Cheesy and Inspiring Engagement Stories
The names of students have been changed to protect the innocent.
Mandy Cohen is a junior, a sorority member, and the leader of a Social Action group on campus. I got her name as a key Jewish leader on campus from another student in her sorority whom I connected with earlier in the year. Mandy accepted a personal invitation to attend the “Campus Leaders Dinner with Avraham Infeld.” During the program, participants engaged in a frank conversation about some intense topics including: holding a Jewish identity in a secular environment and being able to both love and criticize Israel. Following the event, Mandy came up to thank Avraham and I. She said that she had not previously been involved in Hillel because she assumed that there was no place for her. Now she knows that there is. Since this program, Mandy and I have had coffee and created a relationship that will hopefully continue next year.
Hannah Greenberg is a sophomore who was actively involved in Hillel her freshman year. In addition, she is one of the student coordinators of the Camp Kesem project, the largest Tzedek project of the Hillel at Stanford. During the spring quarter, as violence increased in Israel and tensions around the Middle East rose on campus, I noticed Hannah’s discomfort with these events. She came around less often, and at Israel related rallies would observe from the sidelines or uncomfortably participate in the counter protest. Hannah and I went out for coffee and she shared with me her frustrations with the state of Israel and with the reactions she perceived from the Jewish community at large and on campus. I listened, and helped connect her to some other student with the same concerns. These students and I put together a panel entitled, “Disparate Perspectives: An Intra-Jewish Dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” Hannah explained the purpose of this program. “Rallies simplify the issues. We wanted to recomplicate them.” This event not only reengaged Hannah in our community, but also helped her to integrate many other students who also felt isolated.
Annie Mal is a sophomore transfer student from NYU who did not search out connections to Jewish life. In high school, she worked with an organization that brought together Israeli and Palestinian teens for dialogue in the United States. I met her at the first meeting of the Muslim-Arab-Jewish dialogue. After that meeting, Rachel and I had the chance to speak about her experiences at this camp, and hopes for on-going dialogue on campus. Since then, Annie has become one of the key Jewish leaders of the Muslim-Arab-Jewish dialogue, a representative from that group to the Stanford Israel Alliance, and has even come to a few Jewish social events.
Kyle Wiess is a sophomore, African-American History major, who has not found a niche in Hillel. Another student recommended my contacting him when I was talking to them about the possibility of holding Black-Jewish programming. We spoke on the phone once for an extended period and time and then set-up a time to meet for coffee. In this meeting he described his very interesting experiences traveling around Africa and meeting Jewish people there. He then helped me gather a committee of students to plan a program called “The Jews of Africa” which took place in the beginning of November. Though Kyle probably will not get involved in Hillel, we have maintained a relationship through e-mail and casual conversation around campus. He is very interested in generating a Black-Jewish program again next year.
Sam Korman is a sophomore that was not and is still not even on the Hillel e-mail list. We met early in the year at a “Hummus Happy Hour” program in a freshman dorm and chatted for a while. I asked him to coffee, but he kept being too busy. He also never got around to signing up for the frosh retreat. When I came back to his dorm we talked again and I asked him if I could add his name to our e-mail list. He accepted, but removed himself a few days later. I decided not to continue to bother him. In the Spring, when I was out tabling, he stopped by my table just to say “hi” and find out when I’d be coming to his dorm again. He wanted to know if I needed any help this time. So, this is a very different type of success story. For Sam, the dorm program itself was exactly what he was looking for.