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April 08, 2010
By Rabbi Aryeh and Sharona Kaplan

It is amazing to consider how many of the milestones in our personal life are intimately intertwined with equally notable milestones of the Orthodox community at UCLA.

We arrived in Los Angeles from New York in 2004, happily settling into a spacious two-bedroom apartment in Westwood near campus, luxuriating in our SUV with an empty back seat and cavernous trunk, while marveling at the personal journey that lay ahead. We quickly made the Hillel at UCLA our home away from home, for JLIC is located there.

We hunkered down in the Beit Medrash, the Jewish library, studying the sheet of names that was the complete list of men and women participants in the JLIC community at UCLA that we inherited from Rabbi Uri and Julie Goldstein, who built the program there in its first three years and left us much to work with.

Now, almost six years later, we have moved ourselves, and our three Angelino children (ages, 5, 3 and 1), out of our very full apartment, are anticipating the arrival of our new eight-seater SUV which is scheduled to arrive only weeks before our fourth child, and look back astounded on all that has transpired. The Beit Medrash is alive with a steady buzz of learning and daily minyamim-- prayer services; the new bookcases that were installed to accommodate the additional Jewish texts are full beyond capacity; and our Excel spreadsheet cataloging the members of the JLIC community boasts over 450 names.

JLIC programming is the pulse of an Orthodox student’s life on campus. With a wide range of study opportunities, including ones specifically tailored to law school students, Iranian students, men’s and women’s learning groups, advanced learning opportunities and classes for those just beginning – not to mention over 40 one-on-one study sessions each week – the calendar of learning is diverse and exciting. With personal classes for brides and grooms; support for newly married couples; classes for young professional alumni delivered at their workplaces and ongoing mentorship; counseling and shared celebrations, the relationships formed through JLIC are often deep and long lasting.

Rabbi Mordy Friedman, JLIC co-educator at Penn, wrote a letter to his students about purchasing ice cream from Ben and Jerry's after Pesach. Ben and Jerry's is owned by Jews and they do not sell their chametz. Can students buy ice cream or is it considered "Chametz She'avar Alav HaPesach?"

Shabbos Mishpatim was a back to basics Shabbos as our campus community was bolstered by a visit from a few now married alumni and some travelers from out of town. Building off the momentum of a strong Kabbalat Shabbat, the Hillel dinner with a special menu of Greek food was especially hopping with a constant buzz of excitement at old friends and new.

You are cordially invited to attend The Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus's 10th Anniversary Celebration

Sunday, March 14th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
The Rose Art Museum
Brandeis University
Waltham, Massachusetts

To RSVP and donate, please visit www.jliconline.org/brandeis10