Aish HaTorah has experienced growing pains this year as they try to maintain the quality of the programming that existed under the leadership of Rabbi Yaakov Singer before his move to Israel last year.

“The essence of Aish HaTorah is to connect Jews to their Judaism in whatever way possible,” said Isaac Pollack, the acting leader of the College Park branch of Aish HaTorah about his group’s mission.

“Sometimes this [essence] means a Shabbat meal, sometimes it means a trip to Las Vegas, sometimes it means eating Cheez-Its in a dorm room on North Campus, but if that is the only connection they have, then I wouldn’t even begin to estimate the difference that it can make on who they will become,” said Pollack, 20, a junior physics and secondary education major.

Aish HaTorah has had a difficult year retaining members and establishing a sense of Jewish community since Singer left last May to move with his family to Israel.

“Rabbi Singer was a pioneer, who asked to be put on the front lines in order to do the most he could,” Pollack said. “When the rabbi left, the definition of Aish on campus took on a new meaning.”

When Singer ran Aish HaTorah, there were weekly Shabbat dinners hosted by his family, classes he taught, song sessions led by his wife, a student-run weekly discussion group, and a twice-yearly trip.

The student-run group has not been able to keep up the previous plethora of activities once offered. In the fall semester, they held one student-run Shabbat dinner and a weekly discussion group. This spring semester, the group has held one student-run Shabbat dinner and no other activities.

The main solution to the dwindling activities and participation is to bring in a new rabbi. Unfortunately, there are many obstacles to bringing in a new rabbi to run the group.

Rabbis with children are not inclined to move to the College Park area because they will not want to bring them to an area where their children will have no Jewish friends their own age to play with, Pollack said.

Many rabbis, especially “defined local ones,” have already had the chance to establish their roots in communities, Pollack said.

Aish HaTorah rabbis are also not likely to be interested in coming to a college town at all because only two Aish HaTorah branches in the entire country have had rabbis — in College Park and Boston, according to Pollack.

Funding is not a problem for the organization, as they are directly funded from the Aish HaTorah headquarters in New York.

“The main problem is that the nature of the organization has changed,” Pollack said, because the rabbi helped “build connections” with the students.

With the Shabbat dinners occurring only once a semester, it is difficult to build a connection with other students within the group. Pollack believes that the connections Aish HaTorah has made in College Park will be gone within the next year or two if another family doesn’t move in.

“I continue to try and keep the organization vibrant, not for the sake of the organization, but rather for the difference that it hopefully makes in the lives of the participants,” Pollack said, despite all the turmoil the organization has faced this last year.

The difference Pollack and others helping to run the organization, including Jason Schoenbrun, Julie Zackar, Holly Guevara, and Debbie Turk, is to create a “connection” and “reach out” to Jewish students in College Park.