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ב׳׳ה

Princeton Seminar Fellows

The Princeton Seminar Fellows Program introduces students from diverse intellectual backgrounds to foundational ideas in Chabad Hasidic thought, offering the opportunity for a deep and sustained engagement with original Hasidic texts. Fellows participate in one-on-one study sessions with PIHT educators and gather weekly in Princeton for a discussion-based seminar that explores these texts in a dynamic, interdisciplinary setting. The fellowship’s four-hour weekly commitment fosters meaningful and rigorous conversations between Hasidic thought and a wide range of academic disciplines.

Meet Our 2025-2026
Seminar Fellows!

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Reyna Perelis

Reyna is a junior from Teaneck, NJ studying Psychology. At Princeton, she is involved in an interfaith student group and is a residential advisor. She has studied at Midreshet Lindenbaum in Jerusalem and at Yeshivat Hadar, and is excited to be challenged and enriched by learning Chassidus with the fellowship. 

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Dima Ezrokhi

Dima is a PhD candidate at Princeton studying Classics. Born in Kyiv and raised in Nazareth and Jerusalem, he earned his BA in Classics and Philosophy and MA in Classics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also taught Latin for two years. His MA dissertation examined the anatomical and physiological background of Aristotle’s theories on nutrition and metabolism. He is currently working on a project on Plato’s depiction of contemporary dietetic medicine in Republic Book 3. 

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Jesse Smith

Jesse Etan Smith lives in Brooklyn, New York. He loves spending time with friends. He is also a fifth year doctoral candidate at New York University, where he studies the physics of jets, waves, and vortices. His tefillah is slowly improving, but his cooking is slowly worsening.

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Yaelle Goldschlag

Yaelle is an incoming PhD student in Computer Science at Princeton where she will be based at the Center for Information Technology Policy. She is interested in building frameworks to enable responsible use of technology, especially related to people's right to autonomy over their experiences on the Internet. She previously studied Computer Science, Math and Persian at the University of Maryland and studied for one year at Midreshet Nishmat. She also spent four years at Meta working on responsible AI, LLMs, and data compression.

PIHT Seminar Fellows 2026-2027 Application

Deadline: July 24th, 2026

 

The Princeton Institute for Hasidic Thought is pleased to invite qualified undergraduate and graduate students in the Tri-State area and Philadelphia to apply for the 2026-2027 cohort of the PIHT Seminar Fellows program. Hosted in Princeton, this program is designed to introduce students from diverse intellectual backgrounds to foundational ideas in Chabad Hasidic thought, offering them the opportunity to take a deep dive into a series of original Hasidic texts. Fellows will be paired with expert Hasidic scholars for one-on-one study sessions and meet together for a weekly discussion seminar led by one of our instructors. 

No prior experience with Hasidic learning is required, and students from all academic backgrounds—across the humanities, social sciences, and STEM—are warmly encouraged to apply. Our goal is to facilitate meaningful conversation between Hasidic thought and a range of other disciplines. We do ask, however, that participants have intermediate competency in Hebrew reading. The fellowship will run from September 2026 until May 2027, with a four-hour weekly time commitment (two hours in person, two hours remote). We offer a stipend of $2,500 for undergraduates and $2,750 for graduate students.

Current Educational Status
Undergraduate Student
Graduate Student
Other
Will you be able to attend a weekly two-hour in-person seminar in Princeton as well as two additional hours of paired text study (in-person or remote)?
Yes
No
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