Jewish Heritage Month May is Jewish American Heritage Month, which gives us all an opportunity to come together to celebrate and honor Jewish American achievements, culture, and history.

May 1, 2026
Morrill Hall sits on the south end of the University of Nevada, Reno quad, a large lawn area surrounded by trees and a walking path.

Jewish Heritage Month

May is Jewish American Heritage Month, which gives us all an opportunity to come together to celebrate and honor Jewish American achievements, culture, and history.

May 1, 2026

Dear Wolf Pack Family,

Spring is in the air! Over the next few weeks, our campus will be buzzing with even more activity than normal. I hope you are taking good care of yourselves and those around you as we near the completion of what has been a highly productive and memorable spring semester.

May is Jewish American Heritage Month, which gives us all an opportunity to come together to celebrate and honor Jewish American achievements, culture, and history. The Jewish American experience in our country has been one of resilience, proud service to our nation, as well as countless contributions to our democratic society. We are very proud of Jewish American students, faculty and staff whose work and accomplishments further our highest institutional values.

The University of Nevada affirms in the strongest of terms our support for our Jewish students, faculty and staff. We stand together against intolerance, hatred and antisemitism of any kind. Our Jewish students, faculty and staff, along with our Jewish alumni and friends throughout our community, are all valued and respected members of our Wolf Pack Family. 

In an excellent essay written for Nevada Today about Jewish American Heritage Month, Dr. Darrell Lockhart, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and a longtime Professor of Spanish, wrote that this month provides us with a unique opportunity to contemplate how wide-ranging the Jewish American community is, stretching far beyond our 50 states to throughout the world. Wrote Dr. Lockhart: “(Jewish American Heritage Month) is a designated period of time set aside annually to recognize and honor the achievements of American Jews and their contributions to the fabric of society in the United States. … In addition, it is an opportunity to think about what ‘Jewish American’ means, or might also mean. Being Jewish encompasses multiple identity components that include religious, ethnic, cultural and linguistic facets that can be varied and quite diverse.”

I encourage you to find out more about Jewish American Heritage Month, with resources from the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

University students can also learn more about Judaism at Chabad and Hillel of Northern Nevada on campus, by joining weekly Shabbat dinners, and holiday and experiential Jewish programming.

Go Pack!

Sincere regards,

Brian Sandoval
President

May 01, 2026