Campus Update: Rutgers University

By Ariella Gutin
KOACH Intern

This year the Rutgers Hillel KOACH community has grown and changed by leaps and bounds. Through our Shabbat and social programming, there is something for everyone within our community. But what really became apparent is that what the KOACH community loves to do is bake and eat. Most of the events we did at Rutgers this year revolved around baking/ cooking a special food that corresponded with a Jewish holiday.

We began the year on a sweet and sticky note by making teiglach, a special treat for Rosh Hashanah. This event was followed by the creation of beautiful and yummy hallot, which were baked as a special treat for KOACH Shabbat during our Halloween program, held on Halloween night. As we moved closer to winter break, the KOACH community joined forces with the Reform and Orthodox communities at Rutgers Hillel to plan Chill Fest '08. It was a night for people to relax and "chill out" with finger painting, coloring, guitar hero and Dunkin' Donuts before getting stressed out with studying for finals. It was a night that served as the perfect end to the semester.

As we entered the Spring semester, it was determined that we wanted to have some more Shabbat programming for our community. At Rutgers, the Shabbat experience proved to be more of an important time of the week than the regular social programming that would happen during the week at our Hillel.

We may be in a small building, yet there seems to always be something going on almost every night of the week. In order to balance the regular weekly programming, we started off the semester with a seudah shlishit meal (the traditional third meal on Shabbat following minhah, the afternoon prayer service) during our second weekend back at school. It served to be an important start to the semester.

We then continued with a few more food related activities. The most important event of the semester was our Hamantaschen: KOACH Style event, which took place the Tuesday night before spring break. Since we wouldn't be experiencing Purim at school, the student board of Rutgers Hillel wanted to make sure we were still able to somehow celebrate and observe the holiday as a community. One member of the community suggested the idea to create shalah manot that could then be delivered to residents of a nursing home in the New Brunswick area. In one night we were able to bake more than 200 hamantaschen, consisting of peanut butter, cherry, apricot and others with a mixture of chocolate chips and peanut butter or the works. With the help of the KOACH community, Rutgers Hillel was able to donate more than 80 bags of mishloah manot, which to me was just amazing.

It has been a great year for the Rutgers KOACH community, and even though I will be graduating in May, I can't wait to see the successes that will come in the years to come for our growing and thriving community.

Campus Update: Syracuse University

By Jillian Zarem
KOACH Intern

This past year as a KOACH Intern, I have learned so much, not only about myself, but about Conservative Judaism and its importance in our world today. Syracuse University and KOACH have had an AWESOME year together! Here at SU, we have done so many different types of programs with KOACH. We have eaten, sang, prayed and talked together. It really has been a great year. At the beginning of the year, KOACH co-sponsored Hillel's annual Sushi in the Sukkah, in which we made our own kosher sushi and ate in Hillel's sukkah. We also helped decorate the sukkah and learned about the importance of Sukkot and why we even have a sukkah! The program brought in the largest crowd KOACH at SU has EVER HAD! Later in the semester KOACH hosted an Israeli Film Movie Night, in which we watched the movie, "Halfon Doesn't Answer.” The movie is about three reservists in the Israeli army who can't seem to stay out of trouble. This riotous comedy stars the Hagashash Hachiver trio, a popular comedy team in Israel. Romantic mischief complicates the search for an AWOL soldier, which escalates to a madcap adventure. This was the top-grossing Israeli comedy of all time. It was one of the most successful and FUN programs we've had this year. KOACH has without a doubt been a presence on the SU campus and has helped the university have a successful year! TODAH RABBAH!

[Posted 5/5/08]