Smith Alumni Support for Emek Student Center

Why Support Emek's work with Smithies?

In the fall of 2025, a Smith senior went off campus to find mentorship and community that shared her commitment to the interconnection of Jewish life and justice-seeking. Someone connected her with Rabbi Shahar Colt, then a campus rabbi at Amherst College. Rabbi Shahar began meeting with this student and her peer leaders in the group they called Tzedek Tirdof, an alternative Jewish community at Smith. Over the course of these meetings, Shahar listened to their goals, cheered on their accomplishments, and provided perspective from her experiences working in the Jewish community and campus life. 

Rabbi Shahar launched Emek Jewish Students Center to be able to build on the work she was doing supporting alternative Jewish student communities at Smith College and beyond. In the spring of 2026, she met up with the Smith students at the Conference for the Jewish Left in Boston, taught a session for Smith students about the Megillah on purim, and came to campus to lead shabbat services. Meanwhile, Tzedek Tirdof has taken off- it has become established as a student organization at Smith, and the students have met weekly for Friday night shabbat ritual and havdalah throughout the spring semester. Another Tzedek Tirdof leader has joined the Emek Student Advisory team.

Your support for Emek will allow Rabbi Shahar to continue working to support students at Smith College and other colleges in the region as they seek to live their Jewish values, learn about their Jewish heritage, and develop as Jewish leaders.

Emek is a fiscally sponsored project of Beloved. For ways to support Emek besides online donations, see here.