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| Events and Programs |
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Here are my top 8 programs of the year... Feel free to try them and adapt them to your campuses!
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New Year's Kick-off Meeting:
Rosh Hashanah pizza dinner at USP, one of my small schools. The goal of the program was to get the few Jewish students at this school to meet and mingle. I also took over as advisor for this school from another staff member, so I wanted to meet old and new people alike. I brought kosher pizza, apples, candy, and RH goodie bags for everyone. We met in the main student cafeteria/ hangout for about an hour and a half. It was also 2 days after the World Trade Center bombings so we went around and made an informal Mi Shebeirach by all asking for healing for whoever we wanted. The students then planned where they would meet to walk to Penn for RH services, which helped the kick-off feel of the group, rather than an isolated dinner.
Get Sauced for Rosh Hashanah!
The goal of this program was to meet engagement students on campus, remind already active students that we are here for them this school year. Additionally, I wanted to educate the general campus community that High Holidays are important! I gave out Motts mini applesauce and honey sticks to pretty much anyone who walked by the bell tower during the lunch hours. One birthright student brought the shofar she bought in Jerusalem and blew it near the table.
Eat Dirt, Free Pot, and if You're Lucky, Get a Date!
Tu B'Shevat tabling, at Temple and PU. This was a 3 station table, which I thought was very effective. We had materials for mud pies (eat dirt), dried fruit from the 7 species for Tu B'shevat (get a date), and cute little pots that they could decorate with puffy paint and stickers, and plant parsley in! It was great shock value to say Free Pot on the way to the cafeteria, and it caught students off guard enough to keep their attention to explain Tu B'Shevat. At Temple, there were at least 5 people at the table almost constantly.
Ramen Noshin and Hamentaschen:
Picture this: 40 Greeks, 4 chefs, one funny guy, lots of food. We hosted an Iron Chef competition, based on the TV cooking show, at the AEPi house. We had three students each with their own cooking stations, including prep areas and stove tops, with an MC, Brian Austin, a chef that we work with from Food Services and a local comedian, Steve Miller, as the commentator. The MC presented the contestants with a main ingredient, and they had a certain amount of time to make a dish with the main ingredient as the theme. The comedian made funny remarks and did improv about what was happening "onstage" and engaged the audience throughout the cooking time. The student audience tasted the food, and voted on the best chef, who won a gift certificate to The Striped Bass, a classy Philadelphia restaurant. Admission to the event was canned food, given as mishloach manot to a food pantry, and Purim/ mishloach manot information was posted around the room. This was my Kollker Saxon Hallock Family Grant program for the spring semester.
Take and Bake Party:
This event was planned as an alternative to the traditional non-Jewish ways of celebrating Valentine's Day. The day before V-Day we set up the social lounge of the Johnson-Hardwick dorm with red and white balloons, streamers, confetti, etc., as well as signs in the lobby pointing towards the lounge. The idea of the party was a video/music exchange, where everyone would bring their old music and movies and socialize by swapping them, and also make chocolate chip cookies in the process. I also posted quotes about love from different Jewish perspectives around the room, and the book "The Death of Cupid" which was sent to me by the Jewish Literacy Foundation was available for free for students, on the condition that they would read it. A diverse group of students attended this event, and it turned out to be a nice mixer for the residents of the dorm.
Alternative Spring Break:
This week long alternative spring break trip included environmental service, Jewish learning, and recreation. The purpose of this program was to engage Jewish students in Tikun Olam in the form of environmental service. We were involved in clearing and building trails, planting trees, taking a part a bridge and rebuilding it so that it will be safer, and other restoration activities. American University, George Mason University, eight students from our Philly Multi-Campus center, and the Universities of North Carolina, South Florida and Virginia came together for a phenomenal week in the woods. Forty students were able to build relationships with each other, with nature, and with their own sense of Judaism.
