feature story
Students at Villanova University Hillel events
Photos by Sean Culley
kind of amorphous,” Marchione said. “It’s still such in
its early phases that it’s hard to draw any conclusions at
this point.”
St. Joe’s’ Jewish community has been even more
ambiguous in recent years, with the school’s few Jewish
professors doing their best to engage with the campus’
Jewish students.

Nancy Fox, a professor of economics at St. Joe’s, has
helped lead the charge in building Jewish community
on campus. She’s worked at the college for 37 years but
only began engaging with Jewish students aft er 10 years
of teaching.

Fox had an epiphany when speaking to a colleague,
Sister Francis. During her previous teaching career
at New York University, she made hamantaschen for
Purim every year for her sizable Jewish population. She
debated making the cookies for her students at St. Joe’s
and fi nally decided to aft er Sister Francis told her that
Catholics also study the story of Esther.

“And that’s when it clicked,” she said.

With the help of congregants at Congregation
Beth El-Ner Tamid in Broomall, Fox and members of
Campus Ministry dropped off shalach manot to Jewish
students on campus.

Fift een years ago, Fox helped organize an interfaith
service to kick off the spring semester, complementing
the Catholic mass that took place at the beginning of
each fall semester. She’s helped organize a Passover
seder at the college for the past ten years.

Th rough her time working with Jewish students and
organizing interfaith activities with Campus Ministry,
she’s noticed a parallel between their stories and hers:
“It kind of awakened their Jewish identity. Most of these
students, to my knowledge — the ones who I know —
do not actively practice Judaism. And I have a feeling
that this reminds them that they’re Jewish.”
With little infrastructure in place to support Jewish
community before Greater Philly Hillel’s involvement,
why would Jewish students choose to attend a school
where they knew they would be the religious minority?
When they knew, in the case of Villanova, that they
would enter buildings donned with crosses and learn in
classrooms adorned with a crucifi x?
18 OCTOBER 13, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Evan Koss, who is in his last semester at St. Joe’s,
matriculated to the school because he was drawn to
their food marketing program, which he deemed highly
competitive. He grew up in the area and attended
the Conservative Kesher Israel Congregation in West
Chester. As he was getting ready to graduate high
school, he knew he wanted to stay in the area for college.

“St. Joe’s is right next to Lower Merion, which is a very
heavily Jewish area,” Koss said. “I have family that lives
in Ardmore, kind of minutes away, so I was familiar
with the area to begin with.”
According to Culley, other Jewish students at St. Joe’s
share Koss’ experience. Th ey are commuter students
from the heavily Jewish Main Line wanting to major
within one of the competitive but specifi c programs St.

Joe’s has to off er.

At Villanova, Jewish students are drawn to the col-
lege’s basketball team and its lively campus life, Culley
said. Th e college off ers good fi nancial aid.

Th ese Jewish students are aware of what they’re get-
ting into.

“I fully accepted the risk of going to a religious school
that wasn’t my own and all that would entail with it,”
Koss said.

During his four years at St. Joe’s, Koss doesn’t recall
instances of antisemitism, but he has become an “unin-
tentional mouthpiece,” having to educate some of his
classmates about his religion.

“Th ere’s just a lack of education because a lot of stu-
dents ... they’ve been in Catholic school since they were
kindergarten through 12th grade, and then they went
right to a Catholic [college]; they may not have been
exposed to Jewish people or Jewish culture,” Koss said.

While Koss didn’t mind doing some work to educate
his classmates, he was also looking to connect with
students who shared his Jewish upbringing. Before the
semester began, he talked with six Jewish students, most
of whom had not previously been interested in becom-
ing involved in Jewish life on campus.

Koss worked with Winaker and Culley to create a
Jewish presence at activity fairs, where students inter-
ested in Hillel could put their emails on a listserv. Beth
Ford McNamee, assistant director in the Offi ce of
Campus Ministry, has worked with Greater Philly Hillel
and the Jewish students to try to eliminate barriers
to holding programming, such as reserving spaces or
navigating the student organization formation process.

