The High Holy Days are not the only things the Freeman Center is celebrating this week.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Freeman Center for Jewish Life as the home of the Jewish community on campus. The festivities began with the observance of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which was attended by 200 students, said junior Scott Gorlick, student board president of the Rubenstein-Silvers Hillel. The board provides Jewish programming throughout the University community.
“We are honoring the past, celebrating the present and investing in the future,” Director of Jewish Life Rebecca Simons said.
Next Monday, the Freeman Center will host the Jewish community again for Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. In addition to the High Holy Days, the center is commemorating the first two known Jewish students to attend Duke, Fannie Gladstein and Louis Jaffe, on the Center’s High Holiday card. Gladstein and Jaffe both graduated from Trinity College in 1911.
Since then, the Jewish community at Duke has grown to include students from 32 states and eight countries.
“What we’re focusing on is telling the story of the Jewish community at Duke over the last 100 years,” Simons said.
She added that the Freeman Center now serves as a home away from home for Jewish students.
Rabbi Zalman Bluming of Chabad of Durham and Chapel Hill said the Freeman Center has helped bolster Jewish life and has allowed many to consider Duke as a school rich with Jewish life.
“Coming from the north, it made me feel more comfortable that there was a place for Jewish students on campus,” senior Stephanie Bazell said.
In an effort to extend this feeling of community, the Freeman Center’s Jewish First-Year Advisory Mentor program expanded to 130 JFAMs this year, who serve in much the same capacity as a regular First-Year Advisory counselor, Gorlick said.
The Freeman Center, however, is more than just a center for the Jewish community, he added.
“Our events are geared toward Jewish students, but open to all,” Gorlick said. “We see a lot of non-Jewish students come and we encourage that because we want their curiosity to be sparked a little bit. It’s really just a center for interaction.”
Simons noted that other on-campus groups use the Freeman Center as well. Last year, the LGBT Lavender Ball and the Office of Student Affairs and Activities’ student leadership awards where held at the center.
Shabbat dinners on Friday night are also well attended by Jewish and non-Jewish students alike, Gorlick said.
“The Freeman Center has become much more than just a center for religious life, but a center for campus life,” he said.
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