To plan this program, six JCSCs divided the work into categories including food, prayer, cabin decorations, packing list, web site creation and daily Jewish learning sessions. Each JCSC planned the Jewish learning for one of the days of the trip, and the JCSC was charged with leading or co-leading their program with a scholar in residence. The sessions revolved around the topics of tearing down and building up, Judaism and the environment, biodiversity, tikkun olam/repair of the world, fate, and Sabbaticals (shmitah and yuval years). Due to the timing of this event, a Rosh Chodesh activity was included on Thursday evening and both men and women participated. Over 20 students read Torah on Saturday morning at the service, and every participant spoke about their experiences at Havdalah, our final group program. A Jewish learning library was also available at the staff cabin for students to explore books relating to Judaism and nature. The Hillel International Center played a pivotal role in both the pre-trip planning and facilitating of this experience. Rabbi Manewith, Director of Shearim-Gateways Initiative and Hannah Graham, the Iyyun Fellow worked with the JCSCs on the Jewish learning sessions, prayer, Rosh Chodesh, and Shabbat plans. Rachel Weiss, the Tzedek Fellow, worked with the group on the service aspect of the trip including follow up service activities. Both fellows were able to come on the trip for a day to serve as scholars in residence along with Hillel Director of the Department of Jewish Student Life Andrea Hoffman, Philadelphia Program Director Ken Krivitzky, and George Mason Director Scott Bailey.
L'Chaim- To Life! RENT trip:
This event was dreamed up at during the dreary winter months and implemented on a beautiful spring Sunday afternoon. I was able to get 20 tickets to see the musical RENT on Broadway for a group rate, so I took 19 students by way of New Jersey Transit to the Big Apple for the day. This was a first-come, first-serve program because of the limited number of tickets. In any case, students from four of our campuses met up at 30th Street Station. We first took the train from Penn Station to the Lower East Side and ate dinner at the famous 2nd Ave. Deli, and basically ran back to the subway to make it in time for the show. After the performance, everyone was on a high, and after a quick walk to the center of Times Square, we headed back to Philadelphia and got to the train station around 1am. This event was successful particularly because many of our students are very home-based, and have barely gotten out of Philadelphia. For many of them in was their first time in New York and they were like kids in a candy store!
Shabbaton: A Weekend in the Garden of Eden
For most of the students that we reach in our normal programming, spending Shabbat, or any time at all, with 30 other Jewish students, is a Garden of Eden in itself. This weekend retreat was designed to provide students with an opportunity to come together for a Shabbat focused on Jewish learning, spiritual growth, and community building. With our scholar-in- residence Rabbi Avi Weinstein, Director of International Hillel's Meyerhoff Center, we framed our spiritual journey with three major learning sessions designed by a small student committee and myself. By using traditional texts and modern insights, this was be a unique learning experience that helped the participants integrate the richness of the Jewish tradition into their lives as college students. In addition, we took a social night out in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. This amazing program took many months to prepare, and every staff member had a role in the process. We also won a Student Initiatives Grant for the Shabbaton, which I also helped to write.
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2002- 2003 EVENTS
PITA Shabbat Dinner. Israel at Heart is a program through Hillel International that brings post-army young Israelis to college campuses across the country. Since Multi-Campus and Penn Hillels try to share resources, HGP brought three Israelis to Philly for about 3 days. Yehudit, one of our leaders of the Pro-Israel Temple Alliance (PITA), started this year, hosted a Shabbat dinner in her apartment for this program. With kosher Chinese food and about twenty students, we provided a great forum for Jewish students with different levels of knowledge about Israel to ask questions and increase their passion for the subject. Many students at this dinner became regulars at Israel activities throughout the year. I highly recommend bring Israel at Heart back to Temples campus in the future.
JOBS mentoring program. The five Philly fellows from JHP and Hillel were asked to take the reigns on a Jewish career fair/ speed-mentoring event. At this program, about 20 prominent Jewish professionals were asked to present their careers and have informal conversations with area college students about the intricacies of their chosen job. This was set up speed-dating style, where each student could meet in small groups with 5 different Jewish professionals. This event was geared to both engagement and empowerment students, giving them a glimpse of the glory (!!) of working in the Jewish community. In addition to planning the program, I was also asked to be the representative of working for Hillel, which gave me a chance to talk with students about the JCSC Fellowship.
Members of the Tribe. Over the last two years, I made it a point (but not quite a target group) to find students who were interested in the performing arts and give them unique opportunities to experience them. A friend of mine from camp was in an off-Broadway play about a rabbi teaching a conversion class and a gay man taking the class who became friends. Because the show was in NYC almost immediately after Shabbat ended, it was co-sponsored by the Reform community and S-FLAG, Temples student friends of lesbians and gays group, started by a student active in Hillel. The twenty of us arrived in NYC in time to make Havdalah outside the theater, and I arranged for a talk-back for our group after the show where the students could ask questions. This program was a meaningful blend of interests for my students, who were very in touch with their sexuality as well as how their Judaism interacts with their romantic lives, as well as a chance for a nice-sized group to get out of Philadelphia and experience New York together.
