Monday, September 7, 4:30 – 7:00 PM, IFC: JUST JEW IT - Learn anything and everything you want to know about Judaism, the cultural, social, and religious side of it.
Tuesday, September 8, 3:00 – 5:00 PM, COMMONS (in front of au bon pain): CAFÉ HILLEL.
Wednesday, September 9, 5:00 – 8:00 PM, GAME ROOM: GAME NIGHT - Play games, meet new people, and have fun.
Sunday, August 30, 5–9 PM, Erickson Field: FRISBERRIES — get some fresh berries and whipped cream and toss around a frisbee as you connect and reconnect with first year students and returning students.
Monday, August 31, 11 AM–3 PM, Erickson Field: FIELD DAY—(for returning students) play some field games like capture the flag and kickball.
Tuesday, September 1, 9 AM–4 PM, Commons Breezeway: MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL . Enjoy some milk & cookies and have a silly picture taken on your first day.
Tuesday, September 1, 9 PM, Interfaith Center: MOVIE NIGHT—bring some ice cream from the Commons and watch a movie with us.
Wednesday, September 2, 3–6 PM, Interfaith Center: CAFÉ HILLEL—have some coffee, tea, and cookies and TIE-DYE a t-shirt.
Thursday, September 3, 5–9 PM, Harbor Courtyard, HOOKAHNIGHT- Come and Enjoy an assortment of tea, pita, humus, and hookah.
Friday, September 4, 6 PM, Interfaith Center: SHABBAT CELEBRATION. Services at 6 followed by free dinner at 6:45. Come for either or both. Shabbat events continue on Saturday like last week—and next week . . . .
* The interfaith Center is located between Susquehanna and Chesapeake halls
Quadmania, one of UMBC’s longest running traditions, is an outdoor festival and concert – usually one or more days filled with rides, games, food, vendors, student organizations, and fun! The event also features live music throughout the day, wrapping up with a concert by a national headlining band.
UMBC Hillel would table during the festival on Saturday, April 18th (12-4PM).
Come to help us out, eat cookies and hang out together!
Tthis is YOUR WEEKEND, and nobody is going to stop you from loving every second of it! Email Luanna for more info
Let’s face it, Matzah pizza is maybe the most delicious recipe you can make that’s Kosher for Passover. Matzah can be terribly boring, especially after 8 days of the stuff. Try this delicious matzah pizza cooked by SAEPi to spice up Kosher for Passover Tea with Tanya this Tuesday. And if you’re not Jewish, feel free to try it too! It still tastes just as good
Stop by Au Bon Pain in the Commons at 3 PM, RSVP on Facebook or email Tanya for more information. Check out Kosherinthekitch web site for more yummy Passover recipes!
This Monday at 10 p.m. through Tuesday 2 a.m. were meeting at the traffic circle next to the Commons for an all night long extravaganza. RSVP on Facebook and remind your friends to do the same. For more info email Max
Want a place to go the first night of Passover (Wednesday, April 8 ) to celebrate? Email UMBC Hillel and we’ll hook you up.
Second night of Passover, please join us for a seder on campus on Thursday, April 9th, at 6 PM at the Commons, 3rd floor, room 329! Want to help lead part of it or plan it? Email Tanya as soon as possible.
After participating in Harbor 2 Harbor, a special exchange program sponsored by the JDC, Hillel and the Associated Odessa Hillel activists started to think about the future of relationship between Odessa and Baltimore Jewish communities. One of the purposes of the trip was to strengthen the links between the communities. Project participants have seen a lot, learnt about new things, but also strengthening the links should be reflected in specific cases and general projects. While it is too early to speak of follow through on the project as a whole, there is one specific case we wish to highlight:
In one of the last day of our visit to America, after guided tours, meetings with government officials, and many other interesting experiences, we had planned to visit one of the Baltimore JCC (Jewish Community Center). Our group met the family of American Jews and their eldest son. The young man has a bar mitzvah project and used some of the money from his gifts to put toward tzedakah. When he learned that soon a group of Odessa Hillel students would come to his community, he broke his piggy bank and bought a lot of books, coloring-books and different useful resources for Jewish children in Odessa. When he met with participants of the project, he asked us to convey these books as gifts to children at the early childhood center in Odessa. We were very touched and considered it an honor to bring these gifts to our homeland.
On March 10, 2009, the feast of Purim, all the H2H participants solemnly went to the early childhood center in Odessa to give gifts to young Jewish children. Diana Bukhman, the head of the center, was moved in the same way as we were when we met this young boy in America. It means that the first steps were taken to further our cooperation with the Baltimore Jewish Community and we expect to grow and grow.
