With Hanukkah approaching, we look back on an event from earlier this semester that gave Jewish students a platform to express their pride.
Chabad, the Jewish student group at FGCU, held a festival on the library lawn on Oct. 27 to celebrate Jewish culture and the community it has fostered at the university. Approximately 40 students, both Jewish and non-Jewish alike, attended the event.
Several games and activities were set up in two tents by the Chabad. Attendees braided their own challah bread, a traditional Jewish food and got to take it home to bake. ‘Kiddush-pong’ was a popular game among attendees.
“My favorite game, my favorite activity, was the wine cup pong,” junior Jermey Goldberg said. “Well, not wine, grape juice.”
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Kiddush refers to a sacred Jewish blessing said over either wine or grape juice during Shabbat or the High Holidays. Nicole Gendelman, president of Chabad at FGCU, claimed that she was responsible for the cultural spin on the game of beer pong, which is notoriously popular with college students.
“It’s just a wholesome way and a Jewish way to work on your aim and just get some of that fratty sense and just have an interactive game for people to play,” said Gendelman.
Other activities included a photo station which employed a tapestry backdrop displaying The Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites and a T-shirt decoration table.
About an hour into the event, T-shirts displaying the slogan “It’s Geshmak to be a Yid” which roughly translates to “It’s enjoyable/pleasurable to be a Jew” from Yiddish, were distributed to attendees. Once all were fitted, a march was organized in which participants circled the library lawn to traditional Jewish tunes.
“It’s really, really beautiful, everybody getting together. And the goal of this event was to have students be able to feel Jewish loud and proud, and I think that we achieved that,” said Rabbi Mendel Gordon.
As fear of increasing antisemitism pervades Jewish society around the globe, Gordon felt that this event and its success represented a positive move forward.
“It’s been two years since Oct. 7, and I was thinking a lot of students have, multiple times, said to me, ‘we want to keep our Judaism quiet, low key,’” said Gordon. “And I’m like, if that’s the case, we really have to throw an event which pushes it forward and pushes it out.”
Nathan Isaac Zand, more commonly known by his stage name, Nossan Zand, is an American Chasidic rapper who attendees had an opportunity to see perform at the Veterans’ Pavilion once the march had concluded.
Zand’s performance during the festival marked his third time playing on stage at the pavilion. He has previously performed during events hosted by the Chabad at FGCU.
“I hope that some of the positivity was passed on in a meaningful, internalized way,” said Zand.
As the sun set and the performance drew to a close, faculty and students worked together to return the lawn to its pre-festival situation. This cohesion underscored the pleasant collectivity present throughout the evening of Jewish festivity.
“Anyone who learns the mystical insights of Torah, especially with Chabad, understands that everything is always good, even if it’s not always experienced as such, that everything is good, from the most painful moments to the most celebratory moments, it is all good,” said Zand.