Ever since school started at the end of August I knew that I wanted to get involved in Hillel, the Jewish club at Baruch. Thanks to the blocks that were created for freshmen, almost everyone in my Freshmen Seminar class has all their classes together. It made it easier to bond and get to know other freshmen and make friends but I wanted to join a club that represents something important to me so that I could get to know people who shared something in common with me other than our classes. My decision to join Hillel stemmed from the fact that I wanted to meet people who shared a similar background to mine and get to know the different Jewish people at Baruch.
The event that I attended on Thursday, September 7, was a meet and greet with an Israeli singer and songwriter, Noa Bentor, where she spoke about her career as a female musician and put on a performance. She had an amazing story to share about how she battled with breast cancer while living life in Israel as an artist. It was a truly inspiring event where she shared her music with us and spoke about how her cancer was treated the first time and then how it came back and she had to make difficult decisions. I think it was very honorable of Noa to have come in to tell her story and it was an amazing thing that the Hillel club did by asking her to come in to speak to us. I have many women in my family who had passed away due to breast cancer so I’m very glad to have attended this event. After Noa’s speech, the club set out food for the club members and we got to hang out and talk. I made many friends who introduced me to people they knew. I had a genuinely awesome time bonding with my fellow Jews and I’m definitely going to be attending their events on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’m even going out during my break on Tuesday after the next club event to have coffee with a few of the club members. I’m happy to have joined Hillel.
