UMBC Hillel, together with the Office of Student Life’s Mosaic Center, Interfaith Center, and Interdisciplinary Studies Council of Majors (list of co-sponsors in formation) is sponsoring a field trip to DC for Inauguration Day to be present for the swearing-in of President Elect Barack Obama on January 20, 2009. The plan will be to meet either on campus or at the MARC train at BWI very early on that morning.
As details are worked out for that day, we will update the community with details of which train we will take together early to DC that morning.
Meanwhile, please log on to Facebook, join the event, and invite all your friends to come as well: “Inaugurate!”
UMBC Hillel would be happy to have other student organizations co-sponsor the field trip; we’ll list your organization’s name on the event and you can publicize to your group. Just email hillel@umbc.edu
$5 subsidies toward train tickets will be given to each of the first 50 students to RSVP on Facebook.
Matisyahu is known as the Hassidic Reaggae Superstar - he holds the
record for the highest debuting reggae album on the Billboard Charts.
His success has demonstrated that music is truly the international
language, able to express the full range of human emotions from the
most banal to the most lofty and spiritual. He is a Hassidic Jew who
raps about the splendor of Judaism through the medium of traditional
Jamaican music!
This past Saturday night a bunch of UMBC Hillel students went to see
Matisyahu perform live at Rams Head. Rides and tickets were arranged
and everyone came in a good mood. We all expected to have a good time
but the evening managed to exceed our expectations none the less. The
opening act, the Flobots really warmed the crowd up - they got
everyone to raise their hands in the air with their young, loud and
awesome music.
Then the king of the evening began his set with “King Without A Crown”
and didn’t let up for another 3 full hours! The audience was singing
and dancing and in the throes of ecstasy for the entire time. After
the exhausting show, Matisyahu still managed to find the energy to
come down off the stage and hang out with his fans, sign some posters,
write “Blessing” on t-shirts, get feedback about the show and talk to
his groupies.
The gang from UMBC Hillel got lucky - able to witness a great show and
interact with a really nice down to earth artist. It’s unlikely that
any of us will get “Jeruuuuuusalem” out of our heads anytime soon.
Thanks, Mati, for your great show! Come back to Baltimore any time!
This afternoon, a group of eleven students and staff members joined together for mincha, the afternoon prayer service. This may have been the first time in 42 years that there was a daily minyan at UMBC. Services are scheduled for 12:30 PM every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in 110 Sondheim. Please come and bring a friend! If you’re not familiar with Orthodox services, contact Jason to learn more so you can feel more comfortable.
This past Friday was Halloween, the secularized holiday with pagan roots that pokes fun at death. It’s become customary to dress up for Halloween in America, much as Jews dress up in costume on Purim. Are the holidays similar? Certainly both are filled with merry-making, though–in the northern hemisphere Halloween takes place as the nights grow longer and the weather chills while Purim, with its overtones of carnal extremes is about fertility at spring time. Each holiday pokes fun at death in its own way, however. On Halloween, we see living people dressed as ghosts and skeletons, trying to spook each other with haunted houses. On Purim, we celebrate the potential for the doom and gloom of Haman’s degree to be turned on its head as we boldly celebrate life and the potential for any awful situation to turn itself around.
Curiously, one central Halloween custom is to “trick or treat” in which participants receive candy. On Purim, the mitzvah of mishloach manot is about giving gifts of tasty treats to our neighbors.
Last March a group of UMBC students traveled to Odessa, Ukraine, Baltimore’s sister city, where they celebrated Purim in the community. They still talk about their favorite moments and realize the ideas that have emerged during the trip. Tal Levitas, a senior, seemed to find inspiration in his Halloween costume from Purim in Odessa.
PURIM IN ODESSA OR HALLOWEEN IN BALTIMORE? Find 5 differences:
Spend your Winter Break in The Big Easy with fellow members of the tribe!