What do you think is a perfect end to winter? Watching TV near by the fireplace, successfully passing your exams, a hot latté from Starbucks? Hmm… maybe…
How about 3 days of sunshine in CA with your fellow Jews, tons of food and late concert madness while East Coast is freezing and buried under tons of snow?
That’s exactly what some UMBC Hillel students chose to do out of all their options:
As far as the Festival goes, it was in almost every respect a smashing success. JF had nearly 1000 Jewish students and young adults enjoying a weekend full of fun, food, music and over 120 individual programs. Their success was due in no small part to a grass roots effort by a large crew of volunteers who helped guide almost every aspect of the weekend’s programing. Add to that both local and national philanthropists and organizations who allowed JF to keep costs down while still offering a world class event and you have a supposedly simple recipe for success. Yup, as simple as uniting close to 1000 young Jews representing every denomination and orientation in Judaism for a spirited, fun, educational and inspiring weekend… so much for that whole “2 Jews, three synagogues” malarkey! Read more about it at the “State of Jewnion” HERE
Jason Lipeles blogging the Festival over on the Jewish Journal’s Blogs
My adrenaline is still rushing, my heart is still pounding, and, most importantly, my mind is still racing after attending Jewlicious Festival 5.0 this past weekend. Not only did I dance at the Saturday night concert and sing along at the 45-minute Havdallah Jam, I also discussed environmental activism with passionate young people in an event called “Why We Give A Damn.” What a breath of fresh air!….
The blog ends with a quote from Abby, a student at Claremont Colleges: “This is the first event I’ve been to where they successfully have had really religious people and totally, totally unobserving, secular Jews and it somehow works. It’s very impressive.”
He notes that “the Jewish community isn’t as fractured as I thought it was.”
Jewlicious Festival demonstrates that most young Jews are not interested in machlokes, they want Jewish unity, they want to find common ground, they want a Jewish future built on shared ideals and values.
At the end of February 5 Russian speaking students from UMBC Hillel
visited Chicago to take part in Russian Shabbaton 2009.
Besides having a lot of fun and getting to know tons of people, they brought home some deep thoughts and creative ideas: Maxim Srerebreni: From the intense experience of the russian shabaton in chicago, i
have learned to appreciate myself through listening and learning
about the experiences of many people who i share a similar cultural
and religious background with. We are all the same in heart, thats
what i have learned and together we can continue to pass on the
experiences of revealing oursellves and sharing our cultural unity
with each other and to strengthen the russian jewish community not
only in chicago but her in maryland too. Sam Khuvis: It was interesting to see how Judaism
played different roles in people’s lives from religion, to culture, to a
way to meet people with shared experiences. I also enjoyed the discussions
on Jews from weird places, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the importance
of names.
From my experiences in Chicago, I would love to bring events for Russian
Jews to UMBC. As well as the idea of having discussions about people’s
cultural differences among all Jews, not just Russian Jews, perhaps during
Shabbat Dinner, or even as a separate event. I also liked the prayer book
that was used with not only prayers but information about Judaism, the
Jewish people, etc. Jane Charney is an active member of Russian Hillel of Chicago and was one of the staff members at the Shabbaton.
She is also a great writer and you can check out her article “Russian-speaking Jews face a conundrum of self-perception” at Oy!Chicago blog What makes us Jews? Whether it’s blood, belief or cultural bonds, it can be hard to define exactly what makes us “Members of the Tribe.”
More pictures are HERE
So, the news about that is – If you’re Jewish and speak Russian, and want to make new friends, note that UMBC Hillel is joining a group of Russian-speaking Jews from Philadelphia, Baltimore,
and DC and going to the Holocaust Museum and Georgetown in Washington, DC on Sunday,
April 5. We’ll leave Baltimore at 10:30 AM. Email Tanya for
more info ASAP as space is limited.
Jewlicious Scholarships are available for one amazing weekend in Southern California in the middle of the winter! That means that a $300 trip may cost you less than $150!
February 27 to March 1, take a weekend trip to LA: Jewlicious Festival a three-day gathering of Jewish students & young adults, held at the massive 85,000 sq. ft. Alpert JCC in Long
Beach. The Festival features leading Jewish personalities, musicians, artists, and writers from around the world for a world-class concert series, inspiring Shabbat experiences, discussions and workshops.
Jewlicious has been described as “an event unlike any other weekend in Jewish history.” Jewlicious unites trend-setters, artists and spirit seekers; Ashkenazim, Sefardim, Persians and Mizrachim; atheists, agnostics, skeptics and believers; designers, activists, jocks, and hipsters. Sound impossible?
Don’t worry we’ve done this before
