Samantha Klein

My senior year at Berkeley was difficult.

I was serving on Berkeley Hillel's student board during the 2023–24 school year, a time when being a Jewish student on campus—and being a student leader—came with an enormous amount of complexity and pain.

But one of the things I am most proud of from that year began with an idea I had been carrying for a while.

In high school, I had been involved with an organization called the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom. It brought Jewish and Muslim women together to build relationships across religious differences. The idea was simple but powerful: instead of allowing ourselves to be defined by the ways our communities were supposedly in conflict, what if we actually got to know one another?

I had always wanted to bring something like that to Berkeley Hillel.

In the summer of 2023, I started thinking about what kinds of programs I wanted to create at Hillel, and this was one of the ideas at the top of my list. We couldn't quite find room for it in the fall.

Then October 7 happened.

A lot changed.

Several months later, around March or April of 2024, another student on the board approached me with one of her Muslim friends. They knew I had talked about this idea before, and they thought that maybe this was exactly the moment when it was needed.

So we made it happen.

We brought together about 100 Jewish and Muslim students for an event focused on creating space for conversation and connection. We intentionally opened it beyond the original concept of a group for women; students of all genders were welcome.

It was a difficult moment on campus, and there was a tremendous amount of turmoil surrounding both Jewish and Muslim students. And in the middle of all of that, we created a space for people to find community with someone they might otherwise have been told was their enemy.

That was incredibly meaningful to me.

I don't think I could have done it without Hillel.

Hillel gave us the space and institutional support to make the event possible. Even reserving the space required Hillel to essentially sponsor us. But the support went beyond logistics.

It was also an opportunity for me to learn how to lead.

I had planned large events before, including through my sorority, but this was different. This was an important event happening at a particularly difficult time, and I had to learn how to delegate, how to work with other people, and how to navigate the inevitable frustration when things didn't happen exactly the way I expected.

Jess, who worked with the student board, guided me through a lot of that. She helped me learn how to navigate difficult conversations and how to lead through complexity. Rabbi Adam was also an important mentor to me that year. We had many conversations about differences within the Jewish community, how people can understand those differences, and how we can navigate them.

Those conversations shaped me.

One of the things Jess and Rabbi Adam emphasized was that Hillel is going to contain a lot of different viewpoints. People will have different levels of religious observance. They'll have different political views. They'll have different perspectives on their classes, their lives, and the world around them.

And that's okay.

Hillel is a community made up of many voices.

Being on the student board taught me to recognize that diversity and to approach leadership and relationships from that perspective. It taught me that being a leader doesn't mean making everyone agree. Sometimes it means creating the conditions for people who disagree to remain in relationship with one another.

That's what I think about when I remember the event we held.

It wasn't about pretending that our differences didn't exist. They very much did.

It was about saying that even when those differences feel enormous—even when the world around you is telling you that you are supposed to be on opposite sides—there can still be a space to listen, to understand, and to find some kind of community.

I am currently writing my applications for medical school, and a significant part of my personal statement is about community and about what Hillel gave me.

I keep coming back to that experience.

Because I learned something there that I hope to carry with me for the rest of my life: there is almost always a place to work on overcoming differences, even when they feel like they're worlds apart.

Hillel gave me the opportunity to try.