Aggies can celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, at the Chabad Jewish Center Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Rosh Hashanah celebrates the creation of the world and is a time for reflection on the past year.
The Chabad Jewish Center, led by Rabbi Yossi Lazaroff and his wife Manya, opened July 10 and is located at 212 Poplar St.
The Texas A&M Chabad center is one of more than 100 centers worldwide on college campuses.
"Our center caters to students and faculty as well as the local Jewish community," Lazaroff said.
"Our goal is to create an environment where one can celebrate one's heritage regardless of one's affiliation or level of observance."
The center offers services in order to create a "home away from home" for A&M students.
Lazaroff said the programs throughout the year are intended to make Judaism a tangible experience.
One of the activities is the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, during which students can attend services, holiday dinners and shofar blowing. The sounding of the shofar is one of the most important observances of the holiday. The Chabad center prepared for shofar blowing by holding a "shofar factory" Sunday.
"The shofar factory gave hands on experience to the students," Lazaroff said. "Students learned about the meaning of the shofar and all participants got to make their own shofar from goat horns. Afterwards they learned the art of blowing the shofar."
Sophomore biomedical sciences major Sheliza Rosenthal said that Jewish life on campus isn't the greatest.
"There are not many of us who actually come out and practice it," Rosenthal said. "But with all the events Rabbi comes up with to get us involved, I have a feeling it is going to grow! Just in the last two weeks, I have met a handful of Jewish people (that are not freshman) that I never met last year."
Amy Goldman, a junior marketing major, said she thinks the center is a great thing to have on campus and that she hopes it will attract more Jewish students to come to A&M in the future.
"I attended one Friday night Shabbat service at Chabad during the summer and was very impressed even though it provides a very different religious experience than what I'm used to," Goldman said.
The center also provides weekly Shabbat dinners and holiday meals free of charge to all students - freshmen through Ph.D. candidates.
"Our most popular program has been our home-cooked Friday night dinners and Saturday lunches," Lazaroff said. "These are enjoyed by students as well as professors and their families."
"Personally, I am not the most religious Jew out there," Rosenthal said, "But going to Rabbi's every Friday night for Shabbat really gets me motivated to go more and more. Not only is the food fabulous and reminds me of true homemade cooking, but a feeling of closeness comes about every week."
For more information on the Chabad Jewish Center visit: www.jewishaggies.com.
