Unity Dinners

Building bridges between historic allies

Black and Jewish Leaders of Tomorrow is collaborating with the Academic Engagement Network to put on a series of “Unity Dinners” on college campuses throughout the United States. During the 2025-2026 School Year, Unity Dinners will be held in Atlanta, Greensboro, Las Vegas, New York City, Philadelphia, and Salisbury, Maryland.

Our goal is to bring Black and Jewish students together and to forge new relationships and understanding. We hope to spark students’ eagerness to learn more about each other. Moreover, Unity Dinners seek to teach how Black and Jewish communities can work to fight anti-Black racism, antisemitism and bigotries of all kinds.

On the evening of March 28, 2024, a remarkable event took place at the Temple in Atlanta that brought together nearly 40 black and Jewish college students in a spirit of unity and collaboration. This Unity Dinner, hosted by prominent organizations such as Black and Jewish Leaders of Tomorrow, Hillel International, Hillels of Georgia, Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, Gratz College, and the United Negro College Fund, aimed to create a platform for dialogue and understanding between these two diverse communities.

Unity Dinners will take place in 5 cities, hosted by 10+ colleges, by the end of the 2025-2026 academic year.

The inaugural event took place at Dillard University on January 30, 2024. Other participating institutions will include North Carolina A&T University, Morehouse College, New York University, Spelman College, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

Each Unity Dinner will involve 30-40 Black and Jewish college students from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and campus Hillels at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) per location site.

Each dinner will include:

Welcome

Discussion

Dinner

Survey

A special welcome by Dr. John Eaves, founder of Black and Jewish Leaders of Tomorrow, or another leader from the local Black and/or Jewish community

Facilitated discussions and activities designed to get participants thinking about the deep issues affecting these communities historically and in the present day

A delicious multi-course dinner designed to continue facilitating discussion and relationship-building

A brief post-program survey to highlight what worked and what didn’t, capture the thoughts of student leaders, and help us improve our dinners throughout this year and the many we hope will follow!