Category: National Blog

Orthodox students have support on campus, panel says By SHERI SHEFA, Staff Reporter Thursday, 10 December 2009 TORONTO — Jewish student group leaders, rabbis and Orthodox Jewish students held a panel discussion last week to let concerned community members know that there are many opportunities available for Orthodox Jewish students on secular campuses. Toronto’s JLIC director Rabbi Aaron Greenberg, left, and Hillel of Greater Toronto executive director Zac Kaye were two of six panelists talking last week about Orthodox Jewish students attending secular universities. [Sheri Shefa photo] The Orthodox Union’s Heshe and Harriet Seif Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (JLIC), a North American program that helps Orthodox students balance their Jewish upbringing with living in a secular world, in conjunction with Hillel of Greater Toronto, invited parents and university-bound students to Bnei Akiva’s Yeshivat Or Chaim for a lecture titled “Observant Jewish Life on the Secular College Campus.”

Jewish Learning Initiative turns 10 By Michael Orbach Issue of December 4, 2009/ 17 Kislev 5770 To go or not to go is no longer the question. “75 percent of the graduating population of the Modern Orthodox day-schools are not going to YU or Touro,” asserted Rabbi Ilan Haber, director of the Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus. “The issue is not should or shouldn’t they go to secular university — they are going. The issue for us is how to help them make educated decisions to choose a college environment amenable to their growth and how to best serve their needs once they’re in the college environment.” The Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus was founded in 2000. Rabbi Menachem Schrader, then a rebbe at Yeshivat Torat Yosef-Hamivtar in Efrat, realized that yeshivas in Israel were helping students in Israel but students in secular universities back in America had only a limited support system. “It became clear that we were taking students from campuses all over the world, teaching them Torah and then sending them back after a year or two and there was a deep sense I had that we were sending them back to nothing,” said Rabbi Schrader, who is now the director for Nishmat. “Why shouldn’t we try to create a reference of Torah Studies for them to go back to?” In response, Rabbi Schrader came up an idea that he hoped would allow students to continue their Jewish studies. A partnership between the Orthodox Union and the Hillel campus organization placed Orthodox couples on college campuses to supplement Hillel programming. To read the full article, click here.

In an exciting program, OU Kosher has joined with JLI to educate students on many kashrut issues that arise while on campus. The programs have been well attended and students emerged with a better understanding of how to engage with certain kashrut dilemmas that they encounter on a daily basis. Topics discussed on various campuses included what one can order in Starbucks, issues when traveling abroad to Europe, Africa, and Asia, and dealing with grocery store salad bars. It presented an incredible opportunity and forum for students to ask all of their questions about keeping kosher. Among the campuses to participate in this program were UCLA, Princeton, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University, who heard from OU speakers Rabbi Shore, Rabbi Richard Levine, and Rabbi Gershon Segal. "We think the program was fantastic....The presentation was interesting and relevant, and the students asked lots of questions." -Sara Wolkenfeld, JLIC educator at Princeton University. Pictures from the event can be seen in Johns Hopkins' picture gallery or Princeton's picture gallery.

by: Mordechai and Nisa Harris This weekend we spent shabbas as the JLIC fellows in SUNY Albany. The weekend was good and we were able to spend the weekend with a small group of students on campus. There was a North East Chabad on Campus retreat weekend to SUNY Binghamton that pulled a lot of students, as well as poor weather, and Midterms. However, our weekend was very productive. In the absence of the Chabad Rabbi, we really ran the show the whole weekend. We ran davening and gave Divrei Torah, prepared an Oneg Friday night, lead services Shabbos Day, arranged a lunch and learn, had a Seudah Shlishit with Biblio-Drama, and enjoyed a musical Havdalah. We capped the night with a trip to "Where The Wild Things Are" at the local IMAX with Students who were interested in the impromptu trip. All in all, being a smaller shabbas, we were able to enjoy a much more personalized and intense weekend with the students on campus.

Twitter Torah brings the profundity of the Torah to you in 140 character messages based around the weekly Torah portions. The book shares insights from seven unique and thoughtful people. The contributors to this book all come from different places in the Jewish community: traditional and non-traditional, men and women, Jewish professionals and lay members. Cambridge, MA, October 15, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Rabbi Ben Greenberg has brought Judaism and Twitter together in book form by collaborating with six other writers on the publication of "Twitter Torah." Rabbi Greenberg as a campus rabbi of Harvard University and Director of The Seif Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus at Harvard, has extensive experience working with people in "Generation-Y" and recognized that Twitter represented a new way of communication for the next generation. He knew that the thought of the Hebrew Bible needed to find a way to condense itself to 140 characters or less and he took on the challenge of doing so. By dividing his book around the weekly portions of the Hebrew Bible read in synagogues he has made it easily accessible for any reader, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Each thought is condensed to a bullet point of 140 characters or less thereby making each thought qualify to be the shortest sermon in the history of western religion. The book, Twitter Torah, is available for purchase on Lulu.com.

Dvar Torah from Rabbi Menachem Schrader, founding director of JLIC. One of the surprising features of the Six Days of Creation is that Man and land animals share a day of mutual formation. Our own human sense of pride almost begs; don't we deserve a day of our own? Couldn't God have included the land animals with the sea and bird life of the fifth day? Could not things have been divided to provide Man with his one day of creation glory to bask in? Rabenu Nisim of Gerona asks this question, and gives the following answer: The distinction between Man and Animal is not going to be something God will divinely decree. It is a distinction that will have to be made by Man himself. Man does have the spiritual capacity to be on acompletely different plane than his animal neighbors. He also has the potential to ignore that capacity and fit right in with the animal kingdom. Whether Man will be spiritually distinct or not will be decided by his actions. God does not artificially separate Man from the animals. God grants Man the option of distinguishing himself. It is his freedom to decide. The jury on this one is still out.

Dear JLIC community, Rav Chayim Balter, an outstanding talmid chacham and baal midos, and founding donor of JLIC, has been hospitalized at the cardiac unit of Shaarei Tzedek hospital in Jerusalem. Please add him to your prayers for a speedy recovery, Chaim Shlomo ben Rachel.