Hillels Celebrate the Fall Holidays with Food, Friends, Fun, and Festivities
Whether the High Holidays come at the start of the semester or run into midterms, a month of five back-to-back holidays means lots of activity at campus Hillels — and tons of opportunities for Jewish students to get involved. For first-years, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are often their first holidays away from home, while for returning students, they can be a reentry point to a familiar community. Between High Holiday services, apple picking adventures, and sushi in the sukkah events, there are plenty of traditions shared across campuses, but there are also new and innovative programs that take place each year.
Students rang in the new year with Hillel at schools like Muhlenberg College, Elon University, University of Iowa, and California Polytechnic State University by going on trips to local farms and orchards so they could gather apples to dip in honey, baking honey cakes to bring some sweetness to the holiday, and sharing Rosh Hashanah dinner. And at the University of Alabama’s Hillel, there was even an elephant in the room: the school’s mascot, Big Al! Of course, the autumnal vibes didn’t stop there – students at Brandeis Hillel hosted several fall festivities, including an ice cream party (proving it never is too cold for a cup or cone), while students at Trinity College Hillel started making harvest decorations ahead of time at their Fall Shabbat and Havdalah.
Less than two weeks later, sukkahs began popping up on campuses everywhere ahead of Sukkot. Jewish students and staff worked together to build and decorate the temporary dwellings for the holiday of huts, including at the University of Cincinnati, where students from the school’s architecture program collaborated with their Hillel to construct a beautiful sukkah. Of course, no sukkah is complete without decorations, like Loyola Marymount University Hillel’s positivity-focused paper chains or, at MIT Hillel, the addition of baby goats.
But no matter what the festivities looked like, Hillels found ways for their students to celebrate and showcase their Jewish pride. The video featured here is just a sampling of the hundreds of activities campus Hillels hosted to provide a meaningful holiday experience for Jewish college students everywhere.