Delta Center hosts Hillel Group

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning's Lee Aylward, center, recently provided a tour to the Hillel Group from the University of Maryland.

The Hillel Group from the University of Maryland was recently in the Delta on an alternative spring break trip. The group made a stop at Delta State University to be introduced to the Mississippi Delta. The Delta Center for Culture and Learning’s Lee Aylward provided the group an overview of the Delta and university while taking them to visit heritage sites.

During their visit, the group met at Temple Adath Israel in Cleveland and enjoyed an evening meal with the congregation. Temple Israel is a Reform Jewish synagogue in Cleveland that was organized in 1923.

The Mission of the Maryland Hillel group is to enhance the lives of Jewish undergraduate and graduate students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world. Hillel actively seeks to engage uninvolved Jewish students on their own terms and to provide them with Jewish opportunities that are meaningful and appealing to them. Students are empowered to take responsibility for their Jewish identity, whether they wish to participate in a community service project, express themselves artistically, participate in a social event, engage in informal Jewish learning or attend religious services. Any student may participate with Hillel – no membership is required. Hillel is committed to a pluralistic vision of Judaism that embraces all movements. 

The mission of The Delta Center is to promote greater understanding of Mississippi Delta culture and history and its significance to the world through education, partnerships and community engagement. The Delta Center serves as the management entity of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area and is the home of the International Delta Blues Project. For more information, visit http://www.deltastate.edu/academics/delta-center-for-culture-and-learning/.

Delta Center provides a tour for a Jewish group

The Delta Center recently gave a tour to the TENT group.

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University recently provided an introduction to the Delta for the TENT group sponsored by the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson.

The TENT program is a series of week-long seminars that immerse 21-30 year old Jews in full impact experiences of culture, cuisine and community. This group was led Rachel Myers of the Institute who described the week- long program as “beginning in New Orleans and spending a week travelling the Delta exploring the Jewish experience in one of this nation’s most distinctive, complicated, and fascinating regions, discovering the best that the South has to offer.

Music, art, food, and visits to Jewish communities large and small made this a week the participants will never forget. On their stop in Cleveland, they were introduced to the Delta by Dr. Rolando Herts and Lee Aylward of the Delta Center. They enjoyed a meal with the congregation of Temple Adath Israel and topped the evening off with a visit to Po Monkey’s, one of the last surviving rural juke joints or “jook” houses, as documented by Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston and blues folklorist Barry Lee Pearson.

University of Maryland explores the Delta’s Jewish Heritage

Students from the University of Maryland listened to Charles McLaurin discuss his experiences during Freedom Summer in 1964.

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University recently provided an introduction of the Delta’s cultural heritage to a group of students from the University of Maryland.

The group was particularly interested in the Delta’s Jewish heritage and contacted the Delta Center through the Institute for Southern Jewish Life in Jackson. Following the introduction to the Delta, the group listened to Charles McLaurin about his experiences during Freedom Summer. McLaurin worked to register African American voters throughout the Delta in the summer of 1964.

The group will spend a week in the Delta, conducting service projects at Mississippians Engaged in Greener Agriculture.

For more information on the Delta Center for Culture and Learning, call 662-846-4311.