Jewish student life

This semester for Jewish students at FGCU has been amazing

By Rabbi Mendel Gordon

We had services on campus for Rosh Hashana and, despite campus being evacuated in the middle of Rosh Hashana, many students delayed leaving town to join the inspiring and special Rosh Hashana dinner at Chabad.

We stick together and are there for each other in all circumstances.

During the hurricane, students stayed over at Chabad. And following the hurricane, we continued to have food for the students until things got more back to normal.

For sukkot, FGCU is one of the most Jewish schools in the country. We had three sukkot set up on campus. One on main campus and one by each dorm, making being Jewish as accessible as possible.

For simchas Torah, we joined Chabad of Bonita Springs for the dancing and celebration with the Torah, at which the students had an amazing time.

Following the holiday season, we are back in full swing with Torah classes, shabbats and social events, with a climax of the year being our shabbaton in New York City in November, where 14 FGCU Jews joined 1,300 Jewish students from around the world for a shabbat of a lifetime. I will share more of that in next month’s article.

For the first time ever in Fort Myers, in preparation for Chanukah, we are planning a Menorah car parade around campus on Dec. 5, showing our Jewish pride. Look out for more information regarding that.

Chabad at FGCU services Jewish students at FGCU and surrounding colleges. For more information, reach out to Rabbi Mendel Gordon at 347-452-0489 or chabadfgcu@gmail.com.