On 55 Campuses, Students are Now Teaching Torah

JLI’s Sinai Scholars Society’s “Vayakri” turns college students into Jewish leaders.

On a cool winter night, after a long day of college classes, eighteen students at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, took their seats around a table in the main hall of their campus Chabad House. They had not come to hear from a rabbi. They had not come to hear from a rebbetzin. They had come to hear a Torah class taught by one of their own: Eliana Barenboym, a sophomore studying finance at the Muma College of Business.

Barenboym is one of over 125 college students on over 55 campuses who have delivered over 300 Torah classes to 1,300 friends this year alone as part of the Sinai Scholars Society’s “Vayakri” initiative, run in partnership with Chabad on Campus International.

This year’s highlighted course is an adaptation of JLI’s classic “Strength and Struggle,” which unpacks powerful real-life lessons from six biblical figures: from King Saul to Ruth and Jonah.

Launched in 2024, Vayakri invites Jewish students to step up and join the ranks of Jewish leadership. “These are students who have typically completed the Sinai Scholars course,” says Rabbi Avin Kreisler, Vayakri’s founder and director at JLI, himself a Sinai Scholars alumnus, “Vayakri invites them to see Jewish learning, not just as something they pursue on their own, but as something they’re meant to share—if they know Aleph, it’s on them to share Aleph.”

Using a Teacher’s Manual provided by Sinai Scholars, Aliya Grinberg, a pre-medical student at The College of New Jersey, taught a four part course this year. “I love this course and can’t wait for the next one,” she says, noting that one student who joined told her the course got her through personal challenges.

Alon Mileguir, a computer engineering student, taught a Vayakri class at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “We had great discussions,” he said, “we all walked away with a deeper understanding of Judaism and Torah.”

Never Miss a Headline!

Sign up for the COLlive Daily News Roundup and never miss a story

Opt In

• I would like to receive the collive newsletter

Follow Us!