Jewish Life at Harvard: A Rap Chronicle

Though Harvard students may often seem to sing praises for the student groups to which they belong, few ever rap about them—but that’s exactly what Maxbetter S. Vizelberg '14 did in this new video.

Vizelberg conceived of the idea for the video after hearing about a video contest sponsored by JewishBoston.com, a website devoted to Jewish life in and around Boston, from a friend at Harvard Hillel. With the help of David F. Sackstein '14, Alexandra Stote '14, and a grant from Hillel, Vizelberg produced the two-minute rap chronicle of Jewish life at “America’s Favorite University.”

Despite the video’s emphasis on Jewish life on campus, Vizelberg stresses that the video is also about multiculturalism: “I’m not just promoting Judaism,” he said, “but Judaism within the context of a lot of other cultures.”

The video has been received positively by Jewish student leaders on campus.

“I love it,” said Nell S. Hawley '11, president of the Undergraduate Steering Committee of Harvard Hillel. “It’s smart, it’s funny [...] and it does a really good job of merging all the aspects of Jewish life together in one video.”

Hillel administrators have expressed similar sentiments about Vizelberg’s video.

“I think it’s just a great representation of Jewish life on campus,” said Gabriella Soble, director of student activities at Hillel. “It’s just pretty awesome.”

JewishBoston.com will determine the winner of its video contest based on the number of “likes” each video receives on its website by Dec. 1 at 5 p.m. As of Nov. 28, Vizelberg’s video had 348 likes, 4891 fewer than the leading video, “JewishBoston’s Greatest Star.”