According to McNamee, St. Joe’s has always tried to
be respectful of religious diversity; it’s part of the core
tenets of Catholic values. Villanova has shared simi-
lar values, following the changing philosophy of the
Catholic Church, according to Villanova’s Director of
Multifaith Ministry Rev. Julie Sheetz.

In 1965, the Second Vatican Council met and created
the declaration Nostra Aetate, “when the church really
began to wrestle with its relationship to modernity,”
Sheetz said. Among other ideas, the declaration grap-
pled with its role in antisemitism and the fate of Jews
during the Holocaust, advocating for increased corre-
spondence with other religious groups.

In 1967, St. Joe founded its Jewish-Catholic Institute,
promoting coursework on non-Christian religions and
speaker series promoting interreligious connections.

“Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time” marked the 50th
anniversary of Nostra Aetate and acted as a reminder
of the work St. Joe’s still had to do to create a truly reli-
giously diverse campus climate.

Villanova has a similar reaction to Nostra Aetate’s
50th anniversary. According to Sheetz, the theology
department hired a professor of interreligious studies
and a Jewish professor for Hebrew Bible and Jewish
studies courses.

As both Villanova and St. Joe’s faculty and staff have
coalesced to support Jewish students, and with increas-
ing Jewish infrastructure created by Greater Philly
Hillel, the onus to build a sustained Jewish community
is now on the students.

While Marchione and Culley have seen evidence of
momentum and excitement from students, students
need to continue to lend their insights and time to
ensure these projects can come to fruition.

“It’s sort of chicken-and-egg,” Sheetz said. “It’s hard to
attract more Jewish students if there’s not already vibrant
evidence of a lot of Jewish students on campus.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com



food & dining
Fun Facts About Potatoes
LINDA MOREL | SPECIAL TO THE JE
womue / AdobeStock
B ecause potatoes are ubiquitous,
people hardly notice them.

Mostly white in color and
always bland in fl avor, they fade into the
culinary background. But where would
soups, stews, casseroles, gratins, side
dishes and French fries be without them?
Besides being a fi lling comfort food,
potatoes are quite complex. Not every
potato is good for every recipe. And
some potatoes may harm you.

Low in moisture and high in starch
with rough skins, russet potatoes are
ideal for baking, mashing, French fries
and latkes.

Red bliss potatoes, new potatoes, fi n-
gerlings and most of the petit varieties
have moister fl esh and thinner skins.

Th ey hold their shape during cooking,
so they are great for roasting, potato
salads, gratins and simply boiling.

With their buttery color, Yukon
Golds are the ultimate all-purpose
potato. Fluff y and light, they’re not too
crumbly, nor are they dense. Boil, mash
and roast them. Th ey are an asset in
soups, stews and casseroles.

Although many people peel and dis-
card potato skins, they contain more
nutrients than the fl esh inside. Th ey are
full of fi ber, vitamin B and calcium.

Since potatoes are a vegetable, actually an
underground tuber, they are gluten-free.

On the safety front, potatoes retain
more pesticides than most produce, so
it’s best to buy organic. When potatoes
are green, they have been exposed to
light and have begun to produce chlo-
rophyll. If this greening is pale and
only skin deep, peel them to remove the
green layers. But if the green color is
dark and goes deeper into potatoes, they
could be toxic and should not be eaten.

If your potatoes exhibit a few small
sprouts, simply cut them out. But if
the sprouts have formed an extensive
network, the potatoes could be toxic so
it’s best to discard them.

If aft er peeling potatoes, you see
dark spots, don’t worry. Th is means the
potatoes got bruised, but are perfectly
healthy to eat. Scrape off the dark spots
if they bother you.

