Jakub Madej, Senior Photographer

The Yale Hospitality website notes that “anywhere ‘residential dining’ meals are mentioned, you can opt to visit Slifka Center Dining and use a meal swipe there instead.” Yet this semester, many students have been surprised to learn that the swipes they have been using at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale are bonus swipes, not the weekly residential swipes they thought they were using.

When students move off campus, many opt to sign up for alternative meal plans so that they can eat on and off campus with ease. The Connect Meal Plan includes five weekly meal swipes that can be used on campus in their residential college and 30 “Bonus meals” that students can redeem at Commons, the Bow Wow, Steep Cafe and dining halls. 

Sophie Schonberger ’26 said she felt misled by the information on the website when she first realized that she was using bonus swipes instead of residential college swipes. 

“They do say that you can use [swipes] at Slifka. They need to put somewhere [that these swipes count as bonus swipes] because it is not put anywhere,” said Schonberger. 

Yale Hospitality wrote to the News that students under the Connect Meal Plan are granted “30 block meals per semester that can be redeemed at Slifka” — this is in contrast to their website that states that Connect Meal Plan students’ five weekly residential college meal swipes are eligible for use at the Slifka Center. 

Unlike the Connect Plan, the Full Meal Plan allows students to use their residential meal swipes at the Slifka Center.

Schonberger said when she eats meals on campus, she prefers to eat at Slifka because there are more options for her since she only eats kosher meat, and she feels that Slifka is her community, more so than her residential college. Because of this confusion, she has now unexpectedly used her bonus swipes thinking that she had been using her residential college swipes the whole time. 

“I would have thought more realistically about how many lunches I’m eating out [at Slifka] and how many dinners I’m eating [at Slifka] rather than just assuming it’s five meals a week,” said Schonberger. 

Ben Raab ’26, who is also a print managing editor at the News, has had a similar experience. 

He was under the impression that he had been using his residential college swipes at Slifka and was surprised to find out that he was using his bonus swipes. 

Like Schonberger, he felt misled and said that had he known about this when choosing a meal plan, he would probably have signed up for the Flex plan instead. 

Raab only eats kosher meat products, so the Slifka dining hall provides him with more options than the regular dining hall. 

Alex Schapiro ’26, another student who keeps kosher on the Connect plan, reflected that for students who keep strictly kosher and who only eat at Slifka, it does not make sense that the residential college swipes do not work. 

“For students who keep strictly kosher, that’s the only dining hall they can eat in. It doesn’t make sense that they should only be allowed to have two meals a week in the only dining hall they can eat in on a plan that is supposed to allow for seven and a half meals a week,” said Schapiro. 

The News reached out to Yale Hospitality to ask if they are aware of the misleading information on their website, aware of these student frustrations, have any plans to address these concerns and to ask why the Connect Plan is uniquely unable to use residential swipes at Slifka. Yale Hospitality did not respond. 

When the News spoke with the executive director of the Slifka Center to address the issue, Uri Cohen said that he would reach out to Yale Hospitality to hopefully correct the information on their website. 

The Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale opened in 1995.