<p>"i guess that if you're oos and decide to attend unc, the jewish socializing is not a top priority???
maybe?"</p>
<p>Most definitely not.</p>
<p>As far as Jews in NC, the numbers are growing tremendously. Some areas have very large Jewish populations.</p>
<p>i have family in greensboro, nc, where the jewish community is amazing.
so yes, i'm aware that some areas have not only numbers but wonderful communities!
i was only saying that some jewish people will prefer to go where there's more than 5% if jewish socializing is a top priority, maybe.</p>
<p>Yup. I was on the March of the Living trip with the Greensboro, NC group :) I probably know your family's rabbi.</p>
<p>i forget his name, but he's a kinda cool 40ish/50ish guy.</p>
<p>Havivi or Guttman. It's almost definitely one of those two.</p>
<p>In a few hours, I'm looking forward to hearing from a college sophomore about the Birthright trip which he discovered through his Hillel at a SUNY college.
It's instead of the rabbi's sermon. </p>
<p>In November, we always have 2 or 3 freshman college students as a panel, talking about their Jewish experiences at different kinds of colleges. Often this is the range represented: an elite LAC or Ivy, a very large state university campus, and a much smaller state college or LAC campus. The exchange among the students, as a panel, is very interesting. Also it gives the rabbi a break from sermonizing "the college sermon" every November for Thanksgiving weekend. </p>
<p>Goal of the Thanksgiving service is to get the college kids to come back and say "hi" to everyone. They'd rather come knowing they'll hear about college Jewish life realities from their peers than a promotion from their rabbi, even if they like their rabbi. So attendance is good. It's great to see the students again. They are often softly sentimental about their home synagogue, the one they ditched around junior year of high school, once they get off to college. </p>
<p>When I teach 8th graders at Hebrew afterschool, I always tell them about Hillel so they can begin imagining that. </p>
<p>Parents and students: If you have a rabbi with whom you are in relationship, why not suggest college students as substitutes for their sermon.
Most would welcome the break, along with encouraging dialogue about Jewish life on campus.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the wonderful posts re: Hillel and Jewish life on campus. My DD is doing a gap-year working in science before starting Cornell in fall 2008 (she deferred). My DD is strongly identified with Jewish life, did research similar to this thread and thus chose Cornell, based partly on the variety of Jewishly-flavored choices there. We live on the West Coast and belong to a vibrant Reform temple. We (DH, me, and 4 kids in a blended family) are active in our community, which is eclectic, Jewishly and otherwise. There is surprising acceptance across Jewish denominations. Predominant secularism in our city makes choosing a Jewish life, or involvement in any religion, truly a choice. Our rabbis (yes, plural, a married couple) are from CA, but worked in NY for a while. They rarely fail to include a sketch from this apparently traumatic experience in our Purimspiel. Our city is very different from my roots (NY state & other NE cities; I earned one degree from Yeshiva U). My DH is a 5th generation southern Jew, but lived in the east for years, where he didn't even belong to a synagogue, whereas he's a major leader here. I am grateful my DD cares about being Jewish, and maybe should not worry about how she will fare. However, I am worried about east-west differences, and how she will cope. Does this resonate with anyone? Any suggestions, cautions, reassurances, anything? Thanks so much!</p>
<p>Here's an angle: I think you might be pegging some normative, natural lifecycle and generational shifts on the topic of East v. West, so that is confusing. For example, your H's non-membership in synagogue life when he lived back East could be for a variety of factors, but likely it was during the years of least likely synagogue membership, during his college or the ten years immediately after? Then when he became more involved with raising young family, he joined up again. That's more typical to his age and stages in family lifecycle than to living East/West/North/South. </p>
<p>Similarly, your rabbinic family represents their "traumatic" East Coast experience for great merriment at Purim time, recognizing a natural opening with any West Coast congregation to play upon thoughts about cultural differences of East v. West in the USA. The coastal differences are great comedy shtick and are just too funny not to mention for Purimspiel fun. Congregants travel, so they'll get the jokes. Especially as a rabbinic couple, it would reassure their West Coast congregation that life back East can be puzzling to a newcomer, which has the subliminal message to the congregation that they've chosen the best possible location right there where you are! It's the Chelm psychology: we're in the best possible corner of the world, no matter where we happen to be. </p>
<p>I would love to meet a 5th generation Southern Jew (your H) because his story must be fascinating. I'm curious about whether his experiences were rural or urban, mapped over time. The percentage of synagogue affiliation in rural towns is much higher (around 80 percent) compared to metropolitan areas (50 percent) because in the smaller community, it was necessary to affiliate with a synagogue to even find the other Jews. People did not identify visually as much, or by neighborhood. Without all the ethnic bakeries, neighborhoods, and so on, Southern and Midwestern Jews in small towns have some of the highest levels of formal organizational affiliation. In the NE, especially around NY, it's possible to have plenty of Jewish friends, associations and flavor without joining a temple. Your DH might have found, when he hit the East Coast, that life was Jewish aplenty without having to join anything, but when he got out to the Pacific Northwest (AND with family to raise) it became all the more imperative to affiliate. I'm turning an individual into a statistic, so please forgive me that; it's just to make the point. </p>
<p>There's a 6-hour PBS documentary called The Jewish Americans, which began last Wednesday night (9-11 p.m., EST) and continues for two more Wednesday nights at the same time period. I recommend this very much. Last Wednesday, it began with the colonial era and got through the Lower East Side of NYC, pointing out that the population density there in the early l900's compares to modern Bombay. There is no possible comparison to the intensity of NYC Jewish life, in terms of neighborhoods, throughout the country. I grew up in Baltimore, and while that's also a very dynamic urban and suburban Jewish culture, it can't compare to NYC's intensely packed, vibrant Jewish culture at the turn of the century.</p>
