Jewish soon-to-be graduates were eating a celebratory dinner with Chabad at University of Maryland when they received the news: their main commencement ceremony was rescheduled to May 21, the evening of Shavuot.
The ceremony, which had originally been scheduled for May 20 at 6 p.m., was postponed until May 21 at the same time — coinciding with the start of the Jewish holiday — due to forecasted severe weather, the university administration announced on May 18. For this reason, many observant Jewish graduating seniors and their families were no longer able to attend the campus-wide commencement ceremony.
“I got a lot of calls and texts from students and parents telling us, ‘ … We kind of have a problem now,’” said Leah Bregman, University of Maryland Hillel’s development manager. “‘It’s so unfortunate with Shavuot. A lot of our family came to be here with our graduate, and now we don’t really know what to do. … We’re at a loss.’”
“Suddenly, it began a whole buzz,” said Rabbi Eli Backman, the director of Chabad at UMD.
Amid the disappointment, Bregman was already on the phone with Maryland Hillel’s CEO, Rabbi Ari Israel, to brainstorm an alternate plan.
Within 48 hours, the Maryland Hillel staff team worked with Chabad at UMD to coordinate a celebratory event specially for UMD’s Jewish student population on May 20. The task was made slightly less daunting given that many Jewish students had planned to attend a Maryland Hillel graduation dinner that evening following the original commencement.
“We already had a lot of students coming for dinner that night, so I emailed all of them,” Bregman said. “We knew that everyone was going to be available at this new time.”
Rabbi Israel booked guest and student speakers, including UMD President Darryll Pines and Dean for Undergraduate Studies William Cohen. Bregman coordinated with the assistant to the president to schedule Pines as the keynote speaker.
Backman helped contact UMD administrators and got the word of the impromptu event out to Jewish graduating seniors, 72 of whom attended with their families.
“Families arrived expecting something simple and heartfelt,” a Maryland Hillel news release read. “Instead, they walked into a real ceremony complete with music, a processional, printed programs, speeches, and a packed room filled with pride and emotion.”
Bregman said most families anticipated a “makeshift” graduation ceremony: “They didn’t realize that their graduate was going to be called up and given a diploma.”
“There [were] no expectations, so there was no worry of ‘Is this going to be good enough?’” she added.
Emily Keehn, a 2026 UMD graduate who served on the board of the university’s Orthodox Jewish community group Kedma, offered opening and closing remarks. Shai Margulies, another graduate who was president of UMD’s Jewish a cappella group, Rak Shalom, sang the national anthem and “Hatikvah.”
Attendees heard from Jewish student leaders Emma Steinhause and Einav Tsach, as well as graduating senior Ayden Allswang and Marshall Huebner, the parent of a graduating senior.
UMD’s Jewish community felt fortunate to hear from and interact with Pines at this event, an opportunity Bregman attributes to Maryland Hillel’s strong relationship with the university president.
“He’s very supportive of the Jewish community and really does his best to be there for us whenever he can,” Bregman said of Pines.
“We recognize there are unintended impacts when we are forced to use our inclement weather date due to lightning,” Pines wrote in a statement to Washington Jewish Week. “When I learned that Hillel was organizing an event to honor our Jewish graduates and families who were affected by the conflict with Shavuot, I made it my priority to be part of the celebration.”
In his remarks, Backman connected the themes of Shavuot to the graduates. He recalled the midrash, which says God chose the smallest of the mountains — Mount Sinai — to teach humility.
“[Scholars say], ‘Well, if that’s the case, why a mountain at all? A valley is much more humble than a mountain,’” Backman said. “The answer is that we still need to have a sense of pride in who we are — standing strong in your values, standing strong in your heritage, strong in our traditions, but at the same time, we need to remain humble.”
This year isn’t the first time that UMD’s campus-wide commencement ceremony fell on Shavuot — it’s happened twice before, including in 2018, according to Backman.
Using the program from Maryland Hillel’s 2018 Jewish event, Bregman created the 2026 program: “I just copied the one we already had.”
Hillary Rappaport, Maryland Hillel’s Springboard fellow, typed attending graduates’ names into the program template.
“As they’re walking in and taking their seats, I was printing [the programs] in a brochure [format],” Bregman said. “We got three volunteers to help, then we were folding and handing them out as people were in their seats. We got it out at the last minute.”
Cohen, the dean and associate provost, presented the graduates, who got to come up and shake hands with Pines, Cohen, Backman and Israel.
“It was a little bit more intimate than the bigger [ceremonies],” Backman said. “A number of the students knew Rabbi Israel or myself very well over the four years.”
Attendees expressed gratitude to the organizers who ensured that these Jewish students didn’t miss out on a formative graduation experience.
“Finding out that I would miss my graduation because it was moved to the first night of Shavuot was incredibly disappointing,” Steinhause, a UMD graduating senior, told Hillel International. “Maryland Hillel turned what could have been a really difficult moment into one of the most meaningful nights of my college experience. Having our Jewish community and university leadership come together so quickly to celebrate us made me feel truly seen and supported.”
“There were so many compliments and thank yous from parents and families and students,” Bregman said, adding that some attendees even opined that Maryland Hillel should host this alternative commencement ceremony for the Jewish community every year.
While most college graduates sit through hours of speeches and name readings, these attendees were grateful that this ceremony was only an hour.
“They loved it,” Bregman said. “They were like, ‘This is the best ceremony ever,’ [and were] very impressed how we got it all together in a short amount of time.”
