Alumni Spotlight: An 8 Part Series with Rebecca Bader

For Rebecca Bader, coming to Israel to learn only became real for her, after a Mayanot representative visited the Chabad for her school, the University of Hartford a few years ago, where she and her, then fiancĂ©, now husband Eric Maurer were regulars. The rabbi suggested that she and Eric might both want to learn at the women’s and men’s programs (respectively), so they could connect more deeply with Judaism – and with each other. “It’s so nice to be both on the same page,” says Becca, who spent many of her growing-up years in Alabama but whose family lives in Maryland. “Never would I have thought that I would come to a yeshiva in Israel but I’ve learned so much more about my Judaism, connected with Israel and really grown as a person in ways I can’t even describe.” Before she arrived, Becca was “a little nervous that the ideas would be radical, but Mayanot brings in so many aspects; we hear from women from all the different sects and the teachers come f