What do you get when a rabbi, a secretary of state, a governor and 3,000 Jewish leaders and students get together?

The annual general assembly of the United Jewish Communities of the Jewish Federations of North America - held this year from Nov. 11 to 13 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.

Top speakers included U.S Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Democratic National Committee Chairman and former presidential candidate Howard Dean, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, famed Yeshiva University professor Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter, and Interim Chancellor Nick Zeppos.

Vanderbilt faculty and students also were well represented at the conference, with Hillel volunteers greeting conference attendees at the airport and Zeppos and several professors from the Jewish Studies department making presentations.

More Jewish students attended this conference than any other in the history of the event, said Danielle Freni, senior communications associate of Hillel.

"Last year, the big complaint was that millenials, the next generation, had not been included, but all that changed this year," she said. "Now we have hundreds of engaged, active students from campuses all over attending."

Vanderbilt students who went said their participation showed the global Jewish community how far Vanderbilt Hillel has come in terms of membership growth and cooperation in the past few years.

And freshmen Saul Siller and Eric Walk said they consider this visibility important.

"I was certainly representing Vanderbilt and representing what Jewish life at Vanderbilt is all about," Siller said. "Especially with regards to how we define ourselves, and I was trying to give them a different view of what the Jewish community at Vanderbilt was like."

"It was a chance to show how much we've grown," Walk said.

Sophomore Gaby Avery-Peck said she was glad the conference was held in Tennessee this year because it was a chance for the Southern Jewish populations to gain exposure.

"Jews are in the South, and people don't normally see it that way," Avery-Peck said. "I thought it was important to represent Jewish students in the South."