GCSU Jewish foundation takes shape

GCSU says “shalom” to a recently founded Jewish organization on campus called Goodrich Hillel – a worldwide Jewish organization at over 500 colleges for undergraduate and graduate students.

With the help of faculty advisor Karen Berman and the support of community member Nathalie Goodrich, students organized the first Hillel chapter at GCSU in fall 2008 and became officially registered in spring 2009.

“Goodrich Hillel provides a home away from home for Jewish students,” Berman said. “It gives them a cultural foundation. It gives them a place to celebrate their identity and share their identity with other students.”

Goodrich Hillel has events throughout the year that include Jewish game nights, movie nights, bagel brunches, student-led Shabbat services and Hanukkah parties.

Events are targeted toward Jewish students to help them to meet other Jewish students on campus, but Goodrich Hillel welcomes students of all beliefs to learn about Judaism at events.

The addition of the name “Goodrich” to Hillel is unique to GCSU, named after Nathalie Goodrich, a longtime Milledgeville community member. Nathalie’s husband, Harold Goodrich, owns Harold’s retail shop in downtown Milledgeville.

One of Goodrich’s dreams was to start a Hillel at GCSU. Last July when professor Karen Berman joined the university, Goodrich contacted Berman and at the same time students, such as Alana Israel, a public relations representative for Hillel, started coming to Berman.

“Nathalie Goodrich is extremely involved in GCSU Hillel,” Israel said. “She has come to almost every event we’ve had so far. She provides food. She’s just been so sweet.”

With the help of Goodrich, Berman and willing Jewish students, the organization came to life.

“It all converged at the exact right time,” Berman said. “It was like magic.”

The co-presidents of the organization are sophomores Deena Overbye and Zach Dubin. Berman said they were “instrumental in creating the by-laws, designing activities and hosting events.” They be gan organizing Goodrich Hillel last year.

Both graduated from the Weber School, a Jewish high school in Sandy Springs in 2008.

“We decided to make a Hillel at GCSU because our beliefs are important to us. We started from scratch,” Overbye said.

Around the same time Overbye and Dubin started organizing a Hillel, two more students, Alana Israel and Leah Rapaport, were also attempting to start a Hillel. “We were happy that we found other people that were interested,” Israel said.

The four students found each other and started organizing events as an executive board.

“All our Jewish backgrounds are different, so it’s cool to take our backgrounds and create a new community here,” Israel said. “Goodrich Hillel is in-between a youth group, a student organization and a fun thing to do.”

On Oct. 16, 2008 Hillel hosted its first event, a Sukkot party, at Deano’s Pizza. Sukkot is a Jewish holiday that celebrates giving thanks for a bountiful harvest.

The Sukkot party was the biggest event for Hillel as Jewish students joined with Jewish faculty members, Jewish community members, and University of Georgia counterparts of Hillel to celebrate.

As Goodrich Hillel was not an official organization at that point, community members provided food for the event under leadership of Nathalie Goodrich.

“We had a lot of events with no money,” Berman said. “Everyone was really generous.”

In spring 2009, Goodrich Hillel submitted a budget to Student Government Association and for the first time was approved for funding to be used during the 2009-10 school year.

“We were lucky because we were the only, or one of the only, religious organizations to get funding from the school,” Israel said.

The funds will go toward events such as traveling to UGA to observe the high holidays with a bigger Hillel, food for Jewish holidays in which only certain foods are eaten and charity events such as helping out Israeli soldiers by sending care packages.

With new money and more students, Goodrich Hillel plans to do more this year. Some events may include bringing someone from the anti-defamation league for the Human Rights Symposium and an Israeli musician by working with the Israeli Embassy and Atlanta synagogues.

“Our goal this year is to raise money to get a permanent location on campus,” Overbye said.

“We need more involvement to make it happen. Everyone’s welcome, and I’m excited to see it grow.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 4 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry