Hillel provides James Madison U. Jewish students a social outlet

James Madison U., Harrisonburg, VA, Nov 10, 2008 (The Breeze/UWire via COMTEX) -- JMLCA | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- As a rising college freshman, Matt Wolf searched for a school with a strong Jewish community.

"Judaism is a big part of my life and I knew I wanted to be actively involved in a Jewish organization, and when I got here, Hillel was that organization," the senior computer information systems major said.

Wolf, now a senior and president of Hillel, started as the Jewish organization's publicity chair during his freshman year, then became president at the beginning of his sophomore year.

Wolf recgonizes that there should be a balance between religion and one's social life, which is reflected in the religious and social programming that Hillel has throughout the school year.

"One of the things about being Jewish is you're going to be Jewish your whole life, and you really only have one four-year stretch to do other things," Wolf said.

Some of those things are trips to King's Dominion, D-Hall dinners, Superbowl-watching parties and summer kickball on the Quad, all sponsored by Hillel.

Alpha Epsilon Pi, James Madison University's Jewish fraternity, co-hosts events such as the Superbowl parties and Buffalo Wild Wings wing nights with Hillel.

"They've been coming out to a lot of events and bringing other people so they've helped us grow and we help them grow," Wolf said. "From the onset, we talked about growing together and that's something we've been working toward: a symbiotic relationship."

The executive board does a lot of planning for the social programs, and the executive members try to vary events on different days of the week to allow everyone an opportunity to attend.

When Wolf first became part of Hillel, member attendance was much less, but he said the group has recently done a great job getting more people involved and active in Hillel. This is the first year Hillel has had a thorough plan for attracting new members during the first couple of weeks of the fall semester.

"We do a lot of freshman recruitment, but we also try to make sure that people who are juniors and sophomores and seniors come back," Wolf said.

A newly formed Facebook group and a revamped Web site, www.jmuhillel.org, helps Hillel recruit new members.

The Hillel executive board, not only plans social events, but events throughout the year in order to observe the different religious holidays of the Jewish faith. One of the centerpieces of Hillel's celebration is a monthly Shabbat, which means 'Sabbath' in Hebrew.

The Shabbat dinner is typically held at someone's house or apartment, where prayers are recited, the challah, or braided bread, is broken and typically 20 to 30 members socialize while sharing a meal. Hillel members pick up on-campus students at a central location for the event.

Shabbat is just one of the many celebrations Jews observe. Rabbi Joe Blair, who leads the members of Beth El Congregation, the local Jewish synagogue located on Old Furnace Road, spoke at one of the panel discussions during the Interfaith Days of Awareness in October on the other Jewish holidays. Among the discussion were the two high holy days, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur is the most important holiday, a period of 25-hour fasting as a manner of asking for forgiveness.

Rabbi Blair also spoke about other religious holidays like Passover or Pesach. According to Rabbi Blair, Passover is "the telling and the celebration of the exodus out of Egypt."Passover is a highly symbolic meal, full of foods like matzah, or unleavened bread, that signify the Jews' freedom from a 400-year period of slavery.

"Jews have a tendency to try to live out the theme of the holiday in what we eat," Rabbi Blair said.Every April, Hillel hosts an Interfaith Passover Seder with Catholic Campus Ministry at the CCM house on South Main Street.

Hillel is making an effort to collectively attend more synagogue services on Friday evenings, which is considered the Jewish Sabbath at Beth El Congregation.In the past, Hillel has gone to Beth El primarily on Jewish holidays, but the group is focusing on cultivating a closer association with the temple.

"One thing we want to do in the future is have a stronger relationship with them, and be able to do more things with them," Wolf said.

One of those things is helping lead services, which the temple has invited anyone from Hillel to do. But going to temple isn't all that the Jewish religion entails. Judaism and the Jewish culture go hand-in-hand, and Hillel is all about joining these two spectrums.

"Our mission is to make sure that everyone feels comfortable and everyone can go to an event and have a great time regardless of how spiritual or cultural they are," Wolf said.

In Hillel, the different forms of Judaism -- Orthodox, Conservative and Reform -- are apparent, but Wolf said most of the members are part of the Reform group.

"We say that Judaism is not monolithic; there are different groups in Judaism," Blair said. "The distinction is that rather than being divided... on issues of theological difference, they are separated more on issues of practices or level of observance. The more strictly you observe, the more you fall into one end of that spectrum of observance, and the more you align with one of those groups."

One of the biggest challenges Hillel faces is getting people to realize that while at its core, Hillel is a religious group, but its members are more about having a great social community where Jews can come together and feel like they belong, according to Wolf.

Hillel tries to make its members feel welcome by holding an assortment of social events throughout the school year. Even though Hillel has been an organization at JMU since the 1970s, Wolf still sees the organization as a glorified work-in-progress.

"I feel like we're doing a great job at what we've been doing, and there's a lot more we can do," Wolf said. "It's an amazing thing to see, to look back to when I got here, and to see it now, and see where we are."

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