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First-Year Students at Wellesley College Unite for Special Shabbat
June 21, 2005Comments (1) | Add | E-mail this to a friendBy Nellie Krentzman
Recruiting and retaining Jewish first-year college students at Hillel is always one of the most challenging and exciting jobs of Hillel professionals during the fall semester. Wellesley College Hillel Program Associate Nellie Krentzman was pleased with the number of first-year students who became involved in Hillel during the fall semester, but she knew there were more students who would benefit from Hillel programming. Working closely with First-Year Student Coordinator Elizabeth Schlesinger, she developed a special Shabbat program last month for first-year students that would engage uninvolved students and allow those who were already active in Hillel to show their appreciation to the other students.
For almost a month before the big event, a group of Jewish first-years, some already involved and some becoming involved with Hillel for the first time, came together with Krentzman, Schlesinger and Wellesley College Hillel Rabbinic Intern Elaine Pollack to plan the Friday-night Shabbat service and dinner program. The students decided on how the service would be run, the menu for the dinner and the discussion topic for the evening.
Before the service, the first-years ran a discussion focused on the parsha (Torah portion) of the week for both first-years and upperclasswomen. Another highlight of the discussion time was the kosher organic goat cheese appetizer some of the first-years had made from scratch earlier that day. The first-year students then led a lovely service, followed by a beautiful, home-cooked dinner. It was a wonderful evening that brought the Wellesley Hillel students even closer together and enabled the first-years to get involved and show their appreciation and skills to the entire Hillel community.
"I was a little intimidated by the idea of running a Shabbat. I'm Jewish because my mom's Jewish, and we never did anything more Jewish than light candles for Chanukah and have matzos for Passover. The first-year Shabbat made the getting-involved part a lot easier because it was designed especially for people like me," first-year student Stephanie De Groo said after the event.
"First-year Shabbat was so successful because we were able to shape the service to make it an inclusive, special experience to welcome and involve the first-years into Shabbat and Hillel at Wellesley," agreed first-year student Talia Schatz.
Nellie Krentzman is a program associate at Wellesley College Hillel.
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