Annual Report 22-23

CELEBRATING YOUR IMPACT

“Coming to Vassar, I didn’t realize how big of an impact you would have on my experience.”

Read Hannah’s story inside.

Chabad on Fulton Jewish Student Center

Before Graduation Shabbat with the Seniors and their families, we posed for this picture outside of the Chabad House.

Read

We hope this annual report gives you insight into the impact you are having and the good you are doing for the campus community. This report will walk you through the highlights of this year’s programs and celebrations. Every picture will have a detailed description to understand its context and impact.

The past few years have been a real challenge to overcome but I feel confident that this year was a real breakthrough. We have never had this many students involved nor have we had a student leadership board that is as committed as they are.

The Jewish community at large, and Vassar is no different, is facing rising threats of anti-antisemitism coupled with declining numbers of Jewish affiliation. It is the call of the hour to reach out to the future of the Jewish people with warmth and excitement while providing them with meaningful and fun Jewish experiences. All of this must be done in a supportive, nonjudgmental environment.

There are still significant obstacles we are facing, your support strengthens us to overcome them and continue building a brighter Jewish future!

Thank you for another great year,

Rabbi Daniel and Rebbetzin Dalia Sanoff

With your help, it has been a tremendous year for Vassar Jewish students!

Sushi Making Social

Friends and social events are crucial for building community. To start off the year before the solemnity of the High Holidays, we host fun and relaxed events for students to get to know each other. Everyone loves to learn how to roll their own sushi!

Orientation Shabbat

It can be overwhelming for first year students coming to campus! So, during orientation there is a Shabbat crawl for Jewish students to learn all about the different options on campus to practice and celebrate Judaism.

Over 65 first year students gathered in our backyard to experience what Shabbat dinner at Chabad is all about. Afterwards, they went to the Bayit as well. (Picture taken before Shabbat)

Yom Kippur Break-Fast

After fasting, who isn’t happy to indulge in delicious bagels and lox? There is something special about sharing a meal with others that unites and connects.

These moments forge lifelong friendships and strengthens Jewish identity.

Chloe is decorating the campus Sukkah right outside the main dining hall. Having the Sukkah located in a central location allows many students to enjoy it throughout the week long holiday of Sukkot. But it also serves as a source of pride and a reminder for Jewish students as they walk by.

Here students are making pickles and enjoying deli sandwiches in the Sukkah.

Sukkot

Thank

By Hannah Levine ‘25

Growing up Modern Orthodox I knew about Chabad Houses, but never personally. Coming to campus I didn’t realize how big of an impact they would have on my experience. The friends I’ve made and the memories formed will stay with me for my whole life.

The most prominent memory I’d like to share is my favorite event of the year, Super Ultra Mega Shabbat. I was the spearhead for this ambitious event! Our goal was to gather 100 Jewish students for a Friday night Shabbat dinner.

After surrounding myself with people who were more than capable of bringing this wish to fruition, we set off to make what will go down in Vassar history as the most successful event ever. Regardless of any challenges we faced along the way, with the help of people I now would call good

friends and the Sanoff family we pulled it off.

Next year (yes we are already planning for March) we plan on upping the ante and trying for 150 Jewish students. After this year and all of our success, I am proud to say that I attend Chabad!

I hope that you and the Chabad House can continue to be a beacon of light and Jewish pride for Vassar students for many years to come.

Before the meal started, we had a matzah ball social where students could play games and socialize with each other. All of these lovely photos were taken before Shabbat.

you for bringing a sense of community, familiarity, and a homey feeling to everyone who steps through Chabad on Fulton’s doors.

The army of students that helped cook for 100 people at the Chabad House!

Not only was there yummy home cooked food to enjoy, but each table had questions to create lively and meaningful conversations.

This is Nachas! So powerful to see all of the students and faculty that joined together to celebrate Shabbat on campus.

Jewish Education

To practice and live as a Jew, one needs to know what it means to be a Jew. Education is a surefire way to inspire young people to be a proud and active member of our people.

Here Dalia is teaching an class over lunch in the college center.

Mentorship

Transitioning into adulthood is a real challenge. Thankfully you provide Vassar students with caring adults to consult with. Rabbi Daniel and Dalia constantly have one-on-one coffee meetings with students to help and guide them.

To engage with new students and introduce them to campus Jewish experiences, we set up a table of the dining hall with interesting activities to engage with unaffiliated students.

To attract students attention, we do outlandish things. We made a giant Challah and whoever guessed its weight got to keep it. Or for Tu B’shvat, we had ten exotic dried fruits for students to taste and guess what type of fruit it is. We also played Jewish Family Feud on questions like, “Things your mom would say”.

For many students, this is an entry point to more involvement in the community!

This picture sums up our whole organization. Due to generational changes, many young people feel distant and estranged from their Judaism. It can even feel foreign or confusing.

This young man is trying to figure out how much the giant challah weighs. He looks intimidated. Unfortunately, I feel that many students look at Judaism as a whole like this. It is massive and overwhelming… too much to handle… but all one needs to do is take one bit at a time!

A Jewish spin on the classic Family Feud. We featured questions like, “Jews do the Strangest Things”. Before tabling, we asked the same questions on our social media to poll the responses. Here students are deep in thought about what are the most common answers.

