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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

arts

Pancrafts brings Jewish community together with pancakes, crafts

cahillel

A can of Reddi-Wip, a box of powdered sugar and a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s original syrup nestled up against metal pans filled to the brim with pancakes. Beside them were an array of paint tubes, crayons and a case of 
multicolored thread.

The supplies were offered as part of Pancrafts, a mash-up of pancakes and crafts that took place Monday at the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center. The event included four types of pancakes — blueberry, plain, chocolate chip and banana — as well as a single batch of vanilla and cinnamon sugar.

“That one’s my favorite,” Megan Garrett, assistant director of the Hillel center, said of the latter option. “Just so, so good.”

Garrett said the event was created as a combination of student and Hillel faculty suggestions.

“Some faculty members demanded pancakes while some students wanted crafts, so we just slapped them together,” Garett said while dumping four boxes of 
pancake mix into a bowl.

Garrett said she often has students come to her when they are bogged down by exams and assignments. She hopes the event can offer students an opportunity to relieve stress, too.

Garrett said the real purpose, underneath all the light-heartedness, is to promote this feeling of community.

“We want this to be a home away from home,” Garrett said. “And to do that, we need to use opportunities like this to bring people 
together and have fun.”

Jillian Osheroff, who attended the event and is a self-proclaimed chocolate pancake enthusiast, said she came to the event looking to have fun with some of her Jewish friends. She was mostly looking forward to eating pancakes and making friendship bracelets.

“But I guess making a friendship bracelet for yourself is a little sad,” she said.

Then, attendee Emma Rosenstein agreed to swap bracelets with her.

“Well, I would if I knew how to make a bracelet, but I don’t,” Rosenstein said.

The event also aligns with the main mission of Hillel — to offer students an opportunity to explore their connection to Judaism in a new way, Garrett said.

As students transition to college, Garrett said they search for connections to Judaism separate from going to synagogue with their parents while growing up.

As a result, students often rely on the cultural and 
community aspects of Judaism, which she said depend on connecting with other Jewish students in informal settings.

“In Judaism, we put community above a lot, and students really connect with that, sometimes more than the religious aspect of 
Judaism,” Garrett said.

But the event is not just for Jews, Osheroff said. Instead, part of the purpose is to invite non-Jews into Hillel.

“It’s about inclusion,” Osheroff said. “We want people to feel like they belong here, whether they’re Jewish or not, so come eat some 
pancakes.”

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