Jewish Women Find Self Through Study and Snorkel

KEY LARGO, FL — People use the expression ‘out of this world,’ and I never understood it before,” says Lauren Kraft, a senior at Arizona State University. “But this was definitely an out of this world experience: it was like an eight-day Shabbat.”

Snorkel and Study, a project of Bais Chana International, completed its fourth annual college women’s retreat in Key Largo, Florida, Thursday. Coordinator Estee Behrman says that the event, the largest ever, included 90 students from campuses around the globe. Behrman recruited participants at the annual campus Shabbaton in Crown Heights, via Facebook, and by visiting several universities. In fact, explains Behrman, “the program is successful only because organizers and campus shluchim work hand in hand, encouraging and supporting girls to attend.”

The sell was not a tough one. A week of water sports, study, and friendship, all with an unbeatable price tag: free.

“I could not have come without the scholarship,” says Kraft. “It is amazing. All they want to do is to give us information; their entire goal is to teach me everything I want to know. This is so different from the academic world I am in, where you have to fight to get accepted or to have access to information. The emphasis on education is beautiful.”

“Women coming to Bais Chana are looking to explore Judaism and get a perspective on Jewish spirituality,” explains director, Hinda Leah Sharfstein. “There is the freedom here to be who you are and ask what you want.” Rabbi Manis Friedman, dean and principal lecturer, describes the week as a, “a multi-layered experience where they gain respect for themselves as women, as Jews, and as future mothers and leaders.”

Sharfstein discovered her own potential 28 years ago when she first came to Bais Chana as a college student. Time, she says, has not altered much. In the last 20 years, Sharfstein has organized hundreds of women’s retreats and programs. “The core of the Jewish woman has not changed,” she asserts, “women are always looking for wisdom and truth. But different environmental factors, such as politics, the media, and self-doubt, obviously play a part in describing contemporary women.”

“If the type of woman who came to this program is any indication,” states Rivkah Slonim, “today’s young Jewish women are bright, exuberant, and ambitious.” Slonim would know. Together with her husband, Aharon, she has co-directed Chabad at Binghamton University since 1985. She has also authored two bestselling anthologies concerning women’s issues. In her many years of experience, playing host and heart to thousands of students, she has found that “young adults want to make a living, but they also want to make a life. In coming [to Chabad] they are searching for that deeper meaning.”

Article continued at Lubavitch.com