Hillel Community

Israel

Connecting Students with Their Jewish Stories Through a Love of Israel

Author

Uziel Pohl

Date

January 28, 2025

IACT professionals work on college campuses across the country to help Jewish students connect with their Jewish identities through Jewish learning, Israel engagement, and community service. They help run Birthright Israel trips, and support students in staying connected to their Judaism and each other when they return from these transformative immersive experiences. Interested in becoming an IACT? Learn more and today.

Uziel Pohl is the IACT at Michigan State University Hillel. He experienced a life-changing year due to his work with Hillel, and we are excited to share his experience with you. 

This year has been my shehecheyanu year. Shehecheyanu, the blessing said when experiencing something new, was on my mind as I went to Israel for the first time on a Birthright Israel trip this past summer, as I took my first steps as an IACT (Inspired, Active, Committed, Transformed) professional at Michigan State University Hillel, as I attended my first ÌÇÐÄvlogl Global Assembly (HIGA), and as I returned to Israel this winter. 

The first step I took with Hillel this year was onto a plane to participate in a Birthright Israel trip this past summer, and it also was my first time traveling to Israel. As I crossed continents, surrounded by people who would also be experiencing Israel for the first time, I felt blessed that we would be forming foundational Jewish memories together.

Some of those powerful moments included wrapping tefillin at the top of Masada, walking to the Kotel to welcome Shabbat, and mourning our brothers and sisters who were killed by Hamas on October 7. I tucked every one of these experiences into my soul to bring back and share with my students at MSU. 

Another critical moment of my growth and learning happened at HIGA and the IACT post-HIGA gathering in December. It was so inspiring to sit in a room filled with other IACT professionals who are passionate and committed to helping Jewish students discover their love for Israel. 

Danielle Kranjec, associate vice president of Jewish education at ÌÇÐÄvlogl, spoke with our IACT cohort about the importance of gathering groups of students together on campus to learn about Israel and its connection to the Jewish people. ÌÇÐÄvlogl’s student cohort, Kol Yisrael, is designed for just that, and getting an introduction to the impact that we can have through Jewish education stuck with me when I left HIGA and got back on an airplane to lead my first Birthright Israel trip. 

I was sure that flying to Israel this second time would be filled with all new shehecheyanu moments that were different from my trip as a participant just a few months ago. When the plane touched down in Tel Aviv and I looked around at my students’ faces, I knew that seeing Israel through their eyes would be as powerful, and new, as it had been the previous summer. 

After a trip filled with more firsts, we finished with something ancient — lighting Hanukkah candles together on our last night before returning home. To me, this is what it means to be an IACT. Bringing together Jewish students’ modern identities and perspectives with the ancient Jewish story embedded in the land of Israel. I’m so grateful to be a part of that story and to be exploring it with Hillel.

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