Several Fridays per semester, a small community of Ursinus students trickles into Yost and spends an evening eating homemade food, talking, and praying. These Shabbat dinners are some of the most important events put on by Ursinus’ branch of the Jewish campus life organization, Hillel, and offer a meal and community to all Ursinus students, Jewish or not.
Every semester, alongside Shabbat, Hillel organizes events to celebrate Jewish holidays and provide community and education to those involved with or interested in Jewish culture. This past semester, these occasions have included a ritual meal for Tu Bishvat, which celebrates the beauty of the natural world; a gift basket-making event for Purim, a holiday which involves giving gifts and retelling the events of the Book of Esther; and a Passover seder, a tradition through which the Jewish story surrounding the Jews’ escape from slavery is passed down to children and newcomers. However, as important as these events are, Kohenet Bekah Starr, Jewish Life Coordinator and Director of Hillel, sees Shabbat dinners as one of the most culturally vital events that Hillel puts together: “There’s a Jewish saying that more than the Jews keep Sabbath, the Sabbath keeps the Jews.”
These meals mark the weekly Jewish day of rest, which falls from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, and provide a regular opportunity for Hillel’s community to gather and socialize. Zach Hassett, ‘25 and Vice President of Hillel, says that, to him, Shabbat dinner, and Hillel at large, mean “[b]eing surrounded by people that are in [his] community.” Especially with the rise in antisemitism in the media, Starr points out the importance of Jewish students having that community: “I’m on the director’s list for Hillels across the world, so I see a lot of [acts of antisemitism] that are happening in other places. I think Ursinus has not been a victim to a lot of those kinds of experiences… That being said, it’s really scary for Jews in the world right now. It’s unfortunate that so many people are so ignorant.” For Jewish students and allies, she offers the following quote from Pirkei Avot, a prominent Jewish text: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”
According to Starr, Ursinus’ chapter of Hillel benefits greatly from its relationship with Hillel International, the overarching organization it’s a part of: “… it’s a really large network and huge resource for us in terms of supporting Jewish students on campus. They have everything from programming ideas of how to engage people in Jewish life [and] interfaith programming. They do a lot of education for Jews in the community, and they’re a really great resource for us.”
When asked about the best opportunity to be introduced to Hillel, Starr cautioned that “things like the high holidays, which [are] Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and Passover… are kind of the big holidays. I would say that those are not the best try points into Judaism because they are large productions, not necessarily deep learning and understanding… [C]oming to things like a Shabbat dinner is probably a good place to enter into it.” Event announcements can be found on Hillel’s Instagram page, @ursinushillel.