University of Miami Hillel Student Leader Shares Jewish Journey with Wondering Jews Podcast
Ethan Goetz is a fourth-year student at the University of Miami (UM), where he studies finance. Goetz is also an active student leader at UM Hillel where he founded a Jewish cooking club and a weekly Hillel run club. He serves on Hillel International’s student cabinet and is passionate about lifting up his campus and the international Jewish student community. On a recent episode of Unpacked’s “Wondering Jews with Mijal and Noam” podcast, Goetz sat down with co-host Noam Weissman to talk about Jewish joy, campus life after the October 7th attacks, and what it means to find your people.
Goetz didn’t always plan to get deeply involved in Jewish life at college, but when he was a first-year student, the terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023 changed everything. He sought out comfort and community at Hillel, finding a group of friends and mentors who would transform his college experience.
“October 7th happened when I was a freshman. And that is when Hillel was there for me and all of my friends,” he said. “They were there for me and supported me. And so in my mind, I wanted to support them and be there for them if they ever needed anything.”
What kept him there as time went on was the community.
“The community aspect is second to none,” he said. “To be able to have people to go to services with, to be able to have people to go to Shabbat dinners with, to do events with, to do a run club, to do a cooking club, to do whatever it is that you want to do, to have those people, it starts from there. And then once you have those people, it can only grow. For me, I met my people and we grew into leaders.”
That growth is open to everyone, he added. “You don’t need to be in a leadership position to be a Jewish leader.”
Over 40 minutes of football talk, kugel recipes, and real reflection, Weissman and Goetz covered the arc of Goetz’s Jewish life. It runs from the high school student who was one of four Jewish students in his graduating class in Pittsburgh, to a night under the stars in the Israeli desert where Goetz discovered what Weissman called the pintele Yid, the Jewish spark waiting to be lit. At Hillel, that spark found a home. Goetz arrived looking for a business school and found a community that showed up for him, friends who became leaders alongside him, and a conviction that the Jewish world’s best investment is its next generation.