The Hillel is a place where students who identify as Jewish can gather, celebrate the holidays and Sabbath, and bond through similar childhoods and experiences within the religion.
AU Hillel runs a program called the Jewish Learning Fellowship where students come together, previously in person and now over Zoom. This semester’s three fellowships are titled “Life’s Big Questions” and “Pursuing Justice” as well as the reoccurring fellowship called “Engaging Israel.”
These three have weekly hour-long sessions led by AU Hillel directors. Within those eight to nine weeks, each has a theme or a question to discuss from a Jewish lens.
With many of these students coming from communities and schools without a Jewish majority, this is one of the first times where they are able to talk about their life experiences.
Each cohort has a range of students from different areas and how they practice their faith. More importantly, the discussions are about similarities within this culture, the students, and how the fellows are who they are because of it.
As a current fellow of the Life’s Big Questions program, the experience has been nothing but positive.
There are 12 other fellows and led by Mollie Feldman, who serves as the Assistant Director and Senior Jewish Educator. Every week she prepares meetings to deepen the students’ understanding of Judaism as a whole and do so in the company of their peers.
Fellows are chosen to read aloud three to five sources taken from the Torah to modern-day interviews of rabbis, current magazines, and popular culture.
The sources help answer this semester’s questions, which are as follows:
Week 1, Feb. 10 | How big is your story?
Week 2, Feb. 17 | What’s a community?
Week 3, Feb. 24 | What’s in a good friend?
Week 4, Mar. 3 | Is #FOMO inevitable?
Week 5, Mar. 10 | Where is home?
Week 6, Mar. 17 | How do we disagree?
Week 7, Mar. 24 | Does intimacy exist? (and do I care?!)
Week 8, Mar. 31 | What’s the cost of believing?
Week 9, Apr. 7 | Where do we go from here?
Even though there are differences in age, grade level, and background, the fellows bond by answering these questions you might not answer by yourself. Additionally, the breakout sessions allow them to connect with students they may have never met or spoken to before.
The experience serves as a break from the chaos of the spring semester and online school, with the reward being dozens of new friendships and a $200 stipend.
If you identify as Jewish and want to meet new people in a COVID-friendly way, the Jewish Learning Fellowships are the perfect place to do so.