Who: UMBC Hillel
What: Alternative Winter Break
Where: New Orleans, LA
When: January 4 - January 11, 2009
Cost: Only $250
Hurricane Katrina made its ways through the Gulf Coast region in 2005, destroying everything in its path. While many are back on their feet, there are still so many people that need our help.
This is your chance to make a difference! Join other Hillel students from across the country in rebuilding the Gulf Coast region. This is a trip of lifetime, don’t miss out!
We are excited that UMBC Hillel will be joining almost 50 campuses, 560 students and 45 staff to help rebuild homes in the New Orleans area this January and March.
These one-week trips focus on hands-on service,
community interaction and the exploration of social justice and Judaism.
Please let me know ASAP if you would like to be apart of this amazing experience!!!
Scholarships are available.
For more information contact: tanya@umbc.edu/ 443 977 0620
Check it out! Or you can always just visit our Flickr gallery for a more conventional photo viewing experience.
Make your own Sushi is particularly appropriate in a Sukkah. Why? This holiday has a big DIY (Do it Yourself) component. You have to build your own Sukkah for instance. Keeping with that theme, UMBC Hillel decided to host a Make Your Own Sushi event at our Sukkah. Get it? DIY Sukkah–DIY Sushi! But don’t try this while wandering in the dessert for 40 years. It’s hard to find fresh fish in the Sinai–never mind the wassabi.
Another theme of Sukkot is Jewish Unity as represented by bringing together the Etrog (citron fruit) and Lulav (palm fronds bundled with myrtle and willow branches). Perhaps the love of sushi that also seems to unite students made the event so successful as well.
Sukkot, the Jewish fall harvest festival, lasts from Monday evening, October 13 through Monday evening, October 20. “Sukkot” means “huts,” and refers to the huts that the biblical Israelites lived in during the wanderings in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt and also evoke images of day-time shelters during the ingathering of crops under the fall harvest moon. It is customary to eat in the Sukkah and sleep in the Sukkah throughout the holiday. There are a variety of events happening in the UMBC Sukkah throughout the holiday at which everyone is welcome.
Monday, 10/13
Come decorate the Sukkah throughout the day!
Supper & services in the Sukkah at 6:30 PM
Celebrate the beginning of the holiday retro-style: sit on the ground and eat some yummy Middle Eastern style food.
Tuesday, 10/14
JHOP: Chocolate Chip Pancakes in the Sukkah from 10 AM
Tea with Tanya from 3 PM—schmooze over some tea
Dessert in the Desert at 7 PM—coffee and sweet treats
Wednesday, 10/15
Sushi in the Sukkah at 6 PM
Hookah and the Sukkah at 7 PM
Israeli Dancing 8:30 PM
Thursday, 10/16
Shake Your Lulav! Competition—11 AM until 3 PM
Shakes in the Sukkah: mocktails at 4 PM
Scholars in the Sukkah—Jewish Grad Students at 7:30 PM
Friday, 10/17
JHOP: Chocolate Chip Pancakes in the Sukkah from 11 AM
FYSH (First Year Students of Hillel) and Chips at 3:30 PM
Shabbat Celebration —services and dinner—at 6 PM
Saturday, 10/18
Shabbat lunch at 12 noon
Havdalah Celebration and food at 7:15 PM
…5, 4, 3, 2,1,0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Taglit-Birthright Israel: Hillel Trip registration is now OPEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!!!
YAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy!!!!
If you’re Jewish, age 18-26, and have never been on a peer-group trip to Israel, Hillel offers the best ways for you to take the journey of a lifetime - FOR FREE!
Travel with other UMBC students while making friends from across the country. Hillel’s Explore Israel Trips provide an amazing introduction to the land and people of Israel!
Highlights include:
A jeep ride on the Golan Heights, visiting the Western Wall, floating in the Dead Sea, seeing the sunrise at Masada, an archaeological dig, a night in a Bedouin tent, a mifgash (encounter) with your Israeli peers, and swimming in the Mediterranean at sunset.
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