Fledgling Chabad House Hailed as Club of the Year

Tamar Runyan
Chabad.edu

When Rabbi Levi and Hadassah Backman arrived at Western Washington University in Bellingham, they didn’t expect their Chabad House to win an award in just under a year-and-a-half. But on May 31 – the date represented the completion of the Backmans’ fifth trimester serving the students and surrounding community – Associated Students, the university’s umbrella organization of student activities, awarded the Backmans’ student club the religious “Club of the Year” commendation.

In its presentation, Associated Students hailed the 17-month-old Chabad House, one of 20 religious clubs at Western Washington, for bringing “Shabbat for everyone to campus.”

The university’s Jewish population stands at well over 300, according to Levi Backman, out of a total undergraduate student body of almost 13,000.

“We have a fun time,” stated Darell Spencer, 20, a rising junior from Bellevue, Wash. who is majoring in business.

Himself an example of the Chabad House’s best-known activity on campus, Spencer began attending its events when he was invited by another student for Shabbat dinner. Backman, whose Chabad of Bellingham also serves greater Whatcom County, extended the invitation for Shabbat after Shabbat, and Spencer soon became a regular.

The “biggest attraction of Chabad is that it provides a home, a group, a community” for all Jews, said Spencer’s mother Cynthia. “The key is,” added the son, who is now learning to read Hebrew with Backman once a week, it’s “really a home away from home.”

Recent graduate Eli Jayson, who completed his B.A. in music this year, agreed and emphasized that the Backmans make Jews feel “comfortably Jewish.” He should know: As the self-proclaimed “energetic guy” in charge of promotions, Jayson was “always out there” at campus events with the Backmans and their two children, 18-month-old Meyer and five-month-old Elisheva.

On Lag B’Omer, for example, Jayson helped the club make a bonfire at a campsite and then joined other students in playing music for the occasion. The accomplished saxophone and piano player also performed at last year’s Sukkot festivities and the Purim celebration this year.

Hadassah described the student group she and her husband manage as “awesome, very warm and open.” She also pointed out that the group itself has grown tremendously, from the 10 students who signed up just before Pesach last year to the 45 who turned out for Purim this year. In March, 75 students flocked to a campus-wide Shabbat dinner hosted by the Backmans.

For Jayson, such numbers just underscore what Chabad is all about: It’s “lots of Jews getting together to do Jewish things.”