Welcome!! My name is Serena and I'm a '28 from New York City. I couldn't be more excited to be here at Dartmouth and share my experiences with all of you! I know I want to explore English Literature alongside a STEM discipline. I love to run, play volleyball, hike, knit, and read books! If you want to hear about a city kid's adventures in rural New Hampshire, follow along as I experience life in the woods!
In this dynamic class, Visiting Professor Vera Kallenberg taught us a survey of Jewish history and culture from the European enlightenment to the establishment of the State of Israel while also sharing her wealth of knowledge with us! Our small, seminar-style class lent itself to profound conversations around the difficult topics that arose during our discussions. From the Haskalah to discourse around the modern-day Israel-Palestine conflict, our class approached these topics with respect and care for one another. We read historical texts and fascinating personal narratives for homework, and then wove our knowledge about the past and present together in class discussions. What an incredible course!
A couple weeks before the end of Winter Term, I decided that I wanted to lead Friday night Shabbat services at Hillel. (check out my post about Rosh Hashana from fall term here!)
I asked a couple of my friends (shoutout Gigi and Darci!!!) to lead services with me, and I was so happy when they said yes! A week before our service, we meet with Rabbi Seth, the Hillel Rabbi, to go over the prayers in the service. We thought we would be briefly going over the prayers. But boy were we in for a surprise. Somehow, we found ourselves meticulously crafting a new service. We carefully deliberated about what changes we wanted to make, such as adding prayers and changing tunes. In typical Jewish fashion, our twenty minute meeting turned into a forty minute meeting which turned into a hour and a half long meeting!
I really enjoyed the vibrant energy in Rabbi Seth's office. With great enthusiasm and spirit, we bounced around ideas of what we wanted our service to be, singing and humming different prayer tunes all the while. This wasn't a dull meeting to plan an event; rather it was a vibrant and collaborative partnership. We were on a voyage to create something greater than ourselves. We also discussed other topics like being Jewish on campus and antisemitism. Although we did not arrive at this meeting to discuss anything other than designing and leading our own service, we found such a great listener, supporter, and advice-giver in Rabbi Seth. We left that meeting with big smiles on our face, ready to meet at the Hillel building later that week to practice. I have to admit, I was a little nervous to lead services for both the Dartmouth community and the Upper Valley Jewish community. But, I had so much fun and I loved this leadership role.
A wintery photo of the Hillel building at night!
On Friday night, the room was packed! I had asked so many of my friends to come because I was co-leading services for the first time ever, and so many of them showed up!! (shoutout Molly, Amelia, Abby, Daniel, and Heya!). I even saw a lot of friends, both Jewish and non-Jewish, in the crowd! I recognized both frequent service-goers and first-timers (shoutout Declan, my trippee!) No one asked us to lead services; this wasn't an assigned role of ours. I simply asked Rabbi Seth for this leadership role, and then asked my friends afterwards. My friends and I had a goal and vision with the energy and motivation to create an invigorating and uniquely our type of service. By taking on the challenge of designing and leading our own service, we felt feelings of creativity, passion, ownership, and connection.
I feel so privileged for us to have been able to create this spiritual possibility, and I feel more connected to the Jewish community at Dartmouth than ever before!
