Stronger Together

A member of the Bar-Ilan Student Union shows her national pride at the event for the start of the academic year.

The Bar-Ilan Student Union

Stronger Together

In the wake of October 7th, Bar-Ilan’s Student Union demonstrates that coming together to help those in need and contribute to national solidarity is one of the best ways to create a strong and inclusive community.

Changing Tacks

When master’s student Hadas Kurmesh Belisha became the first woman in the University’s history to be elected chairwoman of the Student Union, she determined that her primary goal would be creating a sense of community. At first, that meant reaching out to audiences that are traditionally less involved, such as English-speaking olim (immigrants) and other students from overseas. (“Ours was undoubtedly the largest Chinese New Year celebration in the Jewish state,” says Kurmesh Belisha.) She also appointed the union’s first coordinator for Arab-speaking students and began planning the first-ever Accessibility Day event to raise awareness of disabled members of the student body. But when war broke out in response to Hamas’ attack on October 7th, Kurmesh Belisha and her team shifted to a new strategy for encouraging student engagement.

Hadas Kurmesh Belisha, chairwoman of the Student Union
To mark 100 days of captivity for Israel’s hostages in Gaza, Bar-Ilan’s Marketing and Business-Development Division organized a campus-wide event for students, faculty, and University staff. Beginning with 100 seconds of silence, the event continued with the recitation of a prayer for the return of captives by Rector Prof. Amnon Albeck; the performance of a song by well-known singer Eliraz Sadeh; and a poem reading by Anadad Eldan, a survivor of the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri. Later that afternoon, the Student Union led a march across campus together with hostages’ relatives and heard from law student Noam Safir, whose grandfather, 86-year-old Shlomo Mansour, is Hamas’ oldest hostage. The march concluded with the release of one balloon for each remaining hostage.

“Within days, and even before the academic year began, we were able to organize hundreds of student volunteers for a range of war-related needs,” explains Kurmesh Belisha. “Students who had little in common or hadn’t interacted before were coming together to collect donated supplies and raise funds for hundreds of soldiers and evacuees.” The union also “adopted” four army bases at Israel’s southern and northern borders, raising funds for tactical equipment, clothing, and hot food, and organized a series of solidarity events for Israel’s hostages. Finally, Kurmesh Belisha’s request to represent students on the University’s Resilience Committee, responsible for shaping Bar-Ilan’s multi-faceted response to reserve soldiers’ return from war, was welcomed by the Vice -rector and Bar-Ilan leadership, who wanted to hear students’ own perspectives on the numerous challenges they faced.

“The test of any true community is whether it comes through for its members in difficult periods,” Kurmesh Belisha says. “The Bar-Ilan Student Union aims to make the University a place not just for learning, but also for enjoying a meaningful social experience. And as we’ve shown in the last few months, it can be and is a place that supports students as people facing challenges, with creativity and empathy.”

Raising the Bar

Every Tuesday night, the Student Union lobby turns into a pub hevrati: a “community bar” with beers and pizza “priced specially for students,” explains Kurmesh Belisha, with the goal of encouraging students to spend more time on campus and contribute to a vibrant campus life. The pub is also the site of regular events, including guest speakers, discussion groups, and holiday parties.

Students, Activists, Entrepreneurs: The Impact-Entrepreneurship Program

Recognizing that with the right skills, mindset, and support network, most any motivated student can become a successful entrepreneur, the Bar-Ilan Student Union hosted the University’s Impact-Entrepreneurship Program this February. A partnership of the union, the Jane Stern Lebell Community Impact Fund, and the Center for Academic-Industry Relations in the Office of the Rector, the program offered students six weekly lectures—each from a unique perspective—aimed at encouraging social-action ventures among a wider swath of the student body.

Impact-entrepreneurship lectures:

Tzameret Fuerst, “When Vision Meets Reality”
Iris Lovitz, “Entrepreneurship and Sustainability”
Erez Gavish, “What is Social Entrepreneurship?”
Gilad Newman, “Storytelling and Winning Pitches”
Siona Sharlag, “A People-Centered Approach to Entrepreneurship”
Michael Mizrachi, “Tools for Building Impact Ventures”