The University of Iowa Louis Shulman Hillel Foundation

Shabbat dinners and Jewish Holiday Programs: Through our Friday night Shabbat dinners students are able to have a home-cooked kosher Shabbat dinner made in the Hillel kitchen by our kitchen manager and student volunteers, who get to learn how to cook. During the 2021-2022 school year students had the opportunity to join for Shabbat dinners at Hillel or take them to go, so they were able to practice Shabbat dinner with Hillel in a way that was comfortable with them as everyone adjusted to being back on campus. Our Jewish Holiday Programs included programming, classes, and meals around the various holidays. During a time when students can feel homesick being away from their families during the holidays, Hillel was able to provide our students with a home away from home. We also introduced this year a Chanukah Pop Up where Hillel staff worked with Jewish students in ten different Greek life houses and brought in a menorah lighting, learning about Chanukah, sufganiyot to enjoy, and of course gelt and driedels.

Jewish Learning and Israel Education: The Jewish Learning Fellowships (JLF) taught at Iowa Hillel have become a cornerstone of our offerings. One of our jobs at Hillel is to allow our students to connect to Judaism in a way that's meaningful to them and to establish a connection that lasts a lifetime and JLF is one of the avenues we take to accomplish that. Students who take JLF meet weekly over 10 weeks for an hour-and-a-half class over dinner and receive a $300 stipend for completing the program. This JLF class is run multiple times each semester. When surveyed, students strongly agreed that JLF helped Jewish ideas and traditions feel more relevant to their own life, that it made Torah and Jewish text more accessible, helped them feel part of a Jewish community, and helped them make new Jewish friends. Additionally, students strongly agreed that they are walking away from JLF interested in continuing to explore Jewish ideas and traditions, and they all agreed or strongly agreed that they are interested in continuing to study Torah and/or other Jewish tests. A large component of our Israel education is through one of our Jewish Learning Fellowship classes about Israel for a 10-week period and a 6-week period where students can take Kol Yisrael classes. We also host different Israel engagement programming and Israeli cooking classes.

Engagement Opportunities: One of the core components that we do as a Hillel is build Jewish community on campus and create opportunities for students to engage with each other and Hillel staff. We started the 2021-2022 school year strong by creating opportunities for first-year and upperclassmen to connect with each other through Hillel. Some of our welcoming events included our Farmer's Market event where students got to see all the different offerings that they could access in the Jewish community here, an OnIowa bagel brunch, and a tie-dye t-shirts event. We also created specific cohorts and series that students could participate in weekly over the course of the school year including our Freshmen Series, Cooking Classes, Art Classes, and Book Clubs. We also created opportunities for our student leaders to grow as leaders and engage more students at the University of Iowa. Additionally, our new Jewish Business Association, which is a recognized University of Iowa Tippie College of Business club, put on events that helped them increase their membership and connect with

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