Union of Jewish Students

HEROES

Starting in January, UJS will be beginning a Heroes Campaign, aiming at inspiring Jewish leadership countrywide and pushing Jewish students to stand up and make a difference. The Heroes campaign will target various projects throughout the year and put a spin on each one, showing how through that programming, there is the potential to create Jewish heroes.

The Heroes plan came out of the idea that perhaps there is something more that is needed in order to foster Jewish student leadership and initiative. There is much that is offered for Jewish students on campus, but often it is difficult to get involved for a number of reasons, perhaps concerning a lack of time, too much work, other involvement, or not being able to see the concrete benefits of such involvement. This campaign attempts to tackle these problems and create something concrete that Jewish students can take from programs and events on campus.
Jewish students are incredibly fortunate today to have the resources they do, and they occupy positions in student life that give them the ability to be highly influential. What they should now realize is the impact they can have on others is immense, and the ability for them to become Jewish heroes is vast.

This campaign operates within the assumption that there is no set definition of a hero. As a result, there is much flexibility to look at various people in the Jewish community, in Jewish history, and in general society, and try to emulate their characteristics in order for students to become truly heroic themselves.
The first event in which the campaign will be utilized is for Holocaust Memorial Day on the 27th of January. For this day, UJS has put together a ‘Heroes of the Holocaust’ display, which includes a poster and postcards, detailing the lives and exploits of people who acted with extreme courage and heroism during one of the darkest points of human history. UJS has chosen 12 different people to highlight, including Jews, Germans, Nazis, Muslims and Americans who all defied the Nazi command during the war and went out of the way to save innocents. Though the Second World War unfortunately created the circumstances for people to rise up as heroes, there are human qualities present that can be used as examples for our future Jewish heroes.
Other opportunities to utilize the heroes theme arise when considering possible programming for Tu B’shvat, Passover, and Israel at 60 programming and considering the long struggle for the achievement of the State of Israel. There is much work to be done but a successful campaign will demonstrate to students why it is important to be a Jewish hero and how important a role Jewish identity plays in successful student life.
The ultimate essence of the Hero campaign is pride in Jewish identity. A Jewish hero will put himself on the line and say, as a Jewish leader, why he/she is proud to be Jewish and what he is going to do in the name of our religion, culture, heritage and history. This hero will demonstrate to the world why Jews maintain a positive attitude even when faced with the most threatening of situations, and why our tiny population has surpassed the existence of every great civilization of human history.
There is great potential for UJS in utilizing this campaign. It will motivate student involvement, and teach Jewish students how great an impact individuals can have on the well-being of others and how they can make positive change possible and imminent. We are eager to get this campaign started and hope to find results with the help of all the UJS staff, Jewish society chairs nationally, and other students who feel that it is time to step forward and make an impact in Jewish life.
The qualities of heroes are not simple to emulate. It is not enough to merely look at the actions of one person deemed heroic and to copy what they did to feel heroic. Heroes act out of a sense of social responsibility at a specific time in history. What we must do as Jewish students and Jewish leaders is learn to take lessons from the greatness of others and create in ourselves our own form of heroism. This is a process that will take much time to develop, but taking lessons from the Holocaust is a start in order to move from a dark past to hopefully an enlightened future.