Students: Fall Semester Full of Spiritually Uplifting Jewish Programs

Returning university students and incoming freshmen alike have jumped into a semester of Jewish promise at schools across North America.

Pointing to activities ranging from the current crop of High Holiday programs to weekly Shabbat dinners, and 2009 calendars that kicked off with back-to-school barbeques and other massive offerings of food, Jewish collegians say their local Chabad Houses have provided an interesting counterpoint to the decidedly secular atmosphere of university life.

Nachum Raymond, a New York native planning to study nursing at S. Diego State University thousands of miles from home, had “a great time playing volleyball with other students at the welcome back barbeque on the beach” sponsored by Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Chalom and Mairav Boudjnah and their Jewish Student Life of S. Diego. Just weeks later, he found the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services to be just the inspiring combination of prayer and meditative song that he was looking for.

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Roye Ergas, a senior majoring in construction engineering at S. Diego State, agrees, pointing out that Jewish students from all types of backgrounds have made the Chabad House their spiritual home.

“I am drawn back to Chabad every year,” he says. The Boudjnahs “are open, friendly, accepting and welcoming of every single person.”

On campuses large and small, and with Jewish populations ranging from the hundreds to the thousands, Chabad Houses are running a smorgasbord of activities catering to every segment of Jewish student life. Torah classes, challah-baking demonstrations, women’s discussion groups and special gatherings for fraternities and sororities make up a fraction of what any campus has to offer. Through it all, attests Texas A&M University freshman Andrey Malakhovsky, such campus centers nurture students’ pride in their Jewish identities.

“Here, I see people who practice what they believe in, and nobody pressures you to be religious,” explains Malakhovsky, a Russian-Israeli studying electrical engineering who befriended Rabbi Yossi and Manya Lazaroff, co-directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Brazos Valley in College Station. “It makes me want to learn more about Judaism, which is what I am looking forward to this year.”

Rabbi Chalom Boudjnah, left, co-directs Jewish Student Life of S. Diego.

Classes and Discussions

On dozens of campuses, students are looking forward to this semester’s meetings of the Sinai Scholars Society, a joint project of the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute and the Chabad on Campus International Foundation that allows participants to examine the modern applications of Torah law with their local Chabad House staff.

“Sinai Scholars is fascinating, and it is also interesting to hear different peoples’ opinions on Jewish topics,” says Nathan Lipsky, a freshman at the University of Kansas who just started the program. “My favorite part is meeting people and getting to know them by studying Jewish texts together.”

At California State University, Northridge, Chabad House directors Rabbi Chaim Shaul and Raizel Brook say that the overall goal is for students to engage with their heritage.

“Our vision is to reach out to Jewish students on campus who have not been involved, and get them involved,” explains the rabbi.

Brian Polonsky, a liberal studies major at Northridge and the president of its chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi, a traditionally Jewish fraternity, says that the Chabad House has made a special effort to engage students active in Greek life.

“When I first came to college, I’d had little prior affiliation to Judaism,” he says. “Chabad was so open and welcoming.”

Today, Polonsky feels that he can talk to Chaim Shaul Brook about anything. He particularly finds the weekly social and educational events at the Chabad House to be “like a support group for us.”

Indicative of the spiritual needs among many Jewish students, Rabbi Yudi Steiner says that about 40 students at George Washington University signed up for the mezuzah-lending program operated by his Washington, D.C., Chabad House. His wife, Rivky Steiner, likewise says that many female students have been meeting her for coffee.

“We study together and about anything Jewish that they have an interest in,” she explains, “in whatever ways they need to grow and learn.”

“Our purpose for being out here on campus,” echoes Zeesy Greenbaum, co-director since 2007 of the Chabad House serving the College of New Jersey and Ewing, “is to give students a strong Jewish foundation. Just like this week’s Sushi in the Sukkah event, every program of ours is educational with meaning and purpose to it.”

“Chabad has been a very big part of my undergrad experience,” reflects Ben Krupit, a senior majoring in music education at the College of New Jersey, “and I’m so grateful for [the Greenbaums] coming to campus and changing the way I see things.”