Even for students, getting around the University at Albany campus is a schlep. For visitors, you need to pay for parking and make your way through a 610-acre maze of buildings, pillars, and even a pool. It takes determination. Still, on Sept. 9, many from the outside Jewish community trekked to the University to celebrate being Jewish along with students. The visitors witnessed a view of college life not often talked about as antisemitic incidents flare across American campuses. The campus ballroom was flooded with a sea of students, waving glow sticks and bouncing together to the beat of Hassidic rapper Nissim Black’s hits, reports Jay Deitcher for eJewishPhilanthropy from the concert.

North American tour: The event was part of Chabad on Campus’s Let Here Be Light! tour, which is stopping at nearly 50 schools across the United States and Canada this month. Driving from campus to campus in light purple vans beaming the Let Here Be Light! branding, four groups of 12 to 13 Chabad staff are bringing a traveling carnival complete with tents, arts and music. Additionally, many campuses held mega events along with the larger Jewish community featuring a concert with the rapper. The initiative cost between $500,000 to $600,000.  

Time to invest: “The question is not how much it costs, the question is how much of a difference it makes,” Rabbi Yossy Gordon, CEO of Chabad on Campus International, told eJP. The investment is unprecedented for Chabad on Campus, but it was needed because “it’s a historic time,” Gordon said. “We need to do things that are beyond what has ever been done before, because the Jewish people require it. They require a measure of strength and inspiration that’s got to be fueled by a unique level of intensity.”

Read the full report here.

The last meal Shani Gabay ever ate with her family was on Oct. 6, 2023. It happened to be her favorite dish, made by her mother — spicy fish stew with challah on the side. The next day, Gabay, a recent law school graduate, was murdered at the Nova music festival when Hamas infiltrated the party in Israel’s south and slaughtered 364 people, along with the hundreds of others massacred in the attacks across the Western Negev that day. On Monday evening, two weeks before the one-year anniversary of Gabay’s death, a group of about 30 culinary leaders, pro-Israel activists and journalists gathered with Gabay’s family at New York’s chic French restaurant Gabriel Kreuther to eat her favorite meal, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen reports from the event.

Providing sustenance: The event was hosted by the Asif Culinary Institute, a culinary center in Tel Aviv that has provided thousands of hot meals to Israelis impacted by the Israel-Hamas war. The group works closely with the families to gather stories about their loved one before recreating their most-loved meals, often in the families’ own kitchens. Then the recipes and stories are shared on Asif’s website and social media channels in an effort to help the world learn about the victims of the attacks on a personal level.

Other favorites: The meal featured the chef’s take on Gabay’s treasured stew —- with some assistance from Michal in the kitchen. The favorite dishes of other Oct. 7 victims were also served: tomato soup with dumplings in memory of Itay and Hadar Berdichevsky, beef tartare with microgreens in memory of Adiel Twitto and for dessert chocolate birthday cake in memory of Aviv Baram. 

Read the full report here.

Brandeis University President Ronald Liebowitz, who garnered headlines last year for taking a strong stance against antisemitism after Oct. 7, resigned on Wednesday morning following a vote of “no confidence” passed by the Brandeis faculty, according to a letter he sent to the university community. The Tuesday faculty vote, which passed by just 10 votes, 159-149, described “a consistent pattern of damaging errors of judgment and poor leadership,” Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Management decisions: Liebowitz’s decision to step down comes after the university was forced to fire dozens of employees, cut back its doctoral programs and restructure its business and social policy schools, among other steps, in light of significant “financial challenges,” as well as controversy over his handling of anti-Israel protests. The no-confidence resolution described both, according to a draft copy published in the Brandeis student newspaper earlier this month: “The results this year include badly handled budget shortfalls, failures of fundraising, excessive responses to student protests, indifference to faculty motions, and the recent damaging staff layoffs.”

‘Mixed emotions’: In an email to the Brandeis community, Liebowitz said he is stepping down “with mixed emotions, because this is an exceptional institution, which carries great meaning, especially at this time, due to the reason for its founding.” Liebowitz’s resignation is effective on Nov. 1. Arthur E. Levine, a former president of the Teachers College at Columbia University, will take over as interim president.

Read the full report here.

“At least a dozen Jewish day schools across North America began the new academic year lacking heads of school for their institutions,” writes Rabbi Kenneth Brander, president and rosh yeshiva of Ohr Torah Stone, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. 

Multiple factors: “Finding good principals, heads of schools and other administrators is a challenge familiar to almost every day school, but it has grown more acute in recent years as many leaders have reached retirement age and simultaneously there are fewer professionals to fill their shoes. Greater numbers of North American Jews who were committed to the field of Jewish education are immigrating to Israel. Additionally, fewer young people are entering the field of Jewish education (and education in general) due to concern that a teaching career will not provide the financial resources needed to support a religious lifestyle for their families. Finally, demands placed upon heads of schools by boards, community leaders and parents — essentially giving educators three separate groups of bosses — can make it a position that no one desires, even when the financial compensation is significant.”

Communal challenges demand communal solutions: “To solve these shortages long-term, Jewish communities need to prioritize and invest more in education, both in terms of budget and in terms of creating the conditions that attract educators to work in and lead Jewish schools. This is a mission for communities as a whole, not just the schools: Rabbis, synagogue boards and other leaders within communities need to recognize the key role of day schools and do what they can to make sure they are prioritized in communal funding and private giving.”

Read the full piece here.

“This past year, more schools than ever had trouble filling leadership positions, choosing instead to leave these slots open and extend their search for another year,” write Maury Grebenau, director of the Jewish New Teacher Project’s Administrator Support Program, and Miriam Krupka, assistant principal of Ramaz School’s upper school in New York City, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. 

An unexpected outcome: “Both of us have firsthand experience with schools’ attempts to deal with this phenomenon: When the Ramaz Upper School in New York City found itself in a longer-than-expected search for a principal, Miriam acted as co-principal with another colleague; and Maury had a parallel experience of participating team-style leadership in response to a leadership gap earlier in his career. In both cases, leadership positions that were historically filled by one person were filled by more than one leader who was already in the school — and in both cases, even though the solution was considered an non-ideal stopgap measure, the new leadership structure ended up being very successful and continuing past the initially planned period.”

Thinking long-term: “A broader leadership structure creates an opportunity to give talented teachers some leadership responsibility, a possible incentive for employee retention in a competitive market. It can also spread the workload and emotional toll of leadership among more than one person. Day school leadership will be more sustainable if we can envision a leadership structure conducive to longer tenures and careers. Shared leadership can benefit the school, the leaders themselves and ultimately the field of education as a whole.”

Read the full piece here.