Hillel Hayom

Reflections

Rabbi Danielle Stillman

It’s mud season again in Vermont and the rain has begun. As I write this reflection, our country and the world seem to be in a muddy place as well, with war, a huge escalation in antisemitism, and quite a bit of domestic unrest.

In the Buddhist tradition, the lotus is a metaphor for enlightenment—the beautiful flower that grows out of the mud and muck of samsara, which is the cycle of suffering and ignorance in which we live our daily lives. In our Jewish tradition at this time of year, we align with the flowers of spring that will soon push through the mud, and we celebrate the Israelite people, our ancestors, who left behind the narrowness of slavery to burst through the Sea of Reeds into the expansiveness of freedom.

We cannot always see what will emerge from the mud because it obscures and blocks our vision. It is heavy, and anyone who has driven a car in Vermont during mud season knows that if you’re not careful, you can get stuck in it. Passover is an exercise in seeing past that heaviness and “stuckness.” In the seder we reenact the bravery and faith of the Israelites stepping into and crossing the Sea of Reeds—not knowing if the water will engulf them as they go, not knowing what they will find on the other side. We are reminding ourselves that freedom requires imagination—we must dream and then step into that which we can envision but have not yet seen.

Here on campus, we are resourcing that dreaming by building community and building knowledge. We just returned from a magical Shabbat overnight at Williams College—they hosted Middlebury students to pray and eat and learn and socialize with the Jewish students there, inspiring us with all kinds of new energy and ideas about what is possible here at Middlebury. Our own Shabbat services and dinners have been delightfully full this whole year, and students are learning to lead prayer, discussing Torah, taking Jewish studies classes, and finding ways to work toward repairing the world. In this issue you will read about Professor Adi Livny’s history class that uncovered the stories of Jews at Middlebury and in Vermont, and you will accompany Shayah Kosak ’27 on an adventure to find the right Jewish community to celebrate Sukkot with during his study abroad in Chile in the fall.

May Passover bring us each the faith, imagination, and clarity to dream of freedom and expansiveness, even in the midst of what obscures it. May we dream that freedom into being, for us and for all people.

Happy Passover!

Jewish Midd

In a new course, students dig into the Archives to explore Judaism at Middlebury, in Vermont, and across higher education.

Adi Livny, a Jewish Studies professor, is described on her Middlebury bio page as “a historian of knowledge institutions,” particularly in Israel and Mandatory Palestine. In fall 2025, she turned her attention to our very own knowledge institution, Middlebury College, with an interdisciplinary course titled Jewish Midd: Histories of Jews and Judaism in Middlebury and Beyond. The course was a collaboration with Special Collections and part of the Public Humanities Labs Initiative, a grant-funded program that lets students undertake hands-on, community-curated projects addressing topics of cultural, social, and intellectual importance. 

Jews in Vermont

The first part of the course looked at the history of Jews and Judaism in Vermont, from the earliest Jewish peddlers who sold their wares along the Connecticut River to the Jewish back-to-the-landers who settled in Vermont in the 1970s. The class’s 11 students, some Jewish, some not, took a field trip to Little Jerusalem in the North End of Burlington, where a vibrant Jewish community flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

Livny, an Israeli Jew who came to Middlebury—and Vermont—four years ago, had expected the course to reveal more overlap between Jewish life at Middlebury and in Vermont as a whole. “Not so much, actually,” she says, smiling. 

Jews at Middlebury

Livny was surprised again in the second part of the course, which focused on the history of Jews at Middlebury. She thought the College would serve as a sort of “case study of Jews in higher education. But it turned out to be an exception.” For instance, in their earlier years, most colleges had limits on the number of Jewish students they would accept; Middlebury didn’t. Nor did the College prevent Jewish students from joining fraternities or sororities. “Middlebury didn’t fit a lot of the ideas we had about Jews in higher education,” Livny says.

Jewish student enrollment at the College increased after World War II. But many of these students were choosing Middlebury as a means to gain eligibility into advanced degree programs at universities whose quotas would have excluded them as undergraduates.

The Jewish students who did choose Middlebury in those days tended not to be very religious. Livny wonders if that was because Middlebury traditionally did not offer the sort of religious community or diversity in culture or food that might have appealed to more observant Jews. 

She notes that the College has, in recent decades, actively worked to attract students of wide religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. This may be why her students found that much of their findings about Jews at Middlebury applied to other groups as well. Livny says that in that way, Jewish Midd “wasn’t about Jews. It became kind of like a course about minorities at Middlebury and inclusion in higher education.”