Th ere are at least 5,000 potato vari-
eties and probably double that num-
ber of recipes calling for this versatile
tuber. Believe it or not, potatoes are
this country’s most consumed produce
item. Americans eat nearly 50 pounds
per person per year. Th at’s a lot of pop-
ularity for overlooked spuds.

Roasted Fingerling Potatoes |
Pareve Serves 4-6
Equipment: 11-inch-by-17-inch baking
pan and parchment paper
1½ pounds fi ngerling potatoes, on
the small side
¼ teaspoon each: onion powder,
garlic powder, curry powder and
cumin 1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon kosher salt
⅛ teaspoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees
F. Line the baking pan with parch-
ment paper.

Rinse the potatoes under cold
water, and drain them on paper tow-
els. Cut them in half lengthwise.

Move them to a plastic bag and
reserve. In a small bowl, place the spices,
salt, balsamic vinegar and the olive
oil. Whisk until well combined. Drizzle
the mixture into the plastic bag over
the potatoes. With one hand, close
the plastic bag, and gently shake it
until the potatoes are well coated.

Move the potatoes to the prepared
pan. Arrange them cut side down.

Roast them for 25-30 minutes, turn-
ing once or twice, until crisp. Serve
immediately. Homemade Potato Chips |
Pareve Serves 4-6
els on two cookie sheets, about 4
paper towels per cookie sheet.

Rinse the potatoes under cold
water, and pat them dry with paper
towels. Scrape off the potato skins.

Using a sharp knife, slice the pota-
toes as thinly as possible.

Pour some of the oil into each fry-
ing pan. You won’t need the entire
½ cup now. Heat it over a medium
fl ame.

Arrange as many potato slices in
each frying pan as will comfortably
fi t without overlapping. Sprinkle
them with a generous amount of
salt. When the bottom sides are
golden, turn them over. Continue fry-
ing until both sides are light brown.

Add more oil when needed.

Move the chips to the paper tow-
els to drain, and continue frying until
all potato slices are crisp. When
the paper towels become saturated
with oil, discard them and move the
potato chips to a bowl or platter. Line
the cookie sheets with fresh paper
towels, when needed.

Serve immediately.

Creamy Smashed Potatoes |
Pareve Serves 4-6
⅓ cup olive oil
5 garlic cloves, squeezed through
a garlic press
Kosher salt to taste
1 heaping tablespoon capers
drained on paper towels
6 Yukon Gold potatoes
are soft in the center. Drain them in a
colander, and move them to a large
mixing bowl. Drizzle the olive oil mix-
ture over the potatoes.

With a fork or masher, gently
smash the potatoes until lumpy and
retaining some shape. (This is not
a mashed potato recipe.) Add the
capers, and gently mix them into the
potatoes. Add more salt, if needed.

Serve immediately.

Italian Boiled Potatoes with
Garlic Oil | Pareve
Serves 4-6
¼ cup olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
Kosher salt to taste
2 tablespoons chives, chopped
10 new potatoes, peeled
In a small saucepan, heat the olive
oil over a medium-low fl ame. Add
the garlic and salt. Sauté until the
garlic is fragrant. Remove the pan
from the heat, and add the chives.

Stir briefl y. Reserve.

Scrape the skin off the potatoes.

Cut the potatoes into bite-sized
pieces. Boil them until soft in the cen-
ter. Drain them in a colander. Move
them to a serving bowl. Drizzle the
potatoes with the olive oil mixture,
and gently stir to combine. Add more
salt, if needed. Serve immediately. JE
In a small saucepan, heat the oil
over a medium-low fl ame. Sauté the
garlic and sprinkle it with salt. When
the garlic is fragrant, remove it from
the fl ame. Reserve.

Peel the potatoes and cut them
into quarters. Boil them until they
Equipment: 2 large frying pans
and 16 paper towels, or more if
needed 2 pounds russet potatoes
½ cup olive oil, or more, if needed
Kosher salt to taste
Arrange two layers of paper tow-
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 19