Reunions 2023
Mazel Tov! We invite you to include Slifka Center in your 2023 Reunion plans. All Alumni with their guests are welcome to come and see our newly renovated building at 80 Wall Street (across from Silliman College) and to attend our Special Reunion Events listed below. Please join us!
Check out the happenings for your reunion weekend, and note that Shabbat Dinner Reservations (which are necessary) are made via your Yale class reunion registration. We want to make your Reunion Weekend as meaningful as possible. Please contact us at slifka.center@yale.edu with any questions or for more information.
Second Reunion Weekend Update:
There will be alumni-led services on Friday evening, June 2 at Slifka Center (between “Kiddush and Candles” at 4 pm and Shabbat Dinner at 7 pm) including singing and candlelighting at 5:15 pm followed by a particpatory service at 5:45 pm being organized by Dr. Scott Cantor ’81, with accompaniment by Slifka’s Director of Jewish Student Life, Aviva Green. All are welcome!
— updated June 1, 2023
First Reunion Weekend, May 25 – 28
Classes of 1953, 1958, 1963, 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008
| Friday, 4 pm – Slifka Center Lobby
Kiddush and Candles – All are welcome to stop by for an open house and building tours with Slifka Center staff, with light refreshments and candle lighting. Friday, 5:45 pm and Saturday, 8:15 am Shabbat Services – Services will take place based on alumni interest. Please contact lynn.jackson@yale.edu if interested. Friday, 7 pm – Slifka Center’s Kikar Schusterman, Ground Floor Family-style Shabbat Dinner – Traditional Shabbat meal including challah and wine. Please reserve via your class’s reunion registration form. Reservations Required. Saturday, 11 am – Sylvia Slifka Chapel, 2nd Floor Slifka hosts “Morning at Yale” featuring Guido Calabresi ’53, ’58 LLB, Professor Emeritus of Law HOLOCAUST TALES: HOW EVERY BLOOD MEMBER OF MY FAMILY WAS SAVED, AND WHO SAVED THEM: After Italy surrendered to Germany in September 1943, Italians of Jewish ancestry immediately found themselves in mortal danger. Professor Calabresi, former dean of Yale Law School, will relate how his family members were saved through the help of fellow citizens, poor and rich, powerful and powerless. The stories of how this happened are fascinating and “even fun in themselves,” he says, marveling at some people’s willingness to risk their lives to rescue others. Saturday, 12 noon to 1 pm – Slifka Center Lobby Slifka Center Renovation Tours – Slifka Center has recently completed an exciting building renovation! Come see our indoor and outdoor spaces, following the day’s “Morning at Yale” sessions.
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Second Reunion Weekend, June 1 – 4
Classes of 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, 2013, 2018
| Friday, 4 pm – Slifka Center Lobby
Kiddush and Candles – All are welcome to stop by for an open house and building tours with Slifka Center staff, with light refreshments and candle lighting. Friday, 5:45 pm and Saturday, 8:15 am Shabbat Services – Services will take place based on alumni interest. Please contact lynn.jackson@yale.edu if interested. Friday, 7 pm – Slifka Center’s Kikar Schusterman, Ground Floor Family-style Shabbat Dinner – Traditional Shabbat meal including challah and wine. Please reserve via your class’s reunion registration form. Reservations Required. Saturday, 11 am – Sylvia Slifka Chapel, 2nd Floor Slifka hosts “Morning at Yale” featuring Tamar Gendler ’87, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences FIRESIDE CHAT ON THE FUTURE WITH DEAN GENDLER: What will a Yale education look like in 2050? What differences might we see, halfway through the century, in the composition of Yale’s faculty? How will artificial intelligence change the way teachers teach and students learn? And how will Yale remain distinctive among its peers? In this conversation with Slifka Center Executive Director Uri Cohen, Dean Gendler will share how her Jewish upbringing has shaped how she considers the past and present, and influences her vision of the future. Further, Dean Gendler will discuss how the university is preparing for the future– and adapting to a future, that in many respects, is already here. Saturday, 12 noon to 1 pm – Slifka Center Lobby Slifka Center Renovation Tours – Slifka Center has recently completed an exciting building renovation! Come see our indoor and outdoor spaces, following the day’s “Morning at Yale” sessions. |
Helpful Links:
Yale College Reunions:
https://alumni.yale.edu/reunions/yale-college-reunions
Yale Medical School Reunions – May 31 through June 3, 2023:
https://medicine.yale.edu/alumni/events/info/reunionweekend/
Yale SOM Reunions – May 5 – 7, 2023: https://som.yale.edu/alumni/events-reunions/reunions
Yale Law School Alumni Weekend – October 20 to 22, 2023: https://law.yale.edu/info-alumni/alumni-weekend
Past Reunions: Revisit Slifka Center’s Reunion 2022 events
First Weekend, May 27 – 29
1952, 1957, 1967, 1970, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007
Saturday, May 28
10:30 am Professor Robert C. Post ’77 JD
“The First Amendment at the University on Social Media & Beyond”
Morning at Yale reunion event presented by Slifka Center, at Sterling Law Library at the Law School – 127 Wall Street
Professor Post is the Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School, and served as the School’s 16th dean from 2009 until 2017. He specializes in constitutional law, with a particular emphasis on the First Amendment. Professor Post is also a legal historian, author, and member of the American Law Institute and a fellow of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
