Hofstra Hillel welcomes Susan Poser with annual Jones Beach cleanup

Students participated in a beach cleanup to kick off Susan Poser’s inauguration week. // Photo courtesy of Marjorie Rogers.

Several members of the Hofstra community gathered on Sunday, Sept. 26, at Jones Beach State Park to volunteer as part of a beach cleanup co-sponsored by Hofstra Hillel.  

Rabbi Dave Siegel, the executive director of Hofstra Hillel, facilitated the event with his father, Lou Siegel, the Nassau County director of the New York State Marine Education Association. The cleanup took place on the inland-facing shore of Jones Beach Island along an estuary, where rivers meet the ocean. Garbage tends to accumulate in Jones Beach’s estuaries so removing trash from the area plays a crucial role in preserving local marine life, according to Lou Siegel. 

“Anything someone [litters] in Baldwin or Massapequa or Wantagh, it’s going to end up in the water,” Lou Siegel said.  

He explained that many marine animals prefer to mate and lay eggs in brackish water, a mixture of saltwater and freshwater. 

“The estuaries are like the nursery of the sea. It’s a very important area, so we try to preserve it,” he said. 

The beach cleanup served as part of a series of events leading up to the presidential inauguration of Dr. Susan Poser. Dave Siegel said the event encompassed the overarching values of the Hofstra community. 

“We’re showing the best of Hofstra,” Dave Siegel said. “All these service projects really [are] the best of who we are at Hofstra. It should be a mentality that we take with us every day.” 

Rachel Yvonnyvich, the president of Hofstra Hillel and a senior public policy and geographic information systems double major, said Hofstra Hillel annually sponsors a ‘reverse-tashlich’ beach cleanup at Jones Beach State Park, in reference to the act of tashlich, a Jewish tradition during the high holidays. 

“Normally on Yom Kippur, which is the Jewish day of atonement, we apologize for our sins [and] we do this tradition where we throw breadcrumbs into the ocean as a symbolic way of casting away our sins,” Yvonnyvich said. “Reverse-tashlich is taking trash out of the ocean [in order] to give back to the world.” 

Maria Moreno Suarez, a sophomore psychology major, attended the event with Raissa Cisse, a sophomore rhetoric major. Moreno Suarez and Cisse saw the beach cleanup as a unique opportunity to directly give back to the environment.