To fortify Jewish community, program aims for the stomach

The Steinhardt Jewish Heritage Program wants to remind students of their Jewish heritage and tradition, but it wants to feed them as well. At 56 locations across campus Friday night -- college houses, Greek houses, off-campus locations and the Quadrangle's McClelland Hall -- an estimated 1,300 people gathered to enjoy a Jewish Shabbat dinner. Kugel, chicken, challah bread and wine were all on the menu for the once-a-semester dinner, which was funded by the JHP. Rachel Baum, campus liaison for the JHP to Penn, organizes the dinners and helps recruit students as campus interns. "What I see out of these dinners is spreading the word about the Jewish Shabbat experience to people who haven't done it, and spreading the word about what the Jewish Heritage Program is," Baum said. "Having the program is going to make the community stronger by having these dinners and make the community more excited about doing something Jewish," she added. While the program works with Hillel House, the JHP is not affiliated with the University. The program at Penn is run by over 70 student interns, who helped coordinate and run the dinners at all the locations across campus. The interns are responsible for bringing people to the dinners and setting the program for the dinner. The program is "peer-to-peer based," Baum said. "It's not me teaching them, it's them getting out to their friends. Everything comes from the students." The student interns are responsible for putting together the social functions -- Shabbat dinners, wine and cheese nights and downtown parties -- to help build a greater sense of the already strong Jewish community at Penn. College junior and Tau Epsilon Phi President Dave Lazar is one such student intern. His house hosted one of the dinners, attended by nearly 30 people, mostly TEP brothers. "I think it's great. I think that any social organization that can bring together its members and have a social function like this -- I think it's powerful," Lazar said. The participants at the dinner -- talking, laughing and eating -- seemed to have a good time. But one of the stipulations of the JHP is that all events must have a religious and educational component. After blessings were made over the bread and wine, Baum and other interns passed around a booklet they had put together with various questions about faith and the Jewish experience before beginning the kosher meal. While trying to build community, JHP also tries to remind everyone what that community means and the basis behind it. The JHP program was organized at Penn in 1993 and now covers 12 campuses up and down the East coast. In total, organizing and carrying out the campus Shabbat dinner costs around $3,500, which is donated by various philanthropists.

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