for college students by college students
May 24, 2018/10 Sivan 5778
New
Studying
Jewish Learning
Fellowship
offers new friends,
knowledge.
Safe Haven
After dad’s tragic death,
Hillel, JFS offer solace.
Molly Rott } jewish@edu writer
A
bout 3½ years ago, there was a
huge flood in Huntington Woods
and surrounding communities. It
rained for days and days, and for us the rain
didn’t end when the weather cleared. My
father was missing. He was found in his car.
He had passed away.
People from all over were coming into
houses like ours to help with the clean up
as we recovered from the standing water in
our homes. Everything we owned was float-
ing. And, while the clean-up efforts were a
huge help to recovering the material items
that we lost, we had lost something much
more important.
A representative from Jewish Family
Service was the first person to reach out to
me and my family to see if there was any-
thing they could do for us. They were amaz-
ing. Even now they continue to help. They
have provided us with resources that we
might not have had otherwise. While this is
secondary to having lost a father, husband,
brother and son because it cannot bring
him back, it was and is such a big help.
At the same time, Hillel of Metro Detroit
was also there for me, a bright light in my
life and the lives of so many students in
our community. Because of the people at
Hillel of Metro Detroit, I was back to school
within weeks of this devastating time in my
life. I knew it was a safe place if I needed to
come and talk or cry. It was through Hillel
of Metro Detroit that I met another student,
Manny Cohen, the man I will soon marry.
96
May 24 • 2018
jn
ABOVE: Molly and Leslie with their
parents, Neal and Susan. TOP: A year
after her father died, Molly wrote him
this letter; she continues to write him.
Because of the people at
Hillel of Metro Detroit, I
was back to school within
weeks of this devastating
time in my life.
The fact that there was a community for
me to be with, was really, really important
for me to continue my life, to move on and
to go back to school. The strength and sup-
port of Jewish Family Service and Hillel of
Metro Detroit made all the difference. @
Molly Rott graduated from Wayne State University
last year and is in the Physician Assistant Program
at University of Detroit-Mercy. Molly and Manny
are getting married this summer and will live in Oak
Park
Eden Sittsamer
jewish@edu writer
I
f you asked me what an aver-
age weekday night at Michigan
State University looked like, I’d
say you could find most students
preparing for upcoming exams,
completing pages of assigned
reading or studying for classes.
This year, some of us spent our
Monday nights doing a different
kind of studying.
Over the past two semesters,
nearly 30 students participated
in MSU Hillel’s Jewish Learning
Fellowship (JLF), a 10-week pro-
gram that dove deeply into many
topics found in Jewish texts.
The course, titled “Life’s Big
Questions,” was led by two co-
educators, Rabbi Becca Walker
and Nate Strauss, and utilized
large group discussions, chavruta
learning and individual reflection to
help students connect Jewish val-
ues and concepts to their every-
day college lives.
Each semester, a new cohort of
students joins the program.
As one of two JLF interns, I
helped facilitate discussions and
also helped students process
material and ask questions in a
more individual setting. Through
peer-to-peer coffee dates, my
co-intern and I developed rela-
tionships with our predominantly
freshmen cohort, helping them
connect to Judaism through text,
but also to connect to the MSU
Jewish community.
Each JLF session is carefully
crafted and structured to ensure
participants feel a genuine con-
nection to the material. Each
session is paired with a social
dinner for students to interact and
connect. After dinner, students
read each text, and then dis-
Eden Sittsamer and Lexie Kay
at the JLF retreat
cussed everything as a group to
better understand the highlighted
concept. For me, JLF sessions
never felt like a class because we
focused on discussion and under-
standing. This style of education
was new to me, and I found it
beneficial and refreshing.
The Jewish Learning Fellowship,
founded in 2007 at New York
University’s Bronfman Center
for Jewish Student Life, has
expanded to more than 20 cam-
puses nationwide. It is housed
within Hillel International’s Office of
Innovation, which handpicks each
new campus, sends a staffer to
train the co-educators, and pro-
vides materials and support.
This January, Hillel International
took JLF to the next level by host-
ing a National JLF Alumni Winter
Retreat. This weekend brought
JLF interns and students together
at the Isabella Freedman Jewish
Retreat center in Falls Village,
Ct. I attended with Lexie Kay, an
alumna of our fall 2018 cohort.
Over the weekend, we made new
friends from college campuses
across the country while expand-
ing our understanding of Judaism
and strengthening our sense of
Jewish community.
Looking back on this academic
year, I could not have imagined
my JLF experience to be any bet-
ter. I have made 30 new friends
who I would not have interacted
with on such a personal level in
any other program or class. I look
forward to seeing the impact of
JFL at MSU next year and in the
years to come. @
Eden Sittsamer of Farmington Hills is a junior
at Michigan State University.