We are looking forward to another exciting recruitment weekend February 24-26, 2012. High school juniors and seniors will be able to experience college life firsthand– celebrate Shabbat dinner at Bama Hillel, meet students and faculty, cheer on the Crimson Tide basketball team at a game on Saturday night, and much more! Just forty spots are available for this unique discovery weekend, so register now! Details and forms are available here.

Please see the attached invitation and reservation form for more information about events. All parents of high schoolers please read the “Parent Letter” before signing the liability form. Email  bamahillelrecwkend@gmail.com for more information.

Bama Hillel Discovery Weekend Spring 12

Spring 2012 – Reservation Form

Spring 12 Recruitment – Parent letter

Weekend Liability form

At Shabbat dinner on Friday, December 9, we wished farewell to our graduating seniors, and awarded Hillel’s prestigious Isa Dorsky Legacy Award to Alex Grodner.

Alex is pictured with Bryan Kellert (Hillel Vice President) and Heather Rousso (President). Alex hails from Birmingham, AL, and has been involved on campus and at Hillel since his freshman year at Alabama. He has served as president of ZBT and co-president of Hillel. We thank Alex for his years of service- he will be missed! Seniors Alyssa Dinberg and Julie Muhlendorf were also honored at the dinner and received gifts.  A large turnout of students helped make the event especially celebratory.

The Legacy Award was established in 2009 in honor of Hillel student president Isa Dorsky. It is a way to honor a graduating student who has been exceptionally dedicated to Bama Hillel and who has made a significant and lasting impact on Jewish student life at UA. Previous recipients include Isa Dorsky (’09) and Miriam Fry (’11)

On Sunday, November 13, 2011, Bama Hillel welcomed our Torah back to Tuscaloosa with great joy. The simcha was celebrated by over 120 guests,  including six rabbis from around the state.  Students, alumni, parents, trustees, faculty, and other supporters and friends of Hillel enjoyed the luncheon and ceremony, which was led by Rabbi Bernard Honan and Rabbi Steve Jacobs. Rabbi Honan, a specially trained Torah Sofer - scribe -  recently completed restoring our torah. The final 12 letters were filled in at the ceremony by honorary scribes representing our large community of supporters. Rimonim, which are ornaments for the tops of the Torah scrolls, were presented by Faye Levin on behalf of the Institute for Southern Jewish Life.

Following the completion of the torah, Rabbi Jacobs carried the torah outside and four Hillel students – board members Jason Unger, Meghan Wilgus, and Bryan Kellert, and intern Lauren Ward – held the Chuppah, a traditional wedding canopy also used when dedicating a torah. The students and guests danced with the torah while the “Magic Shtetl Klezmer Band” from Birmingham provided lively traditional Jewish music. The Torah then made its way back into the building; after a customary processional that circled the room three times, the Torah was finally placed in the Ark by the students to shouts of “Mazel Tov!”

Two stories about the celebration were featured in the Tuscaloosa News this week; click to see the Saturday, (Nov. 12) article or the Monday (Nov. 14) article.

These are the 12 honorary scribes that filled in the last letters of our Torah, on behalf of the wonderful groups that provide so much support to Bama Hillel.

Foundations: Fred Friedman

Temple Emanu-el of Tuscaloosa: Joel Whitman

Religious Clergy: Rabbi Steven Jacobs

Federations: Daniel Odrezin

Young Alumni: Isa Dorsky

Student Board: Heather Rousso

Alumni: Mark Bloomston

Volunteers: Rebecca Rothman

Parents: Anna Singer

Honan Family: Rachel Honan

Bloom Family: Ashley Metsky

Siegal Family: Don Siegal

The new Bloom Hillel Center at the University of Alabama will host its culminating dedication event on Sunday November 13th, 2011 at noon with a luncheon and ceremony celebrating  the return of the recently restored Torah to Tuscaloosa.  In addition to the students and the local Jewish community, religious leaders from Alabama and other southeastern states as well as representatives from major Jewish organizations will also be invited.

Rabbi Bernard Honan, who served as Alabama Hillel’s fulltime rabbi from 1970 to 1983 will officiate with Rabbi Steven Jacobs of Temple Emanu-el in Tuscaloosa. Rabbi Honan’s son, Dr. Michael Honan, serves as a co-chair of the University of Alabama Hillel Foundation. The Torah, which has been in safe-keeping at the N.E. Miles Jewish Day School in Birmingham for the past three years while Hillel used temporary facilities, has been restored by Rabbi Honan, who is the only rabbinic Torah scribe in the Reform movement. Rabbi Steven Jacobs also serves as the holder of the Aaron Aronov Endowed Chair of Judaic Studies.

The Torah was donated over 50 years ago and is in very good condition. It will be housed inside the Ark, which features beautiful hand-wrought iron doors created by artisan blacksmith Steve Davis of Sunheart Metalworks of Tuscaloosa. Plans for the celebration include dancing the Torah into the Bloom Hillel Jewish Student Center under a chuppah, and live klezmer music. For additional information please call (205) 348-1023 or email bamahillel@gmail.com.

Click HERE for the story in Southern Jewish Living Magazine.

Hillel hosted several wonderful events for the festival of Sukkot.

We kicked off the holiday with a “Pizza in the Hut” dinner on Wednesday, October 12. We dined (and shook the lulav and etrog) with Tuscaloosa’s Temple Emanu-el congregants and Sunday School students.

Our student board will also get to do a mitzvah by dining in the sukkah for their bi-monthly meeting in the Sukkah on Sunday, October 16.

The festivities continue on Friday, October 21 when students and congregants celebrate Simchat Torah and Shabbat at Temple Emanu-el. Following the service and dancing with the Torah, we’ll enjoy fried chicken in the sukkah for a “Southern Simchat Torah” dinner.