Folks at Hillel International seem worried about the future of Judaism. They seemed worried about it long before Open Hillel existed.
There have been many prescriptions doled out to address this perceived problem of our generation’s apathetic and disaffected nature. Send the kids on a free trip to Israel, that’ll solve it. Make sure the kids only fall in love with fellow Jews, surely that will address everything.
I’m not worried. Chances are, if you are my age and were at this conference all weekend, you aren’t worried either. Judaism has been around, in constantly changing forms, full of internal strife and conflict, for nearly two thousand years. We do not need our Judaism prescribed to us to stay Jewish. On the contrary, it is this very prescriptive Judaism that is strangling us. We all have our own Judaisms. And that is as it should be.
When I and other Open Hillel organizers met with Hillel International President and CEO Eric Fingerhut a few weeks ago, I was surprised by the main question on his mind. He didn’t want to know how better to engage students in Hillel who were not Zionist, indeed he seemed to be under the assumption that virtually no such students existed. He didn’t want to how to make Hillel more representative of students, in fact, he explicitly told us that, and I quote, “Hillel is not a representative organization.”
Instead, he wanted to know something that seemed vaguely obscure and technical: whether we as Open Hillel considered ourselves a part of Hillel International.
Hillel claims it is the Foundation for Jewish Student Life on Campus. I am a Jewish student. Of course, then, I am a part of Hillel. Every current Jewish student, Zionist, non-Zionist, anti-Zionist, liberal Zionist, tired-as-hell-of-the-word-Zionist, is a part of Hillel. The fact that you are far more likely to find me protesting the Birthright table than on a Birthright trip does nothing to change that.
I think that Eric Fingerhut, in his rush to assert the immutably Zionist nature of Hillel International, has forgotten something very crucial. Something, I think, that it is important to remind ourselves of.
Hillel does not belong to him.
Hillel does not belong to the large dollar donors who edict programming.
Hillel belongs to us. Hillel is and only ever will be what we students want it to be. It is our organization. And no one and no thing, not the Standards of Partnership, not threats of cutting funds, not Eric Fingerhut condescendingly wagging his finger and pretending that Hillel is not supposed to represent students, will be able to change that if we do not let them change that.
Nearly a year ago today Swarthmore College Hillel, a group of which I am a proud member, made international headlines by reasserting this simple fact. Our programming, our organization, our values, belong to us students. We are a Hillel. And we welcome all under our roof. We will create the kind of programming we want to create, welcome all students, and create a space that allows for all Judaisms, not just a prescribed anesthetized version of Judaism, to flourish.
This conference only provided a small, weekend–sized, taste of what we can accomplish.
How many of you are concerned that your Hillel will block you from having the types of conversations we had here?
Don’t worry. They may try, but they will fail. Because they do not get to be the arbiters of what happens with Jewish student life on campus. They do not get to tell you that the speakers you want to hear are more or less valid than the speakers they want you to hear.
As the year goes forward, we are going to be launching campaigns to Open even more Hillels around the country. We are going to be holding events that break the standards. Partnering with organizations that are deemed treyf. We are going to be modeling the Jewish community our generation wants to create, with each other, and for each other.
And you can be a part of it.
Bring these speakers to campus. Bring them to the Hillel building. Force them to kick you out. By doing so, the event will only be made all the bigger.
They cannot stop us if we refuse to be stopped.
They cannot prevent us from having spaces like the one we created this weekend if we refuse to let them.
Hillel is yours, Hillel is mine, Hillel belongs to every student on campus who wants to engage with their Jewish identity in whatever messy complicated form that may take.
Let’s own our Judaism.
Let’s Open our Judaism.
Editor’s Note: This is the text of a speech delivered at the closing of the Open Hillel Conference Monday October 13. It has been edited slightly for format.
Amelia Dornbush is a student at Swarthmore College.
