150 NC Hillel Students Celebrate Rosh Hashanah Together
Apple season is upon us, but our 1st Annual Apple Gala was the best of the bushel! Jewish college students from all over North Carolina attended our semi-formal dinner/dance in UNCG’s Cone Ballroom on September 17 to celebrate Rosh Hashanah.
150 students from 15 campuses, including private schools like Elon and Wake Forest, came together for our first in-person statewide event since before the Pandemic began. Students blessed the new year with Shehecheyanu, participated in a student-led Havdallah service, and danced the hora.
Our student leaders from UNCG and UNC Charlotte Hillels spent their summers planning the event. They met with our NC Hillel Link Director every two weeks to provide us with status updates and troubleshoot, but they took charge of the entire event.
“When we started planning the Apple Gala I really wanted to connect students in Hillels across the state. I learned how to better time-manage as well as reach out to the school and coordinate multiple things coming together at one time.
“I feel that we not only accomplished that goal, but we did it in a way we weren’t even expecting! It made me proud to see more and more people walking in the doors when I was talking to people, the entire night I was smiling after knowing how much work was put in seeing the work pay off really meant a lot to me.”
Jake G., UNCG ‘24
We received overwhelming positive feedback from students during and after the night.
“Doing the hora was amazing. It’s been years especially with COVID and being with people my own age, too, was just incredible.”
“Thank you so much for giving the Jewish community the opportunity to connect post-COVID!”
Students got to meet new friends from other NC colleges and native North Carolinians got to reconnect with childhood friends. Two old camp friends from different campuses reunited!
To top it all off, a party photobooth was available for students to save their memories of the night:
Wake Forest & Elon Israel fellow, Greensboro Jewish Federation’s ShinShinim Israelis, and Israeli UNCG Basketball player met each other at the party (pictured together, above middle).
Noya and Maskit, the ShinShiniot, stated after, “the Apple Gala was amazing! We enjoyed getting to know American in our age from all over the state. Different young adults, with different hobbies than ours, different opinions and a different outlook on life. It was very interesting to hear what people know about Israel and the places we came from. We had a special experience and we had a lot of fun!”
We can’t wait to see what other fabulous opportunities our NC Hillel Link student leaders can create to connect our Jewish students together!