closed doors at fraternities and sororities, added Carol Kammen, Tompkins County historian.
Engst and Kammen were featured speakers at "Part and Apart: Black and Jewish Students at Cornell, 1869-1969," a Jan. 26 lecture at the UJA Federation in New York City, part of the Cornell on the Road series. Using archival photographs, school documents and personal manuscripts from Cornell Library, Engst and Kammen stitched together personal accounts of early Jewish and black students to a capacity crowd of more than 100 alumni and friends.
"Both of our founders had wonderfully liberal ideas about how our institution would be run," said Kammen. However, "institutions are as imperfect as society; they reflect the people and times in which they exist."
Read more in the Cornell Chronicle.
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