We had an orientation to go over the itinerary, which got us very excited for the trip. Jenna kept being referred to as the "smallest group leader ever!" 
After orientation, we got to meet our host families, and my host mother’s name is Mama K. She was very kind to us, and we got to meet her dog, Ben. We also had the opportunity to try local bananas, which are slightly sweeter than the ones at home, and we got to hear about her past students that she’s hosted from all around the country. 
My favorite part of the day was getting to meet an Olympic gold medalist curler at the BWI airport and getting to see scenery as we drove through Jamaica.  ​

​When I was a student at UVA, Hillel helped me out so much. From helping me find a spiritual community on grounds, to free meals with Shabbat dinners and bagels on the lawn, and even letting me use the building as a location for tutoring students! Jake even let me have my engagement party there after I proposed to my fiance this past August. For all of these reasons and many more, I will always have a special place in my heart for the Brody Jewish Center and will continue to give back to the organization that helped me so much as a student.

I give monthly to Hillel for many reasons. First off, it's a lot easier for me to give a little steadily throughout the year than to give a large sum of money once a year. I can plan giving into my budget so that it doesn't take a large chunk out of my bank account once a year. I also know that organizations like Hillel love to have monthly donations because it helps them plan their activities knowing they will have a steady stream of revenue coming in. Think of it like would you rather have a paycheck you get twice a month, or have a much smaller chance of getting a larger sum of money? I know I would rather have the steady paycheck for peace of mind!

I hope reading this helped you see why I give to Hillel and has inspired you to give back too!
- Ben Edgar '15

This summer I was a Hillel Summer Intern at the Schusterman International Center in D.C. My specific internship was as a Jewish Experience Intern through the Meyerhoff Jewish Education Center, and it was focused a lot on Jewish education in Hillel programming. 


Myself and the other Jewish Experience Intern did a lot of work going through education archives to determine what was still useful/could be worked on for further use, and what was no longer extremely relevant to the Jewish young adult. We also started work on a Pilot program for Jewish Holiday education on campuses, and helped with Webinar programs to train staff on using new programs and materials. 

Towards the end of the summer I was part of the logistics team for Institute, the Hillel International Conference in St. Louis for new professionals and engagement interns. I was responsible for planning the Body&Soul programming for the mornings so that people could exercise their bodies and minds before the busy day. I also helped with day to day logistics during the conference- anything from working registration to driving people and large items in golf carts around campus (Which was a major highlight for me)

Hillel International also set up opportunities for myself and the other interns to participate in professional development classes and to network with a variety of staff within the SIC during the summer. I was able to meet so many amazing professionals who are currently in a field I some day hope to work in, which was so valuable to me.  I feel so lucky to have worked with Hillel International this summer and I am excited to bring back my knowledge to UVA this year and our own Hillel programming!

​- Annie Weinberg

It was after a long day of packing, driving, and moving in that I got the news that the Alt-Right was coming to Grounds. It was that night that I stood truly terrified for my livelihood, alone in my new room, looking through a worn peephole and heard the chants, “Jews will not replace us,” as a mass of flames flowed up the Lawn. When my pavilion neighbor came to get me, I ripped off my Jewish jewelry and hid my painting with Israeli flags, but there was no way to remove the physical indicators from my body. Everything about who I am felt like a threat. They hated me, and here I was in this room. I sprinted terrified into the pavilion a couple doors down, just mere feet from hundreds of people carrying weapons and wearing shirts with symbols that clearly communicated they wanted me dead—while some had these same symbols tattooed proudly to their skin.

I can never go back to the way I was before that night. I cannot look at torches, swastikas, or even the Lawn the same way. I am traumatized by what happened and immediately following that night, everything felt like a threat. I started to count the number of Jews in my classes. I changed the way I walked so I didn’t have to cross the Lawn after the sun went down. I slept with ear plugs so I knew when the chants were coming from outside my door or inside my head. I honestly felt like I was going crazy. After that experience, my world fundamentally changed. The way I thought, the way I engaged (or disengaged), and the way I felt was different.

