Fifteen members of the Jewish Culture Club walked from the University Center to a temporary hut made of two and half walls out of wood and a bamboo roof in Washington Square Park for “Pizza In The Hut” .
“[A sukkah is] meant to represent the type of booths our ancestors dwelled in as they traveled from Egypt to Israel in the Biblical days,” said Bentzion Goldman during the club’s second meeting on Oct. 19 to celebrate the harvest festival, Sukkot.
Goldman, a sophomore in Communication Design, held a three sticks and a citron fruit, a key piece of the Sukkot harvest festival they were celebrating, which he also said is like the different types of people who attend the club he founded this semester.
Around him sat, a variety of students, some in denim jackets, flower prints and even a Joy Division T-shirt.
“We’re all unified, we’re all chilling at the new school—beautiful park, beautiful night,” Goldman said.
The Jewish Culture Club first met on Sept. 27 after collecting signatures of interested students at the Block Party.
During their second meeting in the makeshift hut, the 15 New Schoolers mingled with students from NYU and other area schools and reflected on what they liked about the new club.
“I’m hoping to make some friends which I kind of already have, which is nice,” said Amelia Clarke, an Urban Design major at Parsons. “The community of it I think is the most important thing.”
Kylie Bryant, a freshman at Lang, joined the club to explore her Jewish heritage and learn more about the culture.
“I’m ethnically Jewish but my family never really practiced and now that I’m on my own I want to explore it a little more,” Bryant said. “I figured a low-key way to do that and get into my Jewishness was to come see this. I just want to be able to continue to do what we’re doing—celebrate some of the holidays, the smaller ones that people can’t go home for—and to learn more about it.”
Goldman founded the Jewish Culture Club after noticing the large number of Jewish students who lacked a forum of like-minded students to get together. Though it is steered towards concretely establishing a Jewish community, the club is open to all students at any level of affiliation or even no affiliation at all.
“I am definitely excited to be a part of [the JCC],” said Talia Moore, a sophomore at Lang studying Journalism and Design. “In high school, I ran the Jewish club at my school and was very involved in making sure there’s a space for this community…It’s good to see it starting off and hopefully, it’ll be here to stay.”
On Nov. 1, the JCC will meet in the University Center in room 619. Further down the road, there will be game nights, more holiday dinners, and talks about venturing off campus for field trips, organizers said.
Top photo: Jewish Culture Club Facebook page.