Campus Update: Northwestern University

By Stefanie Groner

With a full Milton Feldmar Library on Friday night, Lauren Henderson, a Ziegler rabbinical student, joined students to kick off KOACH Shabbat.  The presence of a slightly larger crowd than usually attends our weekly Friday services allowed Northwestern students to feel an added sense of unity and spirituality for this Shabbat. Merrie Aaron led a ruach-filled Kabbalat Shabbat that would have made Carlebach proud. Lauren's d'var Torah gave a preview of the weekend's theme, environmentalism within Judaism. Appropriately, Hillel also celebrated an awesome ECO Shabbat on the same weekend.

On Saturday morning, students had the chance to sit in a fully egalitarian minyan, listen to a full kriyah (reading) of the parashah, and hear a d'var Torah on environmentalism connected to the week's reading. After enjoying a deli lunch (the classic post-services meal), many students stuck around at Hillel, deeply engaged in Bananagrams or Settlers of Catan.  We held a very informal text study with hevruta (partnered-study) sessions on the couches downstairs and went back to the roots of the Jewish relationship to the environment. The Shabbat was a unique, fuller experience than students can receive from just a Friday night service. In addition, KOACH at NU has conducted Shabbat morning services twice during the semester as well as weekly Friday night services.

Just a week before, students gathered around a table to enjoy kosher Chinese food and study with Rabbi David Levy of Jewish Theological Seminary's admissions office as he stopped through Chicago on his college road trip.

We also had an awesome KOACH-sponsored Sushi Social in collaboration with NU Hillel's Social Team. More than 50 students came to Hillel, hand-rolled their own sushi with lox and veggies, and then moved on to sushi-style desserts of fruit roll ups and rice krispie treat-mix with chocolate and sprinkles. Later that week, members of KOACH volunteered with Hillel's Tikun Olam Task Force in order to make hundreds of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches across campus to hand out to local homeless and bring to area soup kitchens and shelters.

While we are so busy with all of our awesome events between now and winter break, we've got big things coming our way in just a few months. Northwestern has been selected to host the annual KOACH Kallah! We are so excited to have the Hillel community welcome more than 100 students from around the continent to our campus from February 24^th-27^th. Hope to see you there!

[Posted 12/7/10]