Living through and experiencing one of the greatest demonstrations of anti-Semitism in the past half century was an aggressive reminder of my Judaism. Something so personal and integral to who I am made me feel scared for my life. I have never felt more Jewish than in that moment and in the months that followed, and I felt comforted to know that fellow Jews felt the same. I found a sense of safety and security in other Jews and found myself turning to my Jewish friends and Hillel staff as my greatest source of support. I am eternally grateful that I had these relationships to fall back on because they are truly what got me through each day last fall.
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As much as I hate to give my experience with literal Nazis a silver lining, it was that experience that brought me closer to my Jewish friends and showed me the tremendous strength and resilience of our Jewish community. I can’t quite describe how important it was to be to be able to walk into Hillel and be surrounded by people who just “got it” or feel the support from fellow Jews when the rest of my world seemed to be crumbling. Despite the terror and trauma, this place still means the world to me. Our University, our country, and our world are far from perfect, but the power of the Jewish people to be there for each other when we need it most is what assures me that we can make it through. 

-- Diane, 4th Year Student

Unlike many of my peers on our Alternative Spring Break trip to Berlin, I didn’t have many personal connections to Germany or even the Holocaust. All of my grandparents were born and raised safely in the United States by the time World War II came, so thinking about the Holocaust has always been one-step removed. I have also been fortunate enough to spend time on other trips diving deeper into Holocaust education and remembrance, including a week in Poland touring Auschwitz and the other infamous death camps.

Because of all of this, my experience in Berlin was perhaps different than someone who lost a relative during the Holocaust or who had never previously come into physical contact with relics of the atrocity that occurred. Maybe I thought I would feel more distant from the history, but leaving Germany, I could not have felt more differently.

If you glimpse at the past hundred years of German history, you’re immediately forced to grapple with stark changes in national identity. After WWI, Germany was meeting modernity, yet unsure of what it meant to be German. During WWII, Germany had a narrow definition of its national identity and sought to persecute all who did not fit within it. After WWII, Germany was split and forced into two vastly different schools of politics and thought. And finally, after reunification, about 5 years before I was born, Germany was given a bunch of broken pieces and a goal for a modern Western democracy. Coming into contact with all of these points of identity change forced me to think about how volatile identity is in the world we live in.

As humans, we seek continuity, especially in our identities, so I empathized with how Germans and especially German Jews were forced to continually readdress their own identities as the history of the world marched forward.

Just as German identity has continued to shift over time, I have realized that Jewish identity, too, must continually be reflected upon and not merely something taken for granted. Identity isn’t static, it responds to the experiences around us and transforms as we process the people, places, and things with which we come into contact.

Although I didn’t expect it, I think I was one of many students whose understanding of my Jewish identity evolved over the course of my time in Berlin. Throughout my life, I have come into contact with various Jewish communities, studied and socialized in different schools, and have participated as a citizen in many different political climates. With each change, I am forced to recapitulate what being Jewish means in the here and now that I experience. For one German Jew, every decade, every year brought new challenges and opportunities for understanding national and religious identity.

While in Germany, I was forced to reflect upon my role as a citizen, as a member of a faith community, and as someone who has one foot in each community: the secular and the religious. I was reminded of all of the Jewish people who, over the past hundred years, have sustained themselves through the tumultuous history of the world and have adapted to make sense of it all.
So perhaps I did not arrive to Germany with an immediate connection to the narrative shared with us, but it did not take long for me to understand the volatile history of identity transformation in the country and how I was far from immune from that process of transformation, as well.

-- Michaela Brown
​Class of 2017

The hustle and bustle of school has made me focus a lot more on things other than Germany for the last two weeks. But every time I pass someone who was on the trip, or see the slice of the Berlin Wall on Grounds, someone mentions Germany in my Cold War history class, or I glance at the journal that Germany Close Up gave me, I am jarred back into that experience. For me, the Germany trip was a rollercoaster ride of education, emotion, fun, and thinking. It was an experience very few are lucky enough to have.
 
