“Until fourth grade, I think I honestly just thought everyone was Jewish,” Chapman University  rising sophomore Isabella Robinson said.

While that sentiment was, of course, disproved, it’s indicative of the level of Jewish engagement the Portland Jewish Academy and Ida B. Wells High School grad has lived – engagement that is being recognized with the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland’s 2026 Sussman-Shenker Scholarship, which was presented at yesterday’s annual meeting at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center.

“We are delighted to support Bella’s ongoing commitment to sustaining Jewish life as she pursues her undergraduate degree,” Federation President and CEO Marc Blattner said.

That commitment started young.

“I went to Portland Jewish Academy from [Kindergarten] to eighth grade, and I feel like that really set me up for success; academically, socially and being really in touch with my Jewish identity,’ Robinson said. 

It was the beginning of her Jewish engagement, but not the end.  After PJA, she became President of the Jewish Student Union at Wells, was part of the Federation’s Student to Student Program (see story, page XX) and spent her spring semester of 2023 in Israel. She also ran track and cross-country all four years for the Guardians, culminating in a state championships appearance in cross-country in 2024. In the summer, she could be found annually at Camp Solomon Schechter. Back home, she was and is a member of Congregation Neveh Shalom.

She could thusly be forgiven for thinking everyone was Jewish. She recalled a story she’d heard from her parents about her first experience with the Portland Vintage Trolley shortly after she learned about the existence of non-Jews.

“I was on the car and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s free for everyone, even if they’re not Jewish,’” Robinson recalled. “My parents got mad at me for saying that.”

It should, accordingly, be unsurprising that Robinson selected Chapman University in Orange, Calif., for its large Jewish student population; she also said the Southern California weather didn’t hurt. The decision has been richly rewarded, she continued.

“In so many more ways than I ever could have imagined, Chapman has just really changed me for the better. I feel like it gave me this whole new level of confidence and just independence that I never knew I had,” she said. “I feel so passionate about what I’m doing, what I’m learning. I feel like everyone who I surround myself with aligns directly with who I want to be, who I look up to.”

Robinson is a Health Science major focusing on Applied Human Physiology. She’s planning to follow that with medical school – a goal since high school. While the classwork is rigorous, she’s still found time to join the student board of the campus Chabad. She’s still running, too – she’s taking on the Orange County Half Marathon next year.

“I feel like I’m a lot more involved in the Jewish scene at Chapman than I thought I would be,” she said. “When I came to Chapman, I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll probably just go to Shabbat once a week or every so often whenever I can. I went the first few weeks and maybe I skipped a few, but as the semester went on, I just felt like every time I was at Chabad, it was just such a grounding moment where I could have those Jewish conversations and I could just be in that environment. It was so calming and relaxing. I felt such a strong sense of community and everyone around me cared so much for me.”

The Sussman Scholarship began in 1981 thanks to Lillian and Gilbert Sussman, z”l, and was renamed the Sussman-Shenker Scholarship in 2024 by the daughter of its founders, Lois Shenker, in honor of the 85th birthday of her husband, Arden Shenker. Judaism is still a central feature of Robinson’s life – and the support of that which comes with this scholarship is not lost on her.

“I feel like the scholarship is super personal because just being Jewish, I carry with so much pride,” she said. “Since coming to college, I’ve actually had a lot of big realizations about how I want to live my life and the path I want to go on and what that means to be Jewish and carry myself with pride.”