Hillels of North Texas joined Chabad at UNT and StandWithUs for the Nov. 12, 2024, Unity Walk on the UNT campus to raise awareness for the 101 hostages then held in Gaza.
New faces add to programming, support at UNT and UTD
Editor’s note: Oshrat’s last name has been withheld per agency security policy.
By Deb Silverthorn
Hillels of North Texas expanded its staff this semester.
The newest addition is a Jewish Agency for Israel Fellow from Israel, Oshrat. She joins Abbii Cook, executive director, and Jordan Swidler, director of Jewish student life, in supporting students at the University of North Texas and the University of Texas at Dallas. “Our job is to create safe spaces for Jewish joy and to allow students to find and celebrate their Jewish identity,” said Cook, who previously served in Dallas as the youth and teen director at the Aaron Family JCC for nine years. Returning to North Texas last year, she said this was the role she was meant to serve.
“Serving the Jewish community is my calling, and working with young people fuels me. We want to engage our Jewish students and faculty, and we want to engage the campus communities as a whole,” said Cook, who worked at Hillel at the University of Arizona and the Weintraub Israel Center in Tucson while away from Dallas. “It’s reported that in the last 19 months, 40% of Jewish college students feel uneasy about representing themselves and publicly sharing their Jewish identity.”
Hillels of North Texas hosts bimonthly Shabbat dinners for students at UTD and UNT. There are regular tabling sessions on each campus, with representatives and students discussing both casual and serious topics — from cultural experiences and Jewish identity to heritage, Israel and current events.
Hillels of North Texas held its annual Israel Fest April 23–24, 2025, on the UNT campus.
On April 23 and 24, Hillel at UNT sponsored its annual Israel Fest, working with the campus’ AEPi chapter, American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, StandWithUs and Students Supporting Israel. The celebration included food, music and dancing to mark Israel’s 77th birthday (a week early) while also reflecting on the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023.
“I loved UNT when I was here as a student, and I love being back. It’s a gorgeous campus, a really special place,” said Swidler, a UNT alum who returned to his campus after spending two years as housing manager for AEPi in the Midwest. “My mission is to build continuity, and every day I feel I have a heightened purpose and a place to share my passion.”
“I love working with students, and it’s my honor to help them find and build whatever their Jewish life is,” he added. “Abbii is incredible, and Oshrat has brought an energy and strength from Israel that is both unique and beautiful.”
Oshrat — who both Cook and Swidler said “hit the ground running” — launched Mi Shelanu, a WhatsApp group for Israeli students on local campuses, helping them connect both virtually and in-person. She also started Café Ivrit, a casual Hebrew conversation program open to all on both campuses.
Raised in Rehovot, Israel, Oshrat was active in the Mashatzim youth movement and volunteered with Aharai, a military combat training program. She also worked as a counselor at Camp Seneca Lake in Rochester, New York. After completing her IDF service, she earned a B.A. in filmmaking from Tel Aviv University. In recent years, she has taught dance and worked as a quality assurance engineer for medical device and food tech startups.
Following the Oct. 7 attacks, Oshrat visited friends in the United States — including a Hillel Fellow at the University of Florida. She returned to Israel, connected with Cook, and decided it was the right time to serve in Texas.
“I’d never been to Texas, and I saw great value in this role and what I could bring,” she said. “It was love at first sight. This is a big, beautiful Jewish community — on and beyond campus — and I feel very blessed.”
Oshrat, an Israel Fellow serving Hillels of North Texas through summer 2026, created Mi Shelanu, connecting Israeli students across campuses. Shown here at a Lake Lewisville gathering in April 2025. She also started Café Ivrit, a casual Hebrew-learning forum on both campuses.
Last October, Hillel at UTD led a Jewish Resistance Festival with more than 100 participants, commemorating one year since the massacre in Israel. In February, Hillels of North Texas hosted its first alumni event with more than 50 guests. In March, the group co-sponsored a screening of “October 8,” followed by a talkback with director Wendy Sachs. The event drew more than 300 attendees.
On April 23, the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum invited Hillels of North Texas students to a private dinner with Holocaust survivors ahead of the community’s annual Yom HaShoah commemoration at Congregation Shearith Israel.
“Everything we offer is free, so grants, donations, sponsorships and collaborations with other organizations are both appreciated and necessary,” said Cook. “It means everything. Whatever moves someone to support us, we’re grateful.”
On May 5, Hillel Global Giving Week began. With a goal of $10,000, Cook noted that $8,333 of that amount will be matched.
“We want community members to feel that our students are in their backyard,” she added. “And we hope they’ll help us make the college years meaningful in terms of the Jewish experience we can provide.”
For more information about Hillels of North Texas, or to make a donation, visit www.hillelntx.org.
