Mega Shabbat, coordinated by the Swarthmore Chabad House and Chabad Board, took place this past Friday, bringing together students of different faiths and backgrounds under the Jewish tradition of Shabbat — the weekly Friday “holiday” dedicated to community, spirituality, and welcoming in the restful weekend ahead. With stomachs full and laughter filling the space, the weekend could not have started any better.
Attended by over 70 students, faculty, and staff, the Upper Tarble space was transformed into a family-style dinner experience. The evening began with a Matzah Ball Soup Mixer — the soup made famously by Chabad Co-Director and Head of Student Engagement Reizel Wolf — followed by a catered Kosher meal and dessert made by students. Throughout the evening, singing and prayer reading were led by Rabbi Mordi and Reizel, teaching students about some of the traditional Jewish customs. Additionally, Chabad Board President Rebekah Gendler ’28 and Provost and Dean of the Faculty Rich Wicentowski shared a few words about the meaningfulness and joy of this occasion.
Behind the scenes, students from Chabad signed up to be “hosts” for tables, encouraging other students from all corners of campus to attend the event. Lauren Wilk ’28, a Chabad Board member and host, commented, “I always love going to Shabbat each week to unplug and be present with friends, so being a host at Mega Shabbat was a great way to bring my other friends to a festive event and show them more of what we do at Chabad.”
Additionally, Gendler, who led the event planning, felt that “Mega Shabbat was a unique opportunity for us to step outside of our comfort zone and create a space for the Swarthmore community to join together to celebrate Jewish identity. As a student leader, planning this event was a special moment to engage with a wide range of students and faculty on campus — spreading the word about this event and how we needed mass participation to make it happen.”
After the success of this event, the Chabad Board plans to continue hosting campus Shabbats in the semesters ahead. Until next time, “Shabbat Shalom!”
As an alum who benefitted so much from Shabbat on campus…this is so strange.
For those who don’t know the history–we had Shabbat on campus every week, run by students for students, with a volunteer-cooked vegetarian Shabbat dinner in the kosher kitchen in the basement of Lodge 5. In my day, the student organization was called Ruach.
Sometime around 2004? the student organization was renamed Hillel, for branding to prospective students. This wasn’t just a Swarthmore thing; every on-campus Jewish organization around the USA that wasn’t already named Hillel was pushed to adopt the Hillel name around the same time.
Hillel-national had policies about partnering with any organization that supported BDS. Swarthmore students didn’t want to be told who to partner with. The predictable break happened in 2015 (There was Phoenix coverage, but I think https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/03/18/swarthmore-hillel-breaks-parent-organization-over-israel-issues is better).
From talking with students who attended Swarthmore after that, there were fewer Jewish students who cared about Jewish community on campus after that. “There was nobody to have Shabbat dinner with,” a student from my neighborhood explained, when telling me she was transferring to a larger school.
Enter Chabad. Chabad does great service for Jews all over the world (I am grateful to them for making it possible for me to observe Shabbat in various places), but Chabad is not student-led. And I wonder if students who are active in Chabad understand everything that comes with Chabad (I don’t just mean Chabad’s gender binary approach: see https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2026-03-28/ty-article-magazine/.premium/how-october-7-and-the-war-that-followed-are-driving-chabads-rapid-expansion/0000019d-1672-dd21-a1df-f777c2d00000 for more details).
Shabbat at Swarthmore was the restorative balance I needed for the rest of Swarthmore. Changed my life. But it is so weird/sad that Jewish students at Swarthmore pushed Hillel away only to wind up with Chabad running Shabbat on campus.
Hi Elizabeth
I’ve gotten to know Rabbi Mordi reasonably well and think he and Reizel are doing incredible work. They have helped revitalize Jewish life on campus and created a space where students feel safe (which was unfortunately very much needed these past 2.5 years). They are both genuinely kind and caring people who have made a big difference in Jewish students’ lives – I’m grateful to them for that. I’m my experience they have been very welcoming.
If you have any concerns feel free to reach out to Rabbi Mordi – I’m guessing he would be happy to engage.
I am sure the Chabad rabbi and rebbetzin are genuinely kind and caring people who are very supportive of Jewish students at Swarthmore.
My concern is that there are aspects of Chabad ideology (not shared by more liberal Jewish groups in the US) that are hard to fit with other Swarthmore values. For example, see https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/2511905/jewish/Peace-in-the-Land.htm