The University of Iowa Louis Shulman Hillel Foundation

Shabbat dinners and Jewish Holidays:Shabbat dinners are the highlight of the week for a lot of our students because they get a variety of meals such as mac'n'cheese, smoked meats, ratatouille, chicken piccata, and many more! The Jewish fraternity on campus hosts a Shabbat dinner at Hillel once a semester where brothers come in to help set up the space and even help out in the kitchen with cooking and serving the meal. Students help with each process of our Shabbat dinners from working with our chef in the kitchen and leading services. Our Shabbat dinners range from 30-80 students on a weekly basis. While most Shabbat dinners are at Hillel, once a semester students have the chance to host Shabbat dinners in their homes, which Hillel staff helps prepare students to do. Iowa Hillel hosts programming, meals, and opportunities for learning around the Jewish holidays during the academic year. Prior to Rosh Hashanah, Hillel students gave out more than 500 apples on the main walkway on campus with informational cards about what the holiday is and how Jewish people celebrate. During Sukkot, staff built a Sukkah with graduate and undergraduate students, which students then decorate. One of our largest Jewish holiday celebrations is Passover. Nearly one hundred students attended our seder at Hillel, and this year we initiated a pilot program with the University of Iowa Housing and Dining to allow students with meal plans through the University to utilize their meal swipes at Hillel during Passover to allow them to incur no cost for the meals.

Engagement and Outreach - Engagement and Outreach encompases are work in helping students connect socially and reaching out to Jewish students on campus. Staff and student leaders take students out for one-on-one conversations to get to know one another better and explain what Hillel is. On top of that, our staff is trained to pick up on small things that can help us engage students on a more meaningful level later on as we are able to create opportunities suited for the individual based on information we were able to obtain from our conversations. This academic year, we also launched our Hillel FreshFest programs with move-in open houses for incoming families, bagel brunch, tie-dye, and scavenger hunts, which we credit as part of having such high levels of first year continued engagement during the school year. Another new initiative that was successful was a Jewish Business Association trip to Chicago, where current majors were able to connect with alumni who work in various companies, so that they're able to think about what comes next and start connecting with their future Iowa Hillel alumni community.

Israel Education and Jewish Learning - This year we were fortunate to have the University of Iowa put together a festival of contemporary music from Israel. With this happening, we were able to create multiple programmatic opportunities for our students around this series including attending a dinner with Hillel staff, University faculty and staff, and their peers before going to the Holocaust Memorial Concert. Students have the opportunity to connect to Israel through our three different Kol Yisrael 6 week courses at Hillel over dinner, through our speaker series and cooking classes, and by going on Birthright with their Iowa classmates or on Onward. We also launched a Hebrew conversation hour led by one of our Israeli education majors. We have a regular program where we shut down our building once a month to host students at a local Israeli-owned coffee shop where they get to have a snack on Hillel and partake in Israeli trivia. We offer the Jewish Learning Fellowship classes that students can take for 10 weeks, which are run multiple times in the semester. These classes are taught by Hillel staff and students receive a stipend upon completion and a warm meal for each session. Having these smaller classes allows students to connect more deeply with each other as well as the material. We find that once students take a JLF course, they are more actively engaged in Jewish life on campus.

Other Programs that foster Jewish vitality through the promotion of Jewish values, student empowerment and engagement.