By COLlive reporter
After a series of popular pilot events, a new organization launched this week to serve Jewish graduate students and faculty. Based in New York, Graduate Chabad will bring intellectually engaging encounters – lectures, seminars, shabbatons – to graduate schools in collaboration with local Chabad on Campus Shluchim.
“Graduate students pursue intellectually rigorous studies and research,” said founder Dr. Alexander Poltorak, the founder of Graduate Chabad. “Our aim is to help shluchim intellectually engage graduate students and faculty at the place of their interest.”
From preschool through college, Jewish students in the US enjoy a rich range of Chabad programs. Graduate Chabad is the first organization geared exclusively toward graduate students and faculty, the most underserved segments of the Jewish population.
Drawing on the prolific worlds of Torah and science, Graduate Chabad’s flagship program is its multifaceted “Traveling Academy,” custom-designed for each campus. The organization also offers a speakers’ bureau featuring some of the most dynamic and intellectually engaging speakers.
“Graduate Chabad will bring to Chabad on Campus a renewed focus on graduate students and faculty,” said Rabbi Yossy Gordon, Executive Vice President of Chabad on Campus International (CoCI). “We are grateful to Graduate Chabad for sponsoring the Grad Track at the recent annual student shabbaton. Dr. Poltorak’s lecture at the GradTrack on Quantum Torah was very well attended and received.”
Dr. Alexander Poltorak, a theoretical physicist, author and entrepreneur, sees a world of possibilities ahead. “There is a new level of appreciation to be gained in both Torah and science by exploring them side-by-side. We are very excited to share Torah learning in a way that is relatable to modern graduate students and relevant to their studies and research.”
At launch, Graduate Chabad offers A Speakers’ Bureau, featuring exceptional lectures by experts on Torah, science and the humanities, The “Traveling Academy,” producing local, multi-day events on campus by invitation of the local campus shluchim; and online resources on the interplay of Torah and science.
For more information visit www.GraduateChabad.org.
I’m impressed by this idea and agenda. Chasidus has a lot to offer educated people, not just young student-partygoers.
The Poltoraks are real go-getters! Zol zayn behatzlocha!
Mazel tov! What a wonderful idea to do and great people to do see it through!
This is great! Yasher koach!
Go Alex! We love you.
This is a fantastic idea, and G-d willing will achieve untold success.
There are quite a few Shluchim and Shluchos, mostly the ones you don’t hear much about, who have graduate degrees including Master’s and Doctorates. I hope they will be identified and utilized as they have much insider knowledge of the experience of the graduate students being targeted in this program. Dynamic speakers are great, but I believe fellow shluchim with graduate degrees have a dimension to offer that speakers often can not.