WASHINGTON – Hundreds of students stormed Hillel International’s headquarters Monday, the second day of the 5th annual J Street conference, demanding the organization show tangible support for them and their pro-two states agenda. The march was organized by J Street U, the lobbying group’s campus affiliate, in protest of Hillel International CEO Eric Fingerhut backing out of his prior commitment to speak to the 1,100 students from across the country in attendance.
Before setting off, the organizers informed the crowd of an email Fingerhut sent the previous night to about 100 J Street U student leaders who complained of his absence in which he expressed his support for J Street students being involved in Hillel, saying in part, “We…clearly have work to do in the Jewish community at large to be one people that respects, honors and celebrates its diversity rather than fearing it.”
For Benjy Cannon, a student at the University of Maryland and national student president of J Street U, though the students really appreciated the letter’s sentiments, “They are just sentiments until they do something” and this march was largely meant to pressure Hillel into doing something.
Once at Hillel headquarters, a roughly 11-minute walk away from the convention center, the student leaders got a bullhorn and addressed the crowd about the widely varying relationships their J Street U chapters have had with their Hillels:
A student from Brandeis spoke first about how J Street U was always accepted in his Hillel, followed by a Stanford student who spoke about the “home away from home” Hillel was for her until the staff pulled her aside to say her J Street activism is “problematic and anti-Israel.” She was determined to bring this perspective into her Hillel, however, and now, she said, the relationship is much warmer. She closed her speech asking the crowd, “When we ask Israel to live up to its Jewish and democratic principles, are we weakening it or are we strengthening it?” The response was loud and unanimous in favor of the latter.
Following this, students delivered an open letter to Fingerhut calling for a meeting between leaders of J Street U and Hillel International’s Board of Directors:
Dear Mr. Fingerhut,
Over the past two weeks, we have heard from you and from Hillel International that a “broad consensus of stakeholders” prevented you from speaking with over 1,000 pro-Israel, pro-peace students in attendance at the J Street National Conference.
Despite being an integral part of the Jewish and pro-Israel communities on campus, and despite our tireless work to ensure Israel’s future, you were still unwilling to publicly engage with us at our conference.
Sadly, we must ask: who is Hillel meant to serve? A small group of donors, or the thousands of students who are the future of our communities?
Despite hearing that J Street U students are an important part of the Hillel community, we believe that actions speak louder than words. Now is the time for such action.
If you are ready to engage with us in a serious way, we ask that you set up an on-the-record meeting between the J Street U National Student Board and Hillel International’s Board of Directors before the starts of the 2015-2016 academic year.
We leave Washington on Tuesday afternoon. We ask that you let us know before then whether you will convene a meeting between the J Street U National Student Board and Hillel International’s Board of Directors to help ensure that Hillel’s priority is engaging seriously with students, or whether you will not help convene a meeting for Board Members and donors of Hillel to develop deeper relationships with the students that make up the Hillel community.
A delegation of J Street U leaders will return to tomorrow (Tuesday) at 2:00pm to receive your response.
Respectfully,
[Name] [School]
“We are here because of a massive failure of leadership on multiple levels,” Cannon told the crowd, pinning the problem on both Fingerhut’s withdrawal and the “deeply broken” American Jewish communal structure. Upon departing, students left Post-It notes on the building asking Fingerhut why he cancelled on them.
“We wanted to figure out an active way to move the conversation to what constrained him to withdraw to begin with, and this is a great way to point out some of the larger problems that exist in the larger Jewish community,” Cannon told New Voices after the march.
Beyond seeking greater acceptance for J Street U, students on the march saw it as an opportunity to pressure Hillel into publicly supporting the two-state solution. “Showing our numbers is huge, people get uncomfortable when young people show up in numbers,” said a student from Oberlin College. “Hillel is important to the Jewish community and things have to change because they aren’t doing it right. Our goal is to change that conversation and this [march] is one part of that.”
“Hillel needs to firmly establish its support for the two-state solution, that’s so important,” said a student from Kenyon College.
The students were joined by several supportive Hillel staff members. “This makes a strong statement about who these students are. They want to show Hillel how this needs to be improved,” said a Hillel director who requested anonymity, as he marched with his students. “They didn’t need me to organize them, they organized themselves.”
“I’m thrilled there was such high turnout, I’m happy everyone there was so respectful and professional, and I want to encourage students to keep making their voices heard. They should be free to speak up, to call out donors in the larger Jewish community and hold them accountable,” Cannon said.
A few hours after the event, Fingerhut sent Cannon a message saying his chief of staff will set up a meeting as soon as possible.
Derek M. Kwait graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and is editor in chief of New Voices.
