Chabad House Offers Familial Feel for Jewish Students

Badger Herald

Rabbi Mendel Matusof with UW students.

Seven and a half years ago, Rabbi Mendel Matusof and his wife Rebbetzin Henya Matusof dedicated their lives to providing the Jewish community at the University of Wisconsin a home away from home.

To do this, the Matusof family took over operations of the Chabad House, a Jewish community center serving the needs of the Jewish student population by providing them with a healthy social and educational environment. The family opens their home to all UW students on a weekly basis, inviting the community in for a free meal coupled with observation and celebration of Jewish holidays.

Currently, Matusof and his wife live with their three boys, ages 5, 2 and 5 months, while allowing hundreds of students the opportunity to join their family in their house several times a month.

Matusof grew up in Madison and continued to pursue his studies in Paris, Canada and Brooklyn. After his travels, Matusof said he found himself back in Madison with the desire to get involved in the Jewish community.

Matusof said he always wanted to become a rabbi — not in the somewhat traditional sense for a synagogue or in the usual fashion that one might expect. Rather, he preferred to become a Jewish community organizer and facilitator.

At Chabad, the Matusofs make it their mission to provide a meaningful community and outlet to celebrate the Jewish faith.

“The community, particularly the young Jewish community in Madison, need a reason to engage,” Matusof said.

He added in the past, Jewish students have had experiences on campus that were meaningless or negative. Matusof said he hopes to change that perception by providing a fitting community setting and creating interest where involvement will be born.

Program Offerings

Chabad offers various opportunities and programs for Jewish students to involve themselves. One of the highlights of Chabad is Shabbat, a weekly holiday celebrated every sundown Friday to nightfall Saturday.

Each Friday evening, students are invited to join the Matusofs in a sit down, family-style dinner. Rebbetzin Henya prepares all of the food with occasional help from student volunteers, simply because she loves it, Matusof said.

Chabad also provides students with educational opportunities. One of the family’s more popular programs is Sinai Scholars, as a non-credited course that discusses the relevance of the Ten Commandments to a modern Jew. Matusof said the course provides an effective means of facilitating discussion on values and issues without preaching what individuals ought to believe.

Zac Pestine, UW senior and president of the Chabad Student Association, said the course has greatly benefited him not only as a Jewish student on the UW campus, but also in the way he considers his studies. He said after experiencing the class, he became a better critical thinker and developed a stronger connection and understanding of his Jewish identity.

Chabad also encourages community and international outreach through social action. Students can participate in Birth Right, a 10-day free trip to Israel for any Jewish student on campus who has not traveled to Israel on an organized trip, or in Linking Hearts, a volunteer program that pairs both Jewish and non-Jewish students with special needs children.

Participation at Chabad

At Chabad, the Matusof family is Hasidic, a movement of Orthodox Judaism, but the greater percentages of students involved are non-practicing or non-Orthodox.

Over the course of the seven and a half years the Matusof family have been involved in Chabad, they have seen incredible participation within the program.

Matusof said he attributes the house’s great success at the most basic level to non-judgmental attitudes.

“We emphasize what the Jewish community has in common, the 90 percent that Jews agree on, rather than the 10 percent we disagree on,” Matusof said, quoting Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz.

Matusof referenced a previous Passover Seder, a ritual feast, of 350 people. Most of the students who attended were not involved in Orthodox practice. At the Seder, the texts were read in Hebrew, which many were unfamiliar with.

To make the participants more comfortable and the experience more meaningful, Matusof said he wrote and rapped “Teach Me How To Moses,” a spin-off of “Teach Me How to Dougie” and “Teach Me How to Bucky.”

The success may also be attributed to the family feel Chabad provides.

“People associate holidays through the context of family. On campus, you are away from family, but here, you are welcome to join our family,” Matusof said.

When building the new Chabad House in 2009, the Matusofs made sure to create an environment that would aesthetically look and feel like a home while accommodating a large number of people.

Pestine said he was drawn to Chabad after the Matusofs gave him a sense of home.

“It was Rabbi Mendel and Rebbetzin Henya Matusof themselves that really drew me in,” Pestine said. “Because they are such sincere, genuine, kind-hearted people, the Chabad House offers refuge to students looking for an escape from the dog-eat-dog world we live in.”

He said the Matusofs make an honest effort to get to know each student. Mendel remembers an individual’s name and where he or she comes from by the second encounter, while Henya knows individual’s birthdays and bakes each student his or her own cake.

Although Chabad is a Jewish organization, non-Jewish students often participate. As Matusof sees it, the non-Jewish individuals come out of their own curiosity and are always welcome. Still, Chabad does not believe in outreach of the non-Jewish community to come in and “become” Jewish.

Challenges

While the Matusofs are excited by the growth in the program, they have experienced a few unique challenges.

On average, more than 100 people attend weekly Friday Shabbat dinners. In addition, last semester the program Sinai Scholars enrolled 53 participants.

“A program that started out with 20 students has now become a program over 50 students, where we unfortunately have to turn people away,” he said.

According to Matusof, maintaining a family atmosphere with such large crowds has been one of the family’s main concerns. Catering to the former crowd of 30 to 50 people was more natural, he said. Matusof predicts in the future the community will continue to grow, so much so they will need more space and staff.

Yet, he says the greatest challenge Chabad faces is natural funding.

“We are by far one of the smallest organizations when it comes to resources and in many ways the largest when it comes to Jewish involvement,” he said.

The bulk of the individuals who donate to Chabad are parents. However, the parents who donate are also paying their child’s tuition, making the generous donations few and far between, Matusof said.

Despite scarce funding and resources, Chabad has been able to pull off “miracles,” according to Matusof. Previously, Chabad put together a $1.3 million self-run campaign.

Jewish Community

UW is home to more than 5,000 Jewish students, one of the largest Jewish student populations among all U.S. universities. Matusof said the Jewish community is quite strong as there are many ways and opportunities to engage in Jewish life.

UW sophomore Amy Hurwitz said there are always Jewish organizations on campus that offer a place to celebrate or simply hang out and do homework.

However, Hurwitz said there is room for improvement. She said the Jewish community has grown tremendously and became better known on campus, yet organizations are still looking for ways to attract and involve more Jewish students.

Although Pestine agreed improvements could be made, he said the impact Jewish culture and life has had on the UW campus is profound.

“Could involvement always be better? Of course,” Pestine said. “But at the same time, I really believe Jewish life thrives here. I think that more and more students are taking pride in their Jewish heritage.”

One Comment