<p>But by now, the themes are found in every community. If there's one Jewish synagogue in a given community, there are 80 in NYC, but the experiences within each building compare with great resonance. If you're in the Reform movement, you benefit from a dynamic national organization with policy decisions at the lay and clergy level, making national news headlines every two years at the Biennial meetings. The youth groups, structure of adult committees, and even the prayer books are all nationally published. Even when you travel and hear different melodies or see a few different customs, the liturgy and social experience of being in a synagogue is more alike than different. In fact, I think we notice and comment upon a few melody or visual differences because the unity more dominant. I always meet families in from "everywhere" around the nation for their relatives' B'nai Mitzvah ceremonies, so I hear the comparisons, but the fact remains you can travel anywhere in the land and walk in to find mostly familiar structure. </p>
<p>I'm told that Cornell has a very strong Hillel. Its student body combines NYC-influenced and people from around the nation, too. Your DD will probably meet many Jewish kids from places such as Texas, California, Chicago, Florida with strong regional flavor that is not just a clone of NYC or NE Jewish culture. </p>
<p>I think you can have every reason to hope for your D to follow your DH's lead to come to a new territory and choose to involve himself, connect and eventually even lead (that's wonderful!). She'll likely echo your curiosity and passion to discover what's there for her own heart. </p>
<p>I would only look with the most positive vision towards her future. And if you're like me, sending off my youngest to Southern California, I put a lot of my normal parental angst about his departure for college into, "but how will you be Jewish there..." when in fact he is finding many old and new ways to express himself Jewishly.</p>
<p>You planted all the seeds and are sending her to fertile territory at Cornell.
You could encourage her to check out all the movements of Judaism there, and explore. It is more like kids to want to explore than to recreate their home experience when they arrive on campus, so encourage her to try out many kinds of services and activities. She could also be writing in advance to the Hillel leaders there, which might make her feel even more welcome to know some names or be in correspondence. If not, be sure to encourage her to check things out immediately at freshman orientation. I found in 3 situations with my kids that Freshman Orientation established some early patterns that continued. SOmetimes there's a family brunch, and I actually insisted on that one time (I usually don't insist), to discover many early friendships began right there. Try to make the first encounter prior to High Holy Days if possible, because it'll be smaller and more personal. The older students willl want to involve all the new freshmen, so seize the moment.</p>
<p>I'd be surprised if she didn't take to Hillel, but if that should happen, there are also synagogues in Ithaca. Usually, students prefer a campus-based involvement to a community-based intergenerational one, but it's there lurking in the background, too. On campus, she's already expressed herself with curiosity for cultural clubs and other secular expressions, so if the services don't please her she has other opportunities, too. </p>
<p>I do find it takes kids from a temple they enjoy some time to adjust to anything new or unfamiliar. Remind her it's not going to sound exactly like home, the tunes will be different, and so on, but to embrace that new sound.
Some people get very emotional and homesick, wanting to hear the same-o, but it can't be. </p>
<p>Also, consider signing up for one course in Jewish studies during freshman year, if possible. Whether it's literature, archaeology, language or theology, students are often very pleased to engage in Jewish study at a more sophisticated academic level than they knew from their home synagogues.</p>
<p>She'll do great, I betcha. Worry not! You did your job, now let her do hers :)</p>
<p>EDIT: LOL, I woke up to write my Sunday School lesson and saw your post instead.
Good thing I have a lesson to use...as for East-West transplanting, I sent my youngest out to California and he's doing just fine because his identity was well-developed before he left (family, synagogue, youth group), so he sought out opportunities on a campus with much less in place than Cornell. Your D chose Cornell in part for its Jewish flavor, plus her science gap year is resonant with Cornell. Sounds like it'll be a great match. Best of luck.</p>
<p>My S was just accepted to Emory via ED. Anyone know much about the Hillel program and Alpha Epsilon Pi at Emory ? Thanks.</p>
<p>MBJ, congrats to your son! EMory is a fine school and has a very active Hillel. As I'm sure you know, Emory is at least 30 percent Jewish. I don't know anything about AEPi, but I'm sure someone on these boards does. The city of Atlanta as a whole has a very vibrant Jewish community--120,000 Jews in the greater metro area including many, many, many young people.</p>
<p>East is east and west is west, and when the twain meet...</p>
<p>Speaking as an Easterner living for a long time in the West, and whose offspring is in college back in the Mysterious East, one difference your D will notice is the level and depth of Jewish education of those kids (even from Reform families) who attended a Jewish day school in the East. No, that wasn't the case back when I was a kid, but Jewish day schools (except for yeshivas) were not that common then, either.</p>
<p>I won't try to describe it; your D will be better able to do that.</p>
<p>My son just graduated from Emory last year; he, too, was an ED admit. He loved his 4 years there and keeps in touch with a number of his favorite professors.</p>
<p>He was active in Hillel for a couple of years and then his interests evolved to other things that took up too much of his time although he still went to a good number of the events and programs.</p>
<p>I don't know much about AEPi on campus. Are they back on campus as a legitimate fraternity? At some point several years ago the house was disbanded as a consequence of all kinds of behavior violations . The house moved to "unofficial" status off-campus and were called APES, which still had some sort of rush and pledging but were not under the official purview of the university. APES was mighty unpopular with the administration, I'm not sure how the students viewed it because my son was not interested in Greek life.</p>
<p>Congrats to your son and I hope he has a great 4 years!</p>