Dear Jewish IU Alumni,

The weather has finally gotten a bit cooler and your beautiful Alma Mater is preparing for winter! Colorful leaves brighten up an already beautiful campus and make for a perfect backdrop to any early December day. With the end of the semester and winter break approaching, basketball season starting up, and a great season of shows at the Auditorium, there is a certain buzz of excitement in the air. Although it has been awhile since you have walked through the campus with backpacks and books in tow, I am sure you can still picture the Sample Gates, can remember rushing through the Arboretum to class, can imagine the shops and restaurants on Kirkwood, remember the smell of challah before Shabbat dinner at Hillel, and are still in touch with many of our college friends.

IU Hillel has made a drastic change over the past five years and has indeed become the center of Jewish life at Indiana University. With the Jewish population at IU growing to over 4,000 students, IU Hillel sees around 2,000 each academic year through our new Center for Informal Jewish Education, our Greek Jewish Council, holiday programming, Student Board, diversity programming, Campus Superstar, the new Social Media and Marketing Team, our weekly Shabbat services and family-style Shabbat dinners, and countless other initiatives. IU Hillel has grown to be one of the strongest Hillel programs in North America.

With this resurgence of Jewish life on campus, we are reaching out to our alumni to help keep one of our flagship programs free and accessible to our current students. Shabbat at Hillel attracts an average of 175 students each Friday night for Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox services, and a free Shabbat dinner. Each Shabbat dinner costs $1,000 and with rising food costs, it is a program that we don’t want to lose. Students come from Greek houses, residence halls, off-campus housing, and straight from class to enjoy the community and family-like feeling gained from spending Friday night at Hillel. We need your help more now than ever before.

In order to continue to meet the needs of the ever growing Jewish student population on campus we need you to be invested. Please consider making a gift this year benefiting the Jewish students at your Alma Mater to help sustain our Shabbat dinner program. Your contribution is tax deductible. Information on how to give is included on the enclosed pledge card.

Please make Hillel a stop any time you come back to Bloomington! We would love to reconnect whether it be for a Shabbat meal, a quick building tour, a cup of coffee, or just a quick hello! I look forward to being in touch and reconnecting with so many of you!

Thank you for your support,

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