The Daily Collegian
Students
prep for
Jewish
festival
By Micah Wintner
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
Students began building a 10-
by-10-foot hut made of bamboo
walls on the outside patio of the
Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on
Tuesday.
This hut commonly known
as a sukkah is a symbol of the
Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
Sukkot is the festival of the har
vest, and a sukkah represents the
temporary shelters Jews erected
in the desert after their exodus
from Egypt, said Aaron Kaufman,
executive director of Penn State
Hillel.
Kaufman said it’s important to
provide students with the oppor
tunity to build a sukkah, a tradi
tion in the Jewish religion.
“It’s an opportunity for stu
dents to fulfill the command
ments and for students to learn
about traditions,” Kaufman said.
Hillel will also host a Sukkot
program on Monday, which
includes cookie decorating,
Havdalah candle making and
shaking the traditional lulav a
frond from a date palm tree
and the etrog, or citron, Kaufman
said.
Havdalah is a Jewish ceremony
that marks the end of the Sabbath
Republicans block bill
By Anne Flaherty
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON Senate
Republicans on Tuesday blocked
legislation that would have
repealed the law banning gays
from serving openly in the mili
tary.
The partisan vote was a defeat
for Senate Democrats and gay
rights advocates, who saw the bill
as their last chance before
November’s elections to overturn
the law known as “don't ask, don't
teU.”
The Vice President for Student Affairs is seeking students interested
in serving on a Student Alcohol Advisory Committee.
Committee members will work directly with the Vice President for
Student Affairs to provide student insight on topics related to
dangerous drinking at Penn State.
Applications are available by contacting Emil L. Cunningham at
emil@psu.edu. The deadline to apply is Friday September 24, 2010.
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Asit Mishra/Collegian
Elizabeth Moser, Hillel engagement associate, decorates a sukkah, a
10-by-10-foot bamboo hut, outside the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on
Tuesday to celebrate the Jewish harvest festival known as Sukkot.
“It’s an opportunity for students to fulfill the
commandments and for students to learn
about traditions.”
and the beginning of a new week.
Adam Nudelman said he was
happy to lend a hand in building
the sukkah.
“It was either this or home
work, and this is obviously much
more useful," Nudelman (fresh
man-engineering) said.
Nudelman said a sukkah is
essential to celebrating Sukkot,
and without it. "you lose a huge
amount of meaning."
Traditions associated with the
holiday include decorating the
ceiling of the sukkah with hanging
fruits and eating a meal inside of
it.
Sarah Dafilou, a member of
With the 56-43 vote, Democrats
fell short of the 60 votes needed to
advance the legislation. It also
would have authorized $726 billion
in defense spending including a
pay raise for troops.
Senate Democrats attached the
repeal provision to the defense bill
in the hopes that Republicans
would hesitate to vote against leg
islation that included popular
defense programs. But GOP legis
lators opposed the bill anyway,
thwarting a key part of the
Democrats' legislative agenda.
Now, gay rights advocates say
LOCAL & NATI
Aaron Kaufman
executive director of Penn State Hillel
Hillel’s student board, said
groups of four or five students are
more than welcome to have din
ner in the sukkah.
Dafilou (sophomore-biochem
istry and Jewish studies) said
Hillel works hard to bring Jewish
life to campus.
Last year Hillel brought a
Holocaust resistance fighter to
Penn State, which gathered an
audience of about 80 people, she
said.
She hopes to bring in another
Holocaust survivor to Penn State
this year.
To e-mail reporter: maws43B@psu.edu
to lift ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ polity
they worry they have lost a crucial
opportunity to change the law. If
Democrats lose seats in the
upcoming elections this fall,
repealing the ban could prove
even more difficult if not impos
sible next year.
“The whole thing is a political
train wreck,” said Richard
Socarides, a former White House
adviser on gay rights during the
Clinton administration.
Socarides said President
Barack Obama “badly miscalcu
lated” the Pentagon’s support for
repeal, while Democrats made
Officials: Scheduling
holidays proves tricky
Sherif Elmaghrabi said he’d
have a better Ramadan if the
university allowed days off for
religious holidays.
“Last year when I took off, the
university was really accommo
dating about excusing the
absence, but I was still responsi
ble for making up a lot of work,”
Elmaghrabi (sophomore-busi
ness) said.
Elmaghrabi said he under
stands that both Jewish and
Muslim holidays change every
year it would be a lot to ask of
the university to cancel class.
University Registrar spokes
woman Karen Schultz said figur
ing out how many days to allow
off in one academic year is a
“balancing act.”
She said Penn State is unique
in that it has a fairly ambitious
academic calendar based on 150
hours of instruction per week for
15 weeks.
If there is any variation in
other school’s calendars, she
said, it is most likely because
they have longer class periods
per day.
The only national holidays
that are officially acknowledged
by the university are Labor Day,
Memorial Day, Fourth of July
and Martin Luther King Day,
Schultz said.
“For the time being, university
policy is that students are able
to miss class and participate in
only a “token effort” to advance
the bill.
“If it was a priority for the
Democratic leadership, they
would get a clean vote on this,” he
said.
Democratic Sens. Blanche
Lincoln and Mark Pryor of
Arkansas sided with Republicans
to block the bill. Senate Majority
Leader Hariy Reid, D-Nev., also
voted against the measure as a
procedural tactic. Under Senate
rules, doing so enables him to
revive the bill at a later date if he
wants. Republican Sen. Susan
vertise in the
Talk to your Account Executive yt The Daily
°' c Z o :z:“'°'' Collegian
By Alexa Agugliaro
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010 I 5
religious observances without
being penalized,” said Robert
Pangborn, vice president for and
dean of undergraduate educa
tion.
Pangborn said Penn State is
fairly similar to its Big 10 coun
terparts in terms of how its aca
demic calendar is structured.
“There is a wide diversity of
potential holidays and so it
would be very difficult to select
certain ones,” he said.
Originally, Penn State did not
acknowledge Martin Luther
King Day until students pushed
to have the day off, Schultz said.
Students said it was an impor
tant day on which they could cel
ebrate and participate in com
munity service, Schultz said
students felt that if classes were
in session, they couldn't fully
take part in activities.
But some Penn State students
said they’re feeling the burden
of having to miss classwork
because they don't have can
celed classes on religious holi
days.
Penn State Hillel President
Michal Berns said the issue of
whether to have off for holidays
like Rosh Hashanah is both com
plex and sensitive.
“At the end of the day, it forces
students to choose between
observing a religious holiday or
missing important class work,"
Berns (senior-media studies)
said.
To e-mail reporter: amas4s3@psu.edu
Collins of Maine had been seen as
the crucial 60th vote because she
supports overturning the military
ban. But Collins agreed with her
GOP colleagues that Republicans
weren’t given sufficient chance to
offer amendments. Reid allowed
Republicans the opportunity to
offer only one amendment to
address GOP objections on the
military's policy on gays.
Collins said she planned to vote
against advancing the bill unless
Democrats agreed to extend
debate so that her colleagues
could weigh in on other issues.