Religious Decision Making 101

By JOSHUA ROSENBLOOM

JEWISH U
A Contemporary Guide for the Jewish College Student
By Scott Aaron
96 pages. UAHC Press. $10.95.

One of my best friends from high school goes to a small liberal arts college with a tiny Jewish population. A few weeks into his freshman year, he called me with a dilemma. As a very good singer, he wanted the chance to perform at his school. He had found out that the local church paid a generous salary to members of the choir, who were not required to be Christians. He had auditioned and been accepted—should he join? He wasn't sure whether to feel uncomfortable about singing in a church, and rehearsals were often held on Shabbat. Living on his own for the first time, he was confronted by a challenge that pitted an extracurricular interest against his religious values.

So many Jewish college students face similar questions about their identities and practices. For the first time, the Jewish frosh has a choice about whether to attend High Holiday services, light a Chanukah menorah, keep kosher, observe the Sabbath, or engage in any Jewish life at all. The choices of Jewish life and practice can be most difficult for students with limited Jewish backgrounds and educations and for those at colleges without an active Jewish student life. Until now, these students have had little in the way of written guidance. Jewish U: A Contemporary Guide for the Jewish College Student, by Rabbi Scott Aaron, will serve as a good resource for the non-traditionally-observant Jewish freshman as he or she begins to establish his or her own independent Jewish identity.

Jewish U is structured chronologically, starting before the first year, and begins with "Lech L'cha: Preparing to Leave Your Parents' Home" and ending with "Summer Vacation: Repairing the World While Working on Your Tan." Along the way, Aaron explains the holidays in the Jewish year and suggests easy ways to incorporate Jewish observance into college life. The holiday chapters, covering the High Holidays, Chanukah, Purim, Passover, Shavuot, and Shabbat, are perhaps the best in the book. Aaron offers practical advice for holiday observance on both campuses with active Hillels and campuses with very little Jewish life. He is always mindful of the difficult choices confronting the college student—for example, what should you do when Yom Kippur and a chemistry midterm coincide? Addressing the tendency of freshmen to rebel against their parents by doing nothing at all for the holidays, Aaron issues the following "challenge": "If you are a college student who is considering exercising your new adulthood by rejecting the High Holy Days, consider rejecting your uncomfortable childhood memories instead and try having an adult Jewish experience."

This theme of recently arriving at adulthood permeates the book, as Aaron tries to talk to his readers as adults instead of as children. Unfortunately, his tone sometimes comes across as condescending—it is easy to imagine a skeptical high school senior rolling his eyes at Aaron's approach. The book also suffers from its brevity and its oversized format, which makes it appear more like a school workbook than a useful guide. In structuring the book as a long and perky sermon, Aaron sometimes loses his readers' attention—anecdotes about real college students and their real-life dilemmas might have helped.

Although it's certainly not perfect, Jewish freshmen should not hesitate to read Jewish U. The helpful websites listed in the margins, concrete suggestions for creating Jewish life, and the relevance of topics like "Jews and Greeks: Making Friends from a Jewish Perspective" and "Flowers, Candy, and Condoms: Jewish Sexual Decision Making" will appeal to nervous incoming students at any college or university. Each of these chapters successfully blends Jewish values with the reality of campus life today—a goal toward which many Jewish students struggle.

In the end, my friend decided to join the church choir. After a year, he quit, though, because he felt that participating was compromising his Jewish values. Perhaps, if this book had been available, my friend would have chosen differently and not have joined the church choir in the first place. Without a doubt, he would have had more help in considering the issue.