2 to 3:00 pm Renovation Tour at Slifka Center, 80 Wall Street
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Second Weekend, June 3 – 5
1960, 1972, 1977, 1987, 1995, 2012, 2017
Saturday, June 4
10:30 am New Programming: Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, Howard M. Holtzmann Jewish Chaplain at Yale “Some Dance to Remember…: Jewish Perspectives on Memory – and the Virtue of Forgetting – in Light of Ukraine, present and past”
Morning at Yale reunion event presented by Slifka Center, at McNeil Lecture Hall at the Art Gallery – 1111 Chapel Street, 4M
Rabbi Jason Rubenstein became the Howard M. Holtzmann Jewish Chaplain at Yale in July 2018. He came to Slifka Center from a background as diverse as Yale’s Jewish community: a childhood at Temple Micah in Washington DC, formative years studying at Yeshivat Ma’ale Gilboa in northern Israel, and rabbinic ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary. For the past eight years Jason has taught on the faculty of the Hadar Institute, where he’s created classrooms, conversations, and communities that bring Torah to life by drawing on the fullness of students’ lives. From his own formative undergraduate years at Harvard Hillel, Jason personally knows the value of Slifka Center’s work. Creating a community of meaning where students forge identities as Jewish leaders and relationships with one another that will continue to grow and deepen even after graduation not only enriches the lives of individual alumni – it has the potential to reshape and enliven the American Jewish landscape through those alumni’s talents and contributions. In addition to rabbinic ordination, Jason holds an AB in Social Studies from Harvard College and a Masters in Talmud from JTS. He is also the recipient of numerous awards including the Wexner Graduate Fellowship and the Covenant Foundation’s 2015 Pomegranate Prize for Emerging Educators.
2 to 3:00 pm Renovation Tour at Slifka Center, 80 Wall Street
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Third Weekend, June 10 – 12
1956, 1962, 1971, 1982, 1996, 2015, 2016
Saturday, June 11
10:30 am Professor Shelly Kagan ’95 MAH
“Jewish Tales as Teachers of Jewish Thought and Values”
Morning at Yale reunion event presented by Slifka Center, at Linsly-Chittenden Hall 102 – 63 High Street
Professor Kagan is the Clark Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. His main research interests lie in moral philosophy, and in particular, normative ethics. Much of his work centers on the debate between consequentialist and deontological moral theories, with publications on the nature of well-being, moral desert, utopia, and the connections between Kantianism and consequentialism. Professor Kagan is a popular lecturer at Yale, known for his introductory lectures on Death and Ethics. His course on Death has been turned into an Open Yale Course, and his writings include a book based on this course. Professor Kagan has served as a Slifka Center Fellow, and more recently was a featured guest at a Slifka Center Online Salon.
2 to 3:00 pm Renovation Tour at Slifka Center, 80 Wall Street
Past Reunions: Revisit Slifka Center’s Reunion 2021 events
In the spring of 2021 Slifka Center held two special online reunion events, as archived below, as part of our increased virtual programming since March of 2020 – enjoy!
Since 1995, Slifka Center has served as the central hub of Jewish Life at Yale, providing intellectual and cultural programming, kosher dining, religious services – and much more – to the entire campus community. As the home of Yale Hillel, Slifka Center seeks to convene, connect, and equip students to make courageous contributions to the Jewish community, and to the world at large.
In recent months we have undertaken exciting building renovations to improve our services and safety, and we are looking forward to reopening in mid 2022. Until then, we welcome you to our online programming for 2021 Reunion Weekend as described below! And we invite you to learn more about our plans and current happenings, including our celebrated Slifka Online Salon series.
3 Generations of Jewish Life at Yale: A Dialogue between Rabbis Jim Ponet ’68 and Jason Rubenstein (Recorded June 4, 2021)
Quotas. Israel. Mental Health. The Yale Five. Community. Friendship. What do we learn about Jewish life – back then, and nowadays – at Yale when we take the long view? That’s the question that will come to life through a dialogue between Rabbi Jim Ponet ’68, who created the Slifka Center in 1995, and Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, his successor as Howard M. Holtzmann Jewish Chaplain at Yale. They will discuss personal experiences counseling students stretching across over forty class-years, and explore the ways that our community has remained constant – and how it is growing and changing, even as we speak. The Rabbis will also respond to questions and themes raised by event participants.
Slifka Center Online Reform Services (Recorded June 4, 2021)
Slifka Center held an online Reform Services as a special part of Yale Reunions 2021. Featuring original music and personal reflections, it was led by Noam Shapiro ’15 supported by student leaders and recent alumni including Emma Levin ’23, Syd Bakal ’22, Gwendolyn Towers YSM ’21, Joe Blumberg ’19, and Evan Farber ’99, Slifka Center Board Chair.