Following a year of Zoom classes, Jewish students eagerly returned to campus this September.
The return to campus has meant the return of age-old Columbia traditions, such as first years over-drinking at Mel’s, parents spending $60 on Columbia sweatshirts, and GS students discovering they don’t have swipe access to dorms.
Most importantly, however, religiously observant Jewish students have resumed missing in-person classes for literally the entire first month.
“Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, uhh, the other ones. They’re really important,” said Rachel Himmelberg CC‘24. “Missing Zoom classes just wasn’t the same as missing the real ones. It felt as though I was betraying my ancestors I guess.”
During his welcome back address — in which President Bollinger, with absolutely no context or prompting, reaffirmed the school’s commitment to Israel or something — noted the importance of this time of year and the special significance of Fall 2021 in particular: “We are excited for our Jewish students to resume the tradition of missing literally all of September. This tradition dates back to the days of Moses I think, and its preservation is of utmost importance to our institution’s history and rich cultural identity.”
