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Hannah Rosenberg (Photo credit: Jaden Finkle)<\/p>\nHannah Rosenberg (Photo credit: Jaden Finkle)<\/p>\n
Although Hannah Rosenberg went to college to study archaeology, she has spent her entire professional career working for Hillel.<\/p>\n
Growing up attending a Reform synagogue in Connecticut, Rosenberg said some of her favorite memories were going to Friday night Shabbat services with her parents and sisters and then going out for pizza afterwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cJudaism was a very living and breathing thing in our home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Rosenberg explained that a driving force of her Judaism was her grandfather, a Holocaust survivor who was in Auschwitz.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that also really informed my Jewish upbringing, just seeing how much he deeply believed in the future of the Jewish people,\u201d Rosenberg said. \u201cI felt like for him, I would always make Judaism a priority for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growing up, Rosenberg participated in a program through her synagogue where she spent a summer in Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cJudaism was really showing up everywhere in my life growing up and it\u2019s definitely still that way,\u201d she explained. \u201cIt\u2019s not just one thing; it\u2019s kind of everything that I do.\u201d
After graduating from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, there was a position open at the university\u2019s Hillel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember my very first Shabbat on campus. I talked with a student leader at Shabbat dinner and she just made me feel so welcomed and included and I wanted to be that person for others,\u201d said Rosenberg.<\/p>\n
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Three years later, a spot opened up at Drexel University\u2019s Hillel and Rosenberg decided to move to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
Today she serves as the assistant director of Hillel at Drexel University and said her favorite part has been working with students.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely the students. I feel like I\u2019ve seen it so many times when a student walks into the Hillel building or to the Hillel table \u2026 and they\u2019re so hesitant, and they don\u2019t really know, \u2018am I welcome here? Is this the place for me?\u2019\u201d Rosenberg said. \u201cThen eventually they become the person who\u2019s hosting their own Shabbat dinner or leading programs for their peers. It\u2019s so heartwarming to just be a part of that journey of that moment, that first moment of hesitation, to then living such a proud Jewish life on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added, \u201cwatching them go from, \u2018I\u2019ve only done Shabbat with my family growing up or at Hillel,\u2019 to leading it with such intention is incredibly rewarding. It\u2019s my favorite part of my job.\u201d<\/p>\n
While making sure every student feels welcome at the Hillel is a big part of why she does what she does, she said it is also the most challenging part.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to engage all kinds of Jewish students and build a community where everyone feels like there\u2019s a place for them, whether they\u2019re Orthodox, Reform, cultural, questioning and everything in between,\u201d she explained. \u201cWhen we\u2019re trying to engage everyone, all the students are coming in with very different backgrounds and practices and comfort levels. And just making sure that no students feel like Hillel is not for them is the biggest challenge I face every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the biggest challenge but it\u2019s also the most rewarding,\u201d added Rosenberg.<\/p>\n
Outside of Hillel, Rosenberg and her family are members of Society Hill Synagogue, where they frequent their family Shabbat services. She often hosts other young families for Shabbat in her home in South Philadelphia.<\/p>\n