Spring has sprung!
Spring has sprung in Oxford but you wouldn’t know it from the freezing cold weather of the last two days of this week. And yet, Spring and the change it brings are certainly on their way at Hillel. If you follow us on our social media channels, you would have noticed that we are hiring an Engagement Director. We will be moving from the position of Director of Jewish Life, which focuses on programmatic development and focusing our work in the coming years on engaging the unengaged Jewish students at Miami University. This new role will work in partnership with our Va’ad Student Leadership, which we are also in the beginning stages of identifying for next year. As a non-profit organization affiliated with a university, we have the unique opportunity to offer students real-time leadership development positions that allows them not only to mentor future Jewish student leaders at Hillel while also developing the programming they want to experience as a Jewish student at Miami but to also build and shape the culture of our organization. This type of leadership position is what sets Hillel apart from a student club on campus. Our student leaders are not only supported and guided by our dynamic Hillel staff and Board of Directors, but they also possess ‘ownership’ over the programmatic vision of Hillel at Miami (and compensated for their work along the way). In the 8 short months I’ve been in this position, I am continually impressed by what a Miami student can take on and accomplish. I look forward to all that is upon us as we enter into the last month of the school year.
As we look forward, our Jewish calendar reminds us also to look behind us and remember all those who paved the way for the ability to live our Jewish lives in 2021. Next week is Genocide Awareness Week and our current student leadership, led by our President, Emily Garforth, are busy organizing the annual reading at The Seal of the names of those Jewish souls who lost their lives in the Holocaust. In a show of the inclusivity we hope to continue with all of our programming, Hillel has partnered with the Sikh Student Association to not only read the names of the victims of the Holocaust but to also read the names of those innocent lives lost to the genocide of the Sikh, Armenian, Rwandan, Bosnia, Cambodia, Rohinga, and Uygur people. It’s an honor to represent these beautiful communities though an honor we wish did not have to exist. Following the reading of the names, which will feature students, faculty, staff, and Hillel Board members, a community of people will walk from the Seal to the Formal Gardens where we will offer prayers for those lives lost.
As we light the candles tonight for Shabbat and say the motzi over our matzah during the last days of Passover, I am struck at the timeliness of celebrating our freedom from slavery only to immediately go into the mourning of the victims of the Holocaust. It’s so “Jewish”--this duality of emotions--the happiness of freedom and the sadness of the loss. May we continue to celebrate but never forget.
Shabbat Shalom,
Whitney
