| Recent Highlights from the Cleveland Metro and Oberlin Programming |
- Weekly Shabbat Celebrations
with student led services and student prepared Shabbat dinners that reach
hundreds of students. Special
recent Shabbatot include parents weekend at CWRU and Oberlin, Queer
Shabbat at Oberlin, Havdalah service in Cleveland,
and a Shabbat retreat for Oberlin students at the Hillel building in Cleveland
- Hosting speakers to educate about Israel including Israel Ministry
of Foreign Affairs diplomat Ido Aharoni on "Branding Israel Beyond the
Conflict" and Hebrew
University professor
Jonathan Lipow on "Prospects for Peace"
- At Oberlin students and faculty attended
the lecture by Darfur refugee and Vice
President of the Darfur Action Network, Ms. Fatima Haroun
- At
Case Western Reserve students and staff heard from Holocaust survivor Max
Edelman in commemoration of Kristalnacht
- At Cleveland State
Cleveland Marshall
Law School
students had moderated discussions about faith in practice and
is lying kosher and Case Western Reserve Law
School students
organized a networking lunch with faculty
- Discussions and Activities about growing up in the Reform
movement, the prospects for peace in the wake of the Annapolis Conference, the
situation of Darfur refugees in Israel, celebrating the anniversary of the
peace accord between Israel and Egypt, and Hebrew coffee night
- Tzedek programming
included organizing the Dance Marathon at Oberlin that was attended by
over 450 students, involvement in AID's awareness, and students from
 Case
Western Reserve and Cleveland
State participating
in dialathons for the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland's annual
campaign for Jewish Needs. Cleveland students
also bowled as part of a fundraiser for Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters
- Social
programming and Engagement activities included Challah making, laser
tag, baking brownies, coffee dates, and small dinners.
|
|
Announcing Summer Internship Program
|
|
We are excited to announce that starting this coming summer
we will be coordinating an innovative summer internship program which places 25
undergraduate students at local business and organizations for eight
weeks. The interns will also be
developing social and educational programming for their peers who are in Cleveland for the
summer.
After consulting with a number of professionals in the field as well as other agencies, we think this program will fill a major void that currently
exists. It will also provide important
professional and Jewish growth opportunities to undergraduate students.
More information will be available about this program in the
coming weeks.
|
|
Thanks Again and End of Year Giving
|
|
I want to thank all of you who
follow and support our program. We are able to provide the wealth of
programs we sponsor because of your effort and generosity. As the year
winds down, we ask your continued partnership so we can enrich the students with engaging and meaningful
programs so that they can enrich the world.
Online giving opportunities and a full
list of our donors can be found at our web site http://www.clevelandhillel.org/
|
|
|
December 17, 2007/8 Tevet 5768
Dear Friends,
As the semester ends, I am thrilled to report that the
Cleveland Hillel Foundation has much to be proud of. During this past semester, our Hillel provided the
2500 Jewish undergraduate, graduate, and professional school
students who are studying in Cleveland,
Oberlin, and the surrounding area with the variety of programs and events that
meet their diverse interests and needs.
This report will highlight some of our programs with a special emphasis
on our Chanukah events and inform you about various issues.
As you know our programming is continuous and even with the
end of the semester we continue to be busy.
As you receive this, our professional staff is traveling to Washington DC
for Hillel's annual Professional Staff Conference. Then, later in December and in January we are
sending both students and staff to Israel
on birthright
and leadership missions, as well as to New
Orleans on Tzedek/social justice programs organized by
Hillel. I think this is one example of
how we meet our goal of enriching the students with engaging and meaningful
programs so that they can enrich the world.
As we are in the final days of
December, I invite you to make an end of year donation to the Cleveland Hillel
Foundation so that we can continue to strengthen our program by increasing the
variety and diversity of what we offer.
Donations can be made by visiting our web site at www.clevelandhillel.org
and clicking on the Network for Good link.
You can also mail a check to Cleveland Hillel Foundation
11291 Euclid Ave. Cleveland Ohio, 44106.
Our website includes a calendar, pictures of events as well as a link
to our annual report. You can view it at
www.clevelandhillel.org/2006-2007-annual-report which also includes a list of last year's donors.
