Shlucha is “Mover & Shaker”

Jewish Ledger

Shaindel Hecht
Storrs, CT

Shaindel Hecht, co-director of Chabad at UConn, is known on campus among Jewish and non-Jewish students alike.

In the weekly Loaves of Love project, members of the Alpha Epsilon Phi Jewish sorority bake challah to distribute to the community, fulfilling both the mitzvah of challah and Shabbat, and of giving.

“Shaindel is an amazing resource for us, as a historically Jewish sorority,” says AEPhi president Kristina Barsczewski, ‘14. “There are many of us in the chapter who are not of Jewish descent. We truly benefit from Shaindel teaching us about the values that our founders built our sorority on. Shaindel embodies all Jewish values and constantly teaches us how Jewish values can be seen in everyday life.”

Hecht and her husband, Rabbi Shlomo Hecht, host a weekly Friday-night dinner at their home and offers ongoing classes and Jewish programming, even during the summer. She is also on the Ganeinu preschool faculty of the Bess and Paul Sigel Hebrew Academy in Bloomfield.

Hecht involves many Jewish students who might not be Jewishly affiliated on campus, says colleague Rabbi Yosef Wolvovsky of the Chabad Jewish Center in Glastonbury. “In the context of a university, where sometimes students lose their connection to Yiddishkeit, she helps them strengthen that connection.”