Liat Friedman Bershad has always wanted to work with youth, so naturally, she wanted to be a teacher.
“Then I realized that I really thrive with informal education as opposed to formal classroom education,” Bershad said.
Once she discovered that, Bershad knew that Hillel, United Synagogue Youth and similar organizations were “exactly what [she] was looking for.” Bershad is the director of student life at George Mason University Hillel in Fairfax.
Recently back from parental leave, she lives in Washington, D.C., where she belongs to Adas Israel Congregation.
Tell me about your Jewish upbringing and background.
I was raised in the Conservative movement of Judaism in New York. I went to Jewish day school from kindergarten to 12th grade at Solomon Schechter [School] of Westchester, now known as The Leffell School. I grew up in that community and lived in White Plains, which had a very large Jewish community. My family is, I always say, the traditional Conservative movement Jew, where we celebrate all the holidays, we keep Shabbat, we go to shul every single Friday. Judaism was a very big part of our lives.
In addition to that, we were very Zionist. My parents lived in Israel for 10 years before I was born. My two older siblings were born in Israel, and my brother and I were born here. I have Israeli citizenship and have been back pretty much every year, every other year, since I was 4 years old. Israel is not just a place to visit; it’s really like home to me.
In addition to going to Jewish day school, I went to summer camps: I went to Ramah [Day Camp in] Nyack, Young Judaea Sprout Lake, I worked at Ramah Nyack, so camp was always a big part of my life. I was also involved in my USY chapter; I was president and I grew our USY chapter from very few people to one of the larger ones in the area. I’ve always been involved in Jewish life, involved in creating community, since I was pretty young.
What are your responsibilities at Mason Hillel?
I work with our student leadership, I create our engagement strategy, all of our day-to-day programming and engagement, then help delegate everyone’s roles. I supervise our Springboard fellow, who helps implement our engagement strategy throughout the year. In addition, I oversee the Israel programming on campus. I work with our students to create any Israel education or Israel events.
How do you balance creating meaningful events with opportunities to socialize?
We try to bring a little bit of meaning into all of our events. So even if it’s a fun social event, we try to add a bit of Jewish meaning [and] learning into it. Jewish learning and meaning and values are in everything we do. A craft night is wellness, and that’s a Jewish value: to make sure that you’re healthy and your brain, physical body and emotional self [are healthy]. Doing a wellness program is meaningful because that’s part of Jewish faith.
We try to make sure that we do both: that we have Shabbat services for people who want to engage in that way with religion and prayer. We also have a fun Shabbat dinner afterwards, so students can come to both, they can come to either. They can pick their own adventure in the Hillel space.
What do you like best about your work?
I love that Hillel is pluralistic. I think so much of our lives these days are “choose one thing.” Polarization is so key in so much of our lives, especially in today’s [times], and I really think the unique and special thing about Hillel is it’s pluralistic, and so everyone is welcome, everyone is included, and you can find your space no matter what type of Jewish you are, no matter where you are in your Jewish journey. There’s always something for everyone.
As a new mother, how do you plan to incorporate Judaism into your daughter’s life?
A big part of what Judaism is, in my eyes, is culture, tradition and family. We celebrated Shabbat every week before my daughter was born. And now, we have Shabbat dinner and go to services on Shabbat. Like all the holidays, we try to spend as much of it with family as we can because I think such an important part of our tradition is family and culture.
Even though she’s 3 months old, we tell her why we’re doing things. We talk to her when we’re doing Shabbat dinner and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do the Kiddush and Motzi right now,’ even though she doesn’t really know what that means. When she’s older, we’ll continue to do that and engage her in the culture and religious aspects, and hopefully, she’ll appreciate that.
What’s something that you’re looking forward to?
Coming back to work and reconnecting with students and meeting new students has been really exciting. [I’m] excited to continue to do that.
