Planting Seeds for Brighter Days Ahead: A Note from Adam Lehman
Dear Friends,
With winter break behind us and the spring semester underway on campus, I am feeling renewed by the many opportunities that await us in 2024: the launch of our Hillel International Scholarships, which will award $150,000 to 20 exceptional students; recruitment for Cohort Tet (nine) of our Springboard Fellowship , which we anticipate will be our largest class yet for this marquee early-career Hillel talent program; and the celebrations we’ll be hosting this spring to mark the conclusion of Hillel’s Centennial.
While I and many others feel a great deal of excitement for the new year, we are of course also still feeling the pain and sadness of the ongoing war in Israel and Gaza — feelings that are especially acute after marking both 100 days since the October 7 attack by Hamas and International Holocaust Remembrance Day this month. As we honor the lives of the six million z”l, we also honor the memories of those killed on October 7 and the days since, and find ourselves once again repeating the phrase “Never Again.”
Jewish students also continue to face significant challenges on campus, as we will soon reach 1,000 reported antisemitic incidents at colleges and universities since October 7 — representing more than a seven-fold increase from the year before. We continue to take aggressive steps to address these issues facing Jewish students on campus: through advocacy with university administrations to ensure they are working to address and prevent hostility, intimidation, and discrimination directed at Jewish and Israeli students; through providing opportunities for Jewish students to assess and pursue their legal options, including the Campus Antisemitism Legal Line (CALL); by actively combating and countering the rampant demonization of Israel in student governments, classrooms, and the quad; and through investments in campus Hillels to support the mental health, well-being, and safety of Jewish students.
In addition, Hillel is pursuing several new initiatives this semester, including:
- Launching the Hillel Teach-In Tour to bring diverse and compelling Israel educators and experts to campus in order to provide thoughtful and principled discourse about Israel and its war against Hamas.
- Rapidly expanding participation in our flagship Campus Climate Initiative, from 50 to 80 universities that will be pursuing concrete changes in their policies and practices to address and prevent campus antisemitism.
- Hosting the largest gathering of Jewish student leaders in the world at our Israel Summit next month, bringing together more than 1,000 participants from over 200 campuses throughout the U.S. and Canada to learn from one another and from thought leaders including Natan Sharansky, Sarah Hurwitz, and Yair Rosenberg.
- Working with 75 campus Hillels on campaigns and activities to drive awareness and advocacy in support of the many hostages who remain captive in Gaza. We are promoting the One Minute a Day advocacy campaign, distributing #BringThemHomeNow Freedom Tags, engaging students in #BringThemHomeNow text study, and sharing resources to support “Empty Chair” Shabbats and similar awareness-building demonstrations.
And of course, all of this will be taking place against the backdrop of the critical everyday support provided by Hillel professionals for Jewish students at Hillels around the world to empower, protect, and inspire them in their Jewish and life journeys.
Last week, we celebrated the holiday of Tu B’Shvat, known as the Jewish new year for trees. We celebrate Tu B’Shvat in the heart of winter, which can seem an odd time for a festival of growth and renewal. But it is often the seeds that we plant during our darker moments that can bloom into the trees, flowers, and fruits to follow.
Last night, I had the honor of meeting Shoshan Haran. As someone who survived 51 days as a hostage in Gaza and lost her husband and several other family members during the October 7 massacre in Kibbutz Be’eri, Shoshan has truly seen and lived the darkest moments. At the same time, Shoshan has committed her life to planting seeds for a better future – including as a world-renowned expert on agriculture who, through her NGO Fair Planet, has developed seeds that have dramatically improved the success of farming in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Rwanda. And likewise, through her current efforts advocating for the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza, including her son-in-law Tal Shoham.
May Shoshan’s story and resilience inspire us all to share in her advocacy for the release of the hostages, and to continue planting and supporting seeds through our work on campus that can lead to brighter days ahead.
B’Shalom,
Adam Lehman