As the Emory campus begins to empty out for the American holiday of Thanksgiving, we might ask: What's Jewish about it this holiday? Thankfully, we have Rabbi Michael Broyde, professor of law at Emory Law and the academic director of the Law and Religion Program at Emory University, to help us reflect on this question.

For more inspiration about how to give your Thanksgiving dinner table a Jewish edge, consider incorporating some Jewish side dish ideas from this JTA article.

Wishing you and your family a very happy and meaningful Thanksgiving holiday!

Hillel's lessons guide how we shape our Jewish community on campus as an inclusive and welcoming space.

A 1945 Hillel organizational booklet written under the direction of Abram Leon Sachar, one of the founders of Hillel, explains why the name “Hillel” was chosen:

On a cold Sunday afternoon on November 7, students across Atlanta gathered at the Marcus Hillel Center for the Global Day of Jewish Learning. An event unprecedented in scale—with over 250 communities participating world-wide—the Global Day united Jewish communities from Sao Paulo to Seattle, from Azerbaijan to Atlanta.

Erica Morris (C‘13) and Ethan Sobol (C‘13) organized the day and were featured as guest teachers. Erica led a session on miracles and Ethan taught Jewish perspectives on the environment. According to Erica:

“The best part of the day was the knowledge that every one of us was connecting with the texts and each other in a deep and truly wonderful way.”

The Global Day celebrated the completion of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s 45-volume Talmud translation and commentary in Hebrew. His commentary is also being translated and published in French, Russian and English; a Spanish edition is being prepared. The translation took 45 years, and the accomplishment has been called “one of the great egalitarian projects of modern Judaism.”