Jewish Voices of Middlebury

An important part of the class involved oral histories. Rebekah Irwin, director of Special Collections, helped guide the students in interviewing and writing about people related to Jewish history at Middlebury. Interview subjects included Timi Mayer, Robert R. Churchill Professor Emerita of Geosciences, and alumna Janine Zacharia ’95, among others. 

Ben Bryan ’28 interviewed Robert Schine, Curt C. and Else Silberman Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies and the first director of the Program in Jewish Studies. Bryan says this part of Jewish Midd was the most meaningful to him. “The interview gave me a glimpse at how many stories are contained in an individual’s mind that take another curious mind to unlock. The interviewees for this oral history project were so excited to share stories of their past that might be lost if not for the work of my peers in the course.”

Livny is proud of the reciprocal nature of this assignment. “It was kind of like a gift to give back to the Archives, which provided material for us during the course.” 

Another assignment required students to write biographies of deceased Jewish alumni based on notes, correspondence, and news items collected by the College in the years after their graduation. These materials are saved for all alumni in Special Collections and remain sealed until after their deaths. Livny says the class “really got connected with the students they researched.”

Student Perspectives

For their final projects, her students got to choose the topic—and medium—of their choice. One student analyzed the availability of Kosher food in higher education (it is not specifically offered at Middlebury). Another recorded a podcast about their Jewish experience at Midd compared to their father’s experience at Dartmouth and how things have changed in a generation. Another made a poster about Jewish environmentalism and spoke about how the Environmental Studies Program, particularly after the Dalai Lama’s visits in 1984 and 1990, was influenced by the study of religion and spirituality, as opposed to taking a strictly scientific approach.

Bryan’s final project explored how the Program in Jewish Studies came to be. He enjoyed talking to the professors who contributed their various areas of expertise to the program but says he struggled. “I felt like I learned so much, but there is so much missing that I did not uncover or didn’t have the time to uncover.”

Bryan’s characterization of his experience in Jewish Midd underscores the value of the Public Humanities Lab Initiative in bringing together Jewish studies and Special Collections: “This course was based on archival research, something I had zero experience with prior. I was surprised by how interested I became in understanding personal stories that are hidden in the Archives.”

Jewish Midd will be offered again in fall 2026.

Visit to a Jewish Commmunity in Chile

By Shayah Kosak ’27

Growing up as a rabbi’s son, I’d never been too far away from a Jewish community. From attending Jewish day school to teaching at my synagogue’s Sunday school, I have always participated in Jewish activities as a core part of my life. 

While the Jewish community in Middlebury is smaller than that in Portland, Oregon, my hometown, it is nonetheless a tight-knit group that has supported me significantly throughout my time in Vermont, and one that I have missed while studying abroad in southern Chile.

Valdivia, Chile’s “Pearl of the South,” is a small port city that I’ve called home since July. Here, I am usually the first Jew that anyone has ever met, and I often end up becoming an ambassador for the religion, explaining our traditions and culture to my host family and Chilean friends. While I greatly appreciate the genuine curiosity and respect shown regarding my background, it is a far cry from what I’ve experienced in the rest of my life. Of course, while deciding to spend a year in Valdivia, I knew that this would be the case. Chile is not particularly known for its Jewish community, with the vast majority of its roughly 20,000 Jews residing 500 miles north of Valdivia, in the nation’s capital of Santiago. Nevertheless, I felt it was important for me to spend time away from the Jewish community to better understand what my needs are and plan for my post-Middlebury life.

While I do not regret coming to Valdivia whatsoever, the lack of a Jewish community has been more challenging than I anticipated. It took me three months to run into another Jew, an Orthodox rabbi from Santiago who was passing through Valdivia. He was kind enough to give me his contact information and even managed to get a machzor (High Holiday prayer book) sent to me so I could celebrate the High Holidays. Still, even with the machzor, praying and fasting alone did not make for the most meaningful Yom Kippur. As Sukkotapproached, I knew I wanted to do something different. My Chilean university’s spring break (the seasons are flipped because of being in the southern hemisphere) was fast approaching, and it overlapped with the holiday. Going to Santiago was not in the cards, so I looked across the Andes to find a solution.