Latkes and Lagers: Greek Chanukah Shabbat Happy Hour. Along with our Jewish Greek Network intern, I planned a Happy Hour/ Kabbalat Shabbat for all the closet Jews in Temples Greek system. We sent invitations to every Greek house, inviting both Jews and non-Jews to schmooze, light candles, and eat latkes. Unfortunately, our intern didnt really hold up her end of the bargain, which was to personally invite all her Jewish friends in the different houses, so it ended up being mostly AEPi and AEPhi. Still, the concept was cute enough to make it into this yearbook.
Ski trip- Every year, Multi-Campus Hillel organizes a huge ski trip to the Poconos. This January, we reached many engagement students from Temple. This was a prime time for engagement: I made a point to ride the chair lifts with as many new students as possible. This bonding that happened on this day set the tone for me to develop many relationships with engagement students all over campus for the rest of the semester.
Panim I found out about this educational program based out of Yeshiva University Outreach department at Staff Conference. Panim is a program run by Jason Finkelstein that consists of YU students who travel to different Hillels over Shabbat to lead informal group discussions on a variety of scintillating topics in Judaism. The two topics that we discussed over the weekend they came to Temple were Jewish Sexual Ethics and Jews in the Public Eye. Many students who usually leave right after Shabbat dinner took part in their first in-depth discussion on Jewish subject matter for a few hours on Friday night, and many came back for our only Shabbat lunch of the semester to continue the dialogue that had been started the night before. It was a beautiful sight to see Panim and Hillel students interacting in very meaningful ways all over our living room, late into the evening.
ASB The JCSCs from 6 different Hillels organized a joint Alternative Spring Break program to Bladen County, North Carolina for about 45 students. The goal of this program was to provide our students with a culturally educational experience by exposing them to and teaching them about life in an economically disadvantaged area. We were able to create a welcoming and comfortable community for all, not limited to religious observance or meeting new people, but also encompassing a meaningful service component. Students volunteered their time and energy to the North Carolina State Park system and to Bladen Lakes Elementary School in order to enhance their relationships with the natural environment and build interpersonal relationships with the local students and teachers. I brought 9 students from Philly, including Temple, Penn State Abington and U. Penn, who were a mixture of engagement and empowerment students. It was clear to all the participants and staff of ASB that the Philly students were the most open and welcoming as well as the most willing to take leadership.
Aleph Bet Yoga- Knowing that the fitness center was two floors below the Hillel office in the West Chester student center, I decided to capitalize on the fact that WCU students are very health and body conscious. I had received a catalog from Jewish Lights Publishing, and looking through it, noticed a new book called Aleph-Bet Yoga. Immediately I felt a program come to fruition. I ordered the book and planned the program for the day after it would be shipped to Hillel. Sure enough, a few girls came to the program and really enjoyed themselves as we stretched our bodies and added a spiritual element of Kabbalah to the Hebrew letters into which we were imitating with our yoga poses. Most of the participants said the experience brought them back to other positive Jewish experiences in their lives, like camp, their Bnot Mitzvah and a few fleeting moments in Hebrew school. I definitely recommend trying this program over a longer time period and working with the fitness program to advertise.
Jew Walking - What is a bris? Do you have any stereotypes of Jews? These are some of the questions that Temple University students were asked during the week of Jew-Walking. Modeled after Jay Lenos Jay Walking segment, this Kollker-Hallock-Saxon grant was designed to engage communications (journalism and film) majors at Temple. These students were the camera, reporting and editing crews, therefore making them the face of the program as we walk around campus. Although film, broadcast journalism, and communications are very popular majors for Jewish students, this was the pioneering engagement effort to specifically target this area of campus. Our success was amplified because of this peer-to-peer connection, as well our probability of meeting new Jewish students. We video -interviewed over 100 students across campus, including many engagement students, and asked them questions on different Jewish topics. The entire program revolved around Jewish literacy. Students who were not educated on Jewish subjects were engaged in conversation about the questions they were asked after the camera was turned off. Students who had strong Judaic backgrounds were given a chance to showcase their knowledge in a positive and fun medium.Every interviewee received a keychain that says, I Survived Jew-Walking! with Hillels information and the screening dates on the back. The project culminated with a screening party during finals week in the Journalism/ Film building, with an attendance of almost 50 people.
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