As the editor of a magazine focused on Jewish student life, I try to stay tuned to campus-related news. So when the Avi Chai Foundation published “Particularism in the University: Realities and Opportunities for Jewish Life on Campus,” I gave it a careful read. To my dismay, the national survey of Jewish college students did not exactly celebrate the many ways to live Jewishly. Instead, it issued tired recommendations about the benefits of involvement with adult-run Jewish institutions like Hillel, and failed to see the necessary limitations of its study. The authors concluded that students who shunned Hillel suffered a direct slump in their quantifiable Jewishness, while Hillelniks authentically espoused Jewish values and Jewish pride.
One of its major findings is that dedication to tikkun olam is directly related to Hillel involvement. But we have to realize that it is no surprise involved students report such an interest. Since most Hillel buildings and literature are plastered with colorful phrases about repairing the world, researchers should expect the language of the question to ring a bell. So rather than fearing that 37 percent of uninvolved students really don’t care about leading ethical lives and that a whopping 49 percent don’t want to make the world a more just and peaceful place, we should recognize the role that Hillel immersion plays in students’ reporting.
The study is also concerned with students’ leadership roles in the general (i.e. non-Jewish) campus community. But contrary to the bleak assertion that self-proclaimed Reform Jews are slipping away from their Jewish identities, we should see the study’s revelation that 30 percent of them hold general leadership positions as a good sign. It is heartening to see that the movement’s values of social justice and community involvement may well inspire members to be actively involved in campus activism, government, and social organizations.
Just as Shabbat observers turn to Hillel in search of religious community, non-observant students’ commitments direct them away. And that’s okay. After all, if Jewish students were only interested in Jewish leadership positions, we’d see a generation bursting at the seams with JCC presidents but very few policymakers.
While a Hillel with diverse student-led programming is a laudable goal and a worthy investment, eager professionals and philanthropists alike should know that it’s not for everyone. Many upstanding, committed Jews are hatched in other nests. We owe it to them to assume they would care if the modern world accelerated its downward spiral, forgot about the Holocaust, and burned the last haggadah in sight.
My year of working with over 100 student writers — who range from observant Jews to atheists, and from anarchists to Republicans — has shown me that the report’s got it wrong. The students who write for and distribute New Voices are committed to Jewish religion, culture, and politics. For many of them, the magazine is their only connection to the Jewish world, and though I couldn’t say which boxes they would check on the survey, I’m sure it’s an outlet they wouldn’t give up.
The process of putting together this issue of New Voices illustrates the non-Hillel Jewish initiatives of many college students. A few months ago, the May/June issue was slated to be the “Talk Back to the Jewish World Issue,” but after five article proposals came in about the Israel-Palestine conflict, we realized that our students’ interest was lying more with Jewish politics than Jewish institutions.
“Ivory Towers of Babble” looks at the ways students experience the conflict, from Middle East and Israel Studies at Yale (page 8) to student activism and professional intervention at UC Irvine (15) to youth trips that take Jews to Palestinian refugee camps and olive groves (31).
While Hillels scramble to appear apolitical, campus Israel/Palestine politics are heating up boiling over. Our official “Talk Back” will be in September, but Jewish students are already writing and already committed — even if they won’t be at Hillel for the spring picnic.
