The Jewish Community Leaders project at SDSU and Triton Jewish Leaders project at UC San Diego are Hillel’s premier student leadership development programs. Whether students already have a ton of ideas for building community on campus, or they just want to be involved and are open to inspiration, Hillel invests in any student excited about taking on a leadership role and producing creative ways to enhance Jewish student life. Each cohort has their own staff adviser who, along with the fellow students in the cohort, serve as a sounding board and resource to ensure that students have all the help they need to bring their projects to fruition.
For example, the Israel cohort at SDSU helps students achieve goals of increasing safety and solidarity for the pro-Israel community on campus. Their work, which often coincides with internships that many students have, includes building relationships and coalitions with students, faculty and administration, creating programming and events, coffee dates with diverse community members and students of all faiths.
The Jewish Life and the Jewish Learning cohorts at SDSU are open to any students ready to take leadership in the Jewish community. The Jewish Life leaders are geared towards strengthening and diversifying our Jewish communities. The Jewish Learning leaders are focused on innovating unique Jewish experiences that expose their peers to Jewish learning opportunities.
Orroma (a play on the Israeli coffee chain Aroma) is a Triton Jewish Leader project put on by UCSD student Orr Toledano. Students are encouraged to join him for coffee on campus at UCSD to learn about Israel. Every other week this series explores a different aspect of Israel and serves as a non-judgmental environment for students to learn.
Jewish Philosophy is a Triton Jewish Leaders project led by UCSD students Benjamin Zaghi and Adir Haim. They were motivated to bring more Jewish learning to UCSD’s campus their freshman year. As they struggled to figure out an event that would be compelling for most students, it became clear that Jewish Philosophy was the perfect project for the intellectual, hard-working students at UCSD. Consequently, they decided to create a Jewish Philosophy class that meets weekly throughout the quarter to discuss an array of topics like prayer, God, Jewish law, and heaven. Due to great interest from students, the Jewish Philosophy class has been thriving since Spring quarter of 2019 as it has allowed many busy students who may not be familiar with Jewish texts to experience Jewish learning on a large campus like UCSD.
