Hillel Global Giving Week: A Place at the Table
My name is Matthew Meyerson. I’m a Professor of Genetics and Medicine at Harvard, and I’ve spent the last two years co-hosting a weekly lunch for the Jewish and Israeli community on the Longwood campus – in parallel with my Law School colleague Jesse Fried, who’s doing the same at the Law School. We do this on behalf of the Harvard Faculty for Israel, a faculty group that we started with 450 publicly listed Harvard faculty, who are committed to supporting Israeli and Jewish students on campus, Harvard students visiting Israel, and academic exchanges between Harvard and Israeli universities.
Harvard’s Longwood campus holds a large portion of the Jewish community at Harvard, including medical students, public health students, postdocs, researchers, faculty, and more. However, many of these members of Harvard’s Jewish community feel unfortunately isolated. You’re likely heard a great deal about the encampments and Jewish admissions at the College – what many
people don’t understand is that what Jewish students and trainees face in the medical community is at least as severe, and often worse, than the headlines that have come from Harvard Yard.
After October 7th we began bumping into students who were being shunned and even discriminated against. That’s what got us started. Just about a year ago, we asked Rabbi Rubenstein if Harvard Hillel could help support the Harvard Faculty for Israel lunches, and the answer was a near-immediate ‘yes’. It was that simple, and it’s allowed us to build a community that’s in the hundreds, and growing. Many of the people who come to our weekly lunches tell us they hadn’t met another Jewish person on campus before walking through the door.
Today’s Hillel Global Giving Week video features some of the people who make this lunch what it is, including Sophie Erlich, a PhD student who calls these lunches her primary source of Jewish community at Harvard, and Dr. Ariel Furer, who came to Harvard Chan after serving in the IDF during the post-October 7 conflict and found in this room a place to share his experiences and hear from others.
What happens at these lunches is more than a meal, and goes beyond social bonds. Junior faculty and postdocs have the opportunity to break bread with senior faculty. Ideas are born: one lunch conversation led to a symposium on the Israeli public health system at Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Students who showed up once because they were curious now show up every week because they feel like they belong.
We get emails from students and fellows who tell us that this is the most important hour of their week. I believe it. And none of it would happen without Harvard Hillel’s commitment to investing in Jewish communities across the entire campus, not just in Harvard Yard.
Hillel Global Giving Week runs through midnight TONIGHT. Harvard Hillel’s goal is $100,000, and every gift up to the first $50,000 is matched dollar-for-dollar, thanks to Hillel International and two generous members of Harvard Hillel’s Board of Directors. Whatever you give until midnight tonight does double the work toward that goal.
With appreciation,