As a small non-profit with a very limited donor base, funding has and is an overarching struggle. Our only source of income is through charitable donations made by the Alumnae/i and Parent communities.

This year, with your giving, was our best year for fundraising! The Chabad House was able to generate $158,815 of donations. This is a 105% increase from last year! We hope that this increased growth will continue for years to come!

But at the same time we needed to raise $200,000. Therefore, we are still facing a large shortfall of $41,185. That shortfall manifests itself in lack of salary for Rabbi Daniel and Dalia Sanoff. For the past ten years, they have put the students’ needs first and have only taken a percentage of the salary owed them. We hope that in the coming years we will be able to cover all costs as well as a respectable salary for the Rabbi and Rebbetzin.

Even though we raised far more than we have in the past year, this year poised new challenges. On the one hand, we saw a large increase in attendance as well as a uptick in demand for more events. Which meant we had more events with higher quantities of food and supplies. On the other hand, inflation made all of the goods and services we use more expensive. Those two points have increased our cost of running the organization by 22% from last year.

Additionally, we are working towards having the necessary resources to hire more staff so that Rabbi and Rebbetzin Sanoff can focus solely on the students and the administration of the organization can be handled by other staff members.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to Rabbi Sanoff. His cell is 845-214-6734 or rabbi@chabadonfulton.org

Here is a breakdown of expenses:

Mental Health Shabbat

Together with several mental health student organizations, we hosted a Mental Health Shabbat dinner that destigmatization mental health and explored the myraid of campus resources available to help students cope.

In this picture, students are choosing beads that share with others their mental health struggles. This helped students with similar challenges connect and be a support system for each other.

End of Year BBQ

Finals week is stressful for students, therefore we host a fun, and relaxing end of the year BBQ.

We invest a lot of time and effort into our board. We make sure to have social bonding time. This spring, our fun activity together was making black walnut charcuterie boards.

But we also train our board to be the strongest leaders and advocates possible. Here we are hosting a virtual training about advocacy for promoting anti-antisemitism awareness.

We would like to thank our student leadership board for all their hard work and dedication!

Thank you to those making a difference

in Vassar Jewish students’ lives!!!

Alumnae/i

Ed and Shari Adler

Maya Horowitz Adler

Yoni Auerbach

Mark Banschick

Pia Behmuaras

Naama Benet

Jane Berenbeim

Elle Berger

Cap Caplan

Rachel and Moishe Chakoff

Natalie Cohen

Ted Davis

Andrew Eisen

Victoria Eli

Joanne Feuerman

Aden Fischer-Brown

Linda Fishman

Kim Gantz

Julianne Garber

Jeffrey Goodman

William Goren

Paula Gottesman

Emma Glickman

Melissa Green

Abbie Greenberg

Rachel Greenfield

Jesse Hartman

Jonathan Hazin

Aimee Heller

Alex Hess

Jesser Horowitz

Jaime Illana

Laurie Josephs

Joanne Kay

Ben Kheyfets

Roberta Kline

Alice and Van Lanckton

Anna Lazimi

Judith Leader

Robert Leikind

Melinda Maidens

Oona Maloney

Sarah Mamlet

Carol Marcus

Ezra Mead

Martin Mendelsohn

Jordana Merran

Ellen Milberg

Jake Miller

Graeme Mills

Jonathan Nadler

Zerlina Panush

Sylvan Perlmutter

Bruce Raben

Karen Rappaport

Teme Ring

Anna Rothenberg

Sean Sacks

Shmuel and Chava Saias

Zach Sherman

Ian Snyder

Ephraim Spiro

Sabrina Stacks

Yair Stein

Alex Steinberg

Rosamond Stern

Jason Storch

Steven & Lisa

Tananbaum

Jesse Szteinbaum

Megan Tallmer

Charlotte Waldman

Leah Weingast

Ariel Zebede

Sam Zeitlin

Victor Zhelinsky

Ethan Zohn

Parents

Felice and Len Bergman

Hannah Bloch

Jacob and Rodica Cohen

Meredith Davis

Jennifer and Stephen Driker

Joel and Melissa Feldberg

Vladimir Fikhman

Daniel Forman

Ed and Tamar Gelb

Katrina and Robert Goldman

Leonard Goldstein

Kathryn Guarini

Matthew Hinerfeld

Rosalie Hsu

Felise Kissel

Miles and Roberta Kuttler

Michelle Lerman

David and Rachel Levine

Michael Levine

Daniel and Wendy Markind

Karen Mengden

Susan Okrent

Ruben Perlmutter

Robert and Lauren Riordan

Sarah Rotschild

Adam and Mary Shepard

Mike Sherman

Abby Stacks

Sara Stieglitz

Eve Stern

Nancy Storch

Victoria Sue Segal

Alisa and David Weise

Susan Zak

Behrouz Zarrini

Friends

Susan Budson-Fink

Jared Cohen

Steve Cohen

Norman Feingold

Gregg Feingold

Anna Gommerstadt

Mira Herman

Lipa Kaufman

Isaac Rosenfeld

Batya Kovtunenko

Alan Schleier

Marc Smith

Duvid Tabaczynski

Nancy Temkin

Jeremy Zucker Students

Lori Beth

Miriam Rovin

Julia Segal