By, Naomi Firsht
3 min read
Students celebrated their academic and campus success in fine style with salt beef and vodka shots at the annual Union of Jewish Students awards evening.
Co-host and UJS campaigns development officer Josh Nagli showed Jewish students have a sense of humour by kicking off Thursday night’s proceedings with a dig at King’s College London.
“Those students from King’s: if you hear the fire alarm tonight it is not someone trying to stop us speaking, it is a real fire,” Mr Nagli joked, in reference to the January KCL Israel society event that was shut down by violent protesters.
Eleven awards were handed out, with 64 students nominated in total.
Oxford Jewish Society picked up the coveted JSoc of the year award. Oxford JSoc president Yoni Stone said: “We do a whole range of brilliant events, in social action, education and the social side.
“I have made incredible friends and the team have been really supportive to me, and made sure every Jew in Oxford has a space they can come to.”
The society has around 200 members.
The developing JSoc prize went to Lancaster JSoc, which has a dozen active members and holds weekly Friday night dinners.
More than 150 students enjoyed the celebrations and a meal of hot salt beef and latkes, followed by a range of desserts including chocolate vodka shots, at a venue in north-west London.
Students from Bristol JSoc won the award for best education project for their Holocaust Memorial Day event, which also involved the LGBT, disabled students and Action for Refugees societies.
One of the event organisers Rebecca Filer said 100 people had attended their cross-society event. She added: “It’s been really important to show not just how Jews were affected but other groups too.
“I am really really proud. Holocaust Memorial Day is so important for every student union to take part in and for our event to be so highly commended, it was very important to all of us.”
Cambridge student Eliot Cohen picked up the Communication prize for his weekly student radio show Hava Na’Giggle which includes Israeli music, Yenta the agony aunt and features such as “German word or Yiddish beer?”.
Mr Cohen has worked on the show alongside other presenters for three years and was also nominated for a UJS award for the show two years ago.
He said: “I was honoured to win. We never thought it would continue for so long but thanks to support, positive feedback and the constant fresh-faced presenters we have managed to keep it going. And we hope to keep it going for some time.”
St Andrews student Joel Salmon was awarded the Alan Senitt prize for outstanding contribution to campus life for his work while president of his JSoc and in interfaith and cross-communal projects.
Co-hosts Stacey Abendstern and Mr Nagli kept the crowd entertained with the results of the “bagel versus beigel” vote, with “bagel” winning by a landslide.
The pair summed up a successful year for Jewish students in a series of statistics. Last year saw 297 Friday night dinners, £3,500 raised for the Save A Child’s Heart charity, and 1,103 votes cast in the UJS presidential election.
UJS president Hannah Brady said the event was about celebrating students and their achievements.
Ms Brady told the JC: “It is really important that we reflect on the fact we are here, first and foremost for Jewish students, and to be a platform for their success.”
After the awards the celebrations continued on the dancefloor with DJ Trup - Louis Trup, the former Oxford student union president - who kept the party going until midnight.
List of award winners
● Best Education Project - Sally Patterson, Rebecca Filer, Leo Berger & Lily Ross, Bristol JSoc
● Interfaith Project of the Year - Sacha Ephrussi & Yoni Stone, Oxford JSoc
● Social Action Project of the Year - Orli Goldberg, Birmingham JSoc
● Communication of the Year - Eliot Cohen, Cambridge JSoc
● Oliver Sweeny Event of the Year - Lily Keisler (Glasgow JSoc), Kathryn Rose (St Andrews JSoc) & Josh Woolf (Lancaster JSoc)
● Alan Webber Award for Israel Engagement - Aaron Simons, Oxford JSoc
● CST Campaign of the Year - Joel Collick & Jonny Shamir, Cambridge JSoc
● Dedication to Liberation Networks - Louise Cohen, Nottingham JSoc
● Chaplaincy Developing JSoc Award - Lancaster JSoc
● JSoc of the Year - Oxford JSoc
● Alan Senitt Outstanding Contribution to Campus Life Award - Joel Salmon, St Andrews JSoc