Some things that have really stuck out to me, that I keep going back and pondering on, were our visit to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, meeting with the German member of federal Parliament, and walking around to street markets on that last day of the trip. With Sachsenhausen, I have been thinking a lot about the courtyard in front of tower A where the prisoners would line up for roll call. I think of the frigid winters and the blazing summers, the smaller children and older men; I think of the Russian POWs and the gays there, of the guards who went back to their quarters for a beer or tea after a hard day of work. I think about how there was life in the camp. I think about how people’s existences were confined in those walls and watched in those towers. I haven’t reacted as emotionally as I thought I would to seeing a concentration camp, but the thought lingers in my mind: “What if that were my family and me.”
 
The member of German Federal Parliament left me with a completely different feel. His ability to absorb our tough questions and give direct, graceful answers is something I really admired about how he handled us. Not only that, I think he displayed a lot of prudence and strong values, something a lot of us were keen to hear after our political discussion in Dresden. (For those of y’all who were on the trip, I also can’t get the sound of Gunther’s voice out of my head!).
 
Finally, the last day we were in Berlin, which coincided with Shabbat, was really special to me. Having the time off to walk around the city, explore, go to art exhibits, duck into random stores, do some people watching, eat a bratwurst, and do a lot of the things I wanted to do in Berlin was an absolute highlight of the trip. After spending a week rigorously learning and grappling, it was very cool to settle in and see what “a day in the life” is like. Walking around the city with some of my best friends and just being present in that moment is a memory I’ll keep for the rest of my life.

-- Erik Roberts
​Class of 2018

Hello friends and family of my new found friends! Shockingly, it is already Thursday (I would include the time but that’s different for you and me and thus would make it kind of confusing) and so, sadly, we only have a few more days in Deutschland. Our time here to date has been full of delightful, interesting, and meaningful experiences. Let’s recap. 

We have two guides- Richard and Kaleen. They’re exceptional people and very knowledgeable about everything we see. Perhaps more importantly, they make sure we’re always on time for the next activity. Sometimes this entails scurrying across tram tracks but, most of the time, it doesn’t. Also, Melissa is joining us. She’s good at counting, which is important because sometimes we like to wander and losing a student would be bad. 

As for our actual activities they have been varied and full. Our first day was named “Space and Time in Berlin”. Unfortunately, we didn’t go to space but we did have a fantastic walking (mostly standing) tour during which we learned about our neighborhood: Jewish Berlin Mitte. We also zoomed through the German Historical Museum AND did a bus tour of the city. It was CRAZY but mostly just really busy. The sights were real, they were cool, and the bus was comfy. Many tried to stay awake for the duration and, though I tried my hardest, I was not among them. 

We’ve also done a whole lot more and If I listed every activity we’d never leave (and, more importantly, I’ll never get to sleep on this train). So let’s go ludacris speed. We’ve visited the Holocaust Memorial and a Concentration Camp (look for another post on that from my esteemed colleague Diane), spent a day in Dresden exploring the sights, and another day in Dresden talking a bit about the political situation and exploring an old Stasi jail. 

It has been an absolute whirlwind. Full of great information, new friends (I’m looking at you… everyone), and .5 liter steins of beer. Germany has not failed to impress. Of course, we have also spent much of our time discussing Germany’s past, how Jewish society in Germany has changed and developed, and how we feel and can relate to different events and realities. 
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Oh, and of course I have to mention the food. They are feeding us exceptionally well. Dare I say even: terrifically well. Steak and gnocchi and strudel, oh my! Their pork knuckle even comes with the skin, tendons, and bone. That’s what I call value (and an extremely troublesome psychological barrier)! Anyways, we’re doing great, we’re learning lots, and no one has yet fallen in the river. Go hoos!

- Zach Diamond
Class of 2017