Last week we
finished celebrating Chanukah. The
holiday is known by some as the Holiday of Lights, others as a time of the
rededication of the Temple, while even others view
Chanukah as a time to celebrate and remember the struggle of some Jews 2200
years ago to maintain their religious freedom in the Land of Israel. In all cases, on each night of Chanukah we add
another candle to the Chanukia, the candelabra.
I think this represents the idea that as each night passes we realize
that the strength of our people is based on the idea that each of us brings our
own light to the world and when these lights are combined the result is much more
beautiful Jewish community. This emphasizes our work on campus where
each student is encouraged to strengthen their individual Jewish identity,
celebrate the common bonds we have, and respect the differences among us. In this way a mosaic of Jewish life develops
that is more beautiful than any of its individual pieces.
As I mentioned earlier, communication
can be two ways and I am interested in hearing from you, so please contact me at
216-231-0040 or gcoleman@clevelandhillel.org
With Blessings,
Gary
|
|
Chanukah Programming -
Eight Nights + Much More
|
Less than a week after students
returned from Thanksgiving weekend our Hillel's began Chanukah
programming. The result was a plethara
of programs (more than 30) that celebrated the Holiday. These included:
At Oberlin -
- Nine separate Menorah's Making Workshops
lead by Oberlin student artists so students could make their own menorah's and
decorations for Chanukah
- Latke Making Program: Students gathered at the
Kosher-Halal Co-op for a night of latke making fun
 - All Campus Chanukah Party at Hebrew
House featuring the Klezmer Gangstas (Oberlin's very own Klezmer
group), the Israeli Dance Troupe and other local college bands to give students
an opportunity to play dreidel, eat latkes and
 donuts, and celebrate the
Festival of Lights - Candle lighting every night in the Co-op and at
the dining halls
In Cleveland
-
- Chanukah displays and latkes at
Case Western Reserve, Cleveland
State, and Ursuline
- Candle lighting every night at
the Hillel building and Chanukah parties both at the Hillel building and on the
Case
 Western Reserve campus which reached over 400 students - Graduate student Chanukah party
at the medical school
- Student led latke making and donut
making (sufgoniout) programs
- Study breaks during finals week
with coffee and Chanukah donuts and information at the CWRU library
In addition we educated the
faculty and students on many of the campuses about Chanukah by distributing a special
Chanukah brochure that was prepared by Hillel: The Foundation for
Jewish Campus Life.
|
| Medical Students and Alumni Connect at Private
Museum Tour |
Cleveland Hillel Foundation is creating partnerships and
building bridges so Jewish students can meet Jewish alumni in the Cleveland community. On
December 10 Hillel co- hosted a reception and tour of the "Deadly Medicine" exhibit at Maltz
Museum. Working with the Jewish Medical Student
Association (JMSA) and the CWRU Alumni Association Hillel brought together medical
students, residents, alumni and faculty. 
The private reception and tour of the exhibit was an
opportunity for students to connect with alumni living and working in Cleveland's Jewish
community. Many relationships and contacts were made between students and
physicians. There are plans for a formal mentoring program and follow up
discussions in the future.
The exhibit was particularly powerful for the capacity crowd
of 150 people as they learned about the history of the Holocaust and "how
medicine can go wrong". The issue of "what would you do" was
 especially relevant to the medical students and doctors. The evening started
with Peter Haas, Director of the Samuel Rosenthal Centers for Judaic Studies
speaking about today's protocols related to human experimentation, which came
about from the Nuremberg
trials, and how procedures and new drugs now used widely every day are affected
by these processes.
The event was made possible through several partnerships and sponsorships.
We thank the CWRU Medical Alumni Association and the Cleveland Clinic
Lerner College of Medicine; Jewish Medical Student Association, Maltz Museum,
Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation, University Hospitals and the Samuel Rosenthal
Center for Judaic Studies at CWRU. 
Cleveland Hillel Foundation is uniquely positioned to
bring together these constituents and partners, in order to serve one of Cleveland's best assets-
the large number of Jewish graduate and professional students studying on
campuses here. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
