America at 250: Serving My Country and My Community
Olivia Raykhman is an Air Force officer, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a graduate of Stanford University where she earned her master’s in communication this past June. In celebration of America at 250, she shared how she creates community for Jewish service members and cadets.  Â
Some of my clearest memories of West Point are not from the parade field or the classroom. They are from Friday nights ¾«¶«Ó°Òµ, walking past a wall of names of every Jewish graduate since Simon M. Levy in 1802, and into our sanctuary. Once inside, the ark stands between an American flag and an Israeli flag, and the room is full of Jewish cadets trading stories from the week before settling in for Shabbat dinner.
For four years, that community was my anchor. It was the first place I regained my “speaking privileges” during Week 1 of Beast, our cadet basic training. It was where I put on my Air Force officer uniform for the first time on the day I graduated. Most importantly, it was where I learned that I could be fully an American soldier and fully a Jew. Since joining the military, I have never felt like I had to choose between the two.
My family came to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, as refugees from the Soviet Union, where they had been denied their rights as Jews and their voices as humans. They taught me that freedom is not free and that America’s democracy has endured for 250 years only because each generation chooses to preserve it.
My father taught me what that responsibility looks like in practice. He became a physician because he believed a life is not only for yourself; it is for service. I thought I would follow him into medicine. However, attending high school blocks from the World Trade Center and later spending a semester in Israel – two places where the cost of freedom is not abstract – drew me toward national security instead. West Point’s Jewish community helped complement both my faith and love for my country by becoming a place where my service and my Judaism reinforced each other.
That balance wasn’t always so easy to find. To many of the cadets I’ve trained alongside, I was the first Jew they had ever met. To many people in my Jewish community back in Brooklyn, I was the first service member they had ever known. For a long time, I assumed that was simply my story — a quirk of growing up in one cultural world and choosing to serve in another. Then I started listening to other Jewish cadets, and I realized it wasn’t just my story. It was many of ours.
West Point Hillel is unusual. It sits inside a military academy, its rabbi assigned by the Army, its Shabbat services shift depending on who is serving in that role. But in many ways, it does what every Hillel does: it welcomes observant and secular students, lifelong learners and those just beginning to explore their identities. As co-president, I ran Shabbat, holidays, and sometimes three events in a single week; I mentored underclass cadets finding their footing as Jewish Americans in uniform. In return, Hillel gave me the thing every Jewish student deserves — a community where I never had to explain who I was.
I thought every Jewish cadet had what I had. Then, I led Jewish Warrior Weekend, an annual gathering that brings Jewish service academy cadets together for a weekend of military, spiritual, and social programming. The one we built was the first to include a significant contingent of ROTC cadets. It became the largest gathering of Jewish military-affiliated students in recorded history.
That weekend changed my understanding of the challenges Jewish service members face outside of West Point. As I spoke with ROTC students from civilian campuses across the country, I kept hearing the same thing: they felt like they were on an island.
While my West Point peers had a thriving Hillel community alongside nearly 200 Jewish cadets, many ROTC cadets found themselves confronting a different reality. They were often one of few Jewish students in their detachment and, at the same time, one of few military-affiliated students in their campus Hillel. While there were wonderful organizations designed for Jewish students and those designed for service members, almost none existed for students who were both.
So I built one.
I called it Nesharim, Hebrew for “eagles,” an organization devoted entirely to supporting Jewish cadets and midshipmen, so none have to feel like outliers in either of the communities they belong to.
This past year, as a master’s student at Stanford University, I hosted virtual gatherings and in person programming to help Jewish cadets at over a dozen campuses connect with one another. These Jewish cadets are scattered across ROTC detachments nationwide, often without knowing that the others exist. Much of my year has gone into the un-glamorous, essential work of finding them, introducing them to one another, and giving them a reason and a place to gather.
The clearest picture of what we are building came at a Shabbat dinner at UCLA Hillel. Behind that one evening were weeks of planning with UCLA Hillel student leaders Delilah Hirshland, Valerie Munerman, and Kendall Bristol, who were immediately motivated by Nesharim’s vision. Valerie is the daughter of an Army Ranger. Kendall hopes to serve as a JAG officer after graduation. Delilah is spending the summer at the Department of Justice at the intersection of Jewish life and national security. Each knew the importance of service to the country and simultaneously recognized that Jewish ROTC students on their campus had been moving through college without a clear place to belong.
Invitations went out to the ROTC detachment, the veteran’s club, and Jewish student groups on campus. The evening was designed around one goal: to bring together communities that overlap constantly but rarely meet. We welcomed Shabbat with candle lighting, blessings, and a joyful dinner. Then I gave everyone one instruction: find someone different from you and start a conversation.
Chairs shifted, strangers turned toward one another, and introductions began. By the end of the evening, the room no longer felt like separate groups of civilian students and ROTC cadets. It felt like one community. Watching those conversations unfold brought me back to my own first Shabbat at West Point.
After all, that sense of community is wh¾«¶«Ó°Òµ gave me. And that is wh¾«¶«Ó°Òµs across the country have made possible for Nesharim. When I wanted to bring Jewish cadets together, Hillels including Dartmouth, UVA, and Stanford gave us a table to gather around, literally and figuratively.
And there is so much more Hillel can do. Imagine a world where every Hillel knew which of its students were ROTC cadets and welcomed them by name. Imagine Hillels near military installations becoming natural hubs for Jewish service members and the students training to join them. Imagine a Jewish cadet moving across the country for training who already knows there is a Hillel community waiting on the other side — one where they wouldn’t be anyone’s “first.”
I believe that every Jewish cadet I meet is a future leader who will go on to lead platoons, formations, wings, and fleets. Especially since October 7, Jewish students everywhere have needed one another more than ever, and Jewish cadets, often the most isolated, need it most. We get to decide whether the next Jewish cadet has to be someone’s “first,” or whether they walk into a detachment, or a Hillel, and simply find their people already waiting.
This is my call to the Jewish cadet who is certain they are the only one in their detachment, and to every Hillel professional with the power to prove them wrong: you are not alone; you are not on an island.
Calling all Jewish cadets: come find us. We have been waiting for you.