Cohort 8 Workshop 2: Jewish Leadership and Me

By Grace Vogel

On Sunday October 5, we, Diller Cohort 8 had our second Workshop. With this workshop we were able to debrief a little bit on our high holiday experiences, with each other before the meeting officially began. Even though there seemed to be much more traffic than on a usual Sunday afternoon we all eventually made it to the meeting. We started our meeting officially with a slow-clap lead by Sami, Rachel, and Leora. Seeing as this was only our second meeting as a Cohort we were given some “mingling time” where we had conversations with each other stemming from questions such as “if you were to represent your soul in vegetable form, which vegetable would it be”. I personally believe that one’s soul vegetable tells a lot about them.

We had the privilege of listening to Rabbi Zalman Kravitz and collectively discuss our ideas of leadership. Many of us believed ourselves to be leaders, while several did not. We all had very different views of what a leader is or a leadership role entails. Together we began to understand that we do not need to change the entire world in order to be a leader. If we truly listen to and support others we will in essence be helping them feel more confident in themselves. We are all leaders, we have all had our lollipop moments, where we are made aware of the changes we have made in others even if we are not friends with them. We have all made an impact.

Our next meeting will be at Camp Alonim for our first Shabbaton! I know that we are all ecstatic about this opportunity to truly bond even further. I cannot wait to spend this time with my Diller family. In the meantime each fellow has paired up and decided to contribute to the Shabbaton, some are preparing mixers, camp fire activities and blessings. This is going to be an amazing collective experience. I am so excited to spend this time with the rest of Cohort 8, and find myself looking forward to November!

Cohort 7- Tikkun Olam Overnight

By Devon Subel

During our most recent overnight we learned about how to run our impact projects with the help of a guest speaker named Avram Mandel, who is working on establishing a gap year called Tzedek America. 


Our first night focused on catching up with each other by discussing the state of our projects. We discussed why we are participating in the projects we joined. From a commitment to Israel or to our fellow man we all had our reason why we are committing ourselves to our projects. After being introduced to Avram and learning about his life and how he grew his gap year program, we had a powerful program where we released our prayers into the twilight. Following, we enjoyed the great Alonim food and discussed life and college with Avram. We ended the night with another discussion, ending the night with high spirits ready for a day to expand on our projects.

In the morning we all worked hard to make great strides in our projects. Whether we had tentative plan or a concrete goal we all made plans, solidified goals, and planned budgets. After coming together as a group, we all discussed how far we had come in the past few hours. After meeting with the Tour de Summer Camp rider for lunch, who we worked with last year, we ended the day after finalizing our plans for the next workshop.