Argentina is home to the world’s sixth-largest Jewish community, with Jewish presence in the nation dating back to the 16th century with the arrival of the conversos, or Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted to Christianity but practiced Judaism in secret. In the late 1800s, large waves of European Jews began arriving in the country, fleeing from increasing persecution and hoping to find a better life in the vast and largely undeveloped lands of Argentina. At this time, the German Jewish industrialist Maurice de Hirsch bought nearly 200,000 acres of agricultural land and sponsored Jewish migration to his property, intending to establish agricultural colonies where Jews could farm peacefully. While initially tenuous, his plan worked, giving rise to the oft-overlooked Jewish gaucho, or cowboy, a fleeting moment in our history. In time, however, the agricultural experiment gave way to urban consolidation. By the early 20th century, many of the settlers’ children left the colonies of Santa Fe and Entre Ríos for Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Córdoba, drawn by education, commerce, and the cultural vitality of city life. The rural dream had been real, but it was also transitional. What endured was not the gaucho on horseback, but the institutions built in his wake. Buenos Aires, in particular, became one of the great Jewish capitals of the Diaspora. 

The neighborhood of Once was filled with Yiddish bookstores, Hebrew schools, labor unions, Zionist clubs, Bundist circles, kosher butchers, and cafés thick with political argument. By the interwar period, Argentina had one of the most vibrant Yiddish presses in the world, alongside a thriving theatrical scene that connected it culturally to Warsaw, Vilna, and New York. Although Buenos Aires became the center of Jewish Argentina, the country’s far south remained largely outside that story for most of its history. Patagonia, remote, sparsely populated, and economically marginal until the late 20th century, did not attract significant Jewish settlement in the early waves of immigration. The agricultural colonies were in the Pampas, the lowland plains; the cultural institutions were in the cities. The deep south was something else.

Only in recent years has this changed. In San Martín de los Andes, a group of local Jews inaugurated the first new synagogue in Patagonia in decades, opening a permanent space for prayer and community life that had previously taken place in homes and temporary gatherings.

The synagogue is only the second Jewish institution in the entire Patagonian region, and unlike other new synagogues in Argentina, it is affiliated with the Conservative movement rather than Chabad-Lubavitch.

As a Conservative Jew myself, I thought there would be no better way than to join this small community for Sukkot. It would be particularly interesting to see what traditions we shared and learn the history of this Kehilla (community),such an oddity, not just in Argentina, but in the declining world of Conservative Judaism as a whole. So, I reached out to the community and asked about joining them for Shabbatand the holiday. Unsurprisingly, they responded with enthusiasm, and a couple of weeks later, with funding from the Scott Center, I made my way to San Martín, arriving just in time for Kabbalat Shabbat. I remember being hit with a wave of emotion during the recital of Mizmor Shir, Psalm 92, whose words reflected the gratitude I felt for being reunited with the larger Jewish community.

Moreover, because San Martín’s Kehilla is Conservative, much of their Nusach was extremely similar to that of my synagogue back in the U.S. It is an incredibly unique and profound experience to feel like you are at home when you are physically distant from your family and country. After the service, I chatted with the members of the synagogue, who were overjoyed to have a guest and surprised to learn that I spoke Spanish. They had assumed I was using a translator in my communication with them. Sharing a language in addition to the aforementioned religious similarities strengthened our connection even more. Despite just having met each other, it felt more like being with family than being with strangers. It is in moments such as this one where I am most grateful for and proud of my Jewish identity and its remarkable power to connect me with my brethren wherever they may be.

On Shabbat day, I was given a walking tour of the town by Judi, a day-school teacher from Buenos Aires who comes down to San Martín to chant Torahfor the community during major holidays. We discussed Jewish life in Argentina, and she told me the story of how her family migrated from Syria generations ago. Aside from the U.S. and Israel, Argentina has the largest Jewish population of any country I’ve visited, and I was struck by how similar many things felt to the United States. Being Jewish or interacting with Jewish culture is nearly as prevalent in Argentina as in the U.S. It doesn’t come across as odd or unique as it may in other countries like Chile. I’ve spoken with many non-Jewish Argentinians from around the country and have been shocked by how knowledgeable they are on Judaism. I find it refreshing to be reminded that something like this exists beyond the United States and Israel. While antisemitism exists everywhere, I was told by the community in San Martín that it isn’t something they ever really have to think about.

Nonetheless, being a small community in Patagonia does pose certain challenges. There was no place for a communal sukkah, nor were we able to read from the Torah for Sukkot, given the lack of a minyan, or quorum of 10 Jews.Yet despite this, I felt satisfied with my Sukkot in Argentina. I was able to spend the holiday with my newfound family, all while learning about a community that has only formally existed since 2022. Visiting San Martín’s Kehilla for Sukkot reminded me of the sukkah itself: not the shelter I’m used to, but another temporary dwelling along the same long journey—different in its beams and branches yet held together by the same story.