by linda kurz & adina danzig
Many members of the wider Jewish community are particularly concerned with the college-age Jewish population. College students are forming their adult identities, often outside their parents’ home for the first time. They are exploring and evaluating their relationship to many facets to their identity, including their Jewishness and their relationship to Israel. Many Jews today hold a deep anxiety about the Jewish future and Israel and thus direct that anxiety into a keen interest regarding what is happening on college campuses.
Hillel at Stanford, like many Hillels, is flourishing as never before. Hillel today is a multifaceted Jewish organization, striving to serve numerous needs of the Jewish campus community — religious, cultural, educational, social and social justice — with an eye toward maximizing both participation rates and depth of experiences.
We aim to enrich the Jewish identities of students who identify on the spectrum from Orthodox to “Just Jewish.” We hold a deep commitment to Israel as a Jewish, democratic state within secure borders, and, at the same time, aim to provide an environment for wide range of views within this commitment. These are not easy tasks — indeed, the functions that Hillel serves combine the functions of perhaps a dozen different agencies within the off-campus Jewish community.
In recent weeks, Hillel at Stanford has faced two challenges — one we anticipated, and one we did not. The anticipated challenge was an anti-Israel campaign by a new student group that aims to have Stanford divest from companies doing business in Israel. We are proud of the tremendous efforts of our staff and student leaders not only in leading the fight against this divestment campaign (which we are sure will fail along with all university “divest from Israel” campaigns to date in the United States), but also in quickly and powerfully countering the fallacious anti-Israel messages that have been brought to campus.
In addition to these efforts to provide education to Jewish and non-Jewish students, we also continue with our proactive Israel programs (in the fall quarter alone, that meant a dozen lectures and programs in addition to the activities of our affiliated Israel-related student groups). Despite the challenges of the divestment campaign, or perhaps because of them, more students are involved in Israel activism on campus than any time in the last decade.
The challenge we did not anticipate, and which was far more disheartening, came from within the Jewish community. Two Stanford students who have chosen to exclude themselves from Hillel’s organized efforts on behalf of Israel wrote an article seemingly intended to attack Hillel, distorting facts in such a way that left the unwitting reader with many false impressions. What was more upsetting than the publication of the article was the rapid rate at which it was spread electronically, creating a panic in some about Hillel’s seeming lack of ability to create vibrant Jewish life and counter anti-Israel activity.
It seems that this article, baseless as it was, tapped into the deep-seated anxiety held by many Jews about our collective future — and unleashed their anxiety by assuming the worst of our Hillel. An article in j. quoting only one student, an author of the above-mentioned article, reinforced the anxiety.
In the midst of Hillel’s tremendous efforts to combat divestment and anti-Israel sentiment — efforts the ADL recently applauded — our staff, students and volunteer leaders were disappointed by the way in which some in the local Jewish community were questioning our actions and commitment. It has been was most unfortunate that we were compelled to divert time to correcting such scurrilous charges by fellow Jews.
It is our hope that this account will not only raise awareness regarding the complex and challenging work of Hillel, but will, perhaps more importantly, raise awareness within our Jewish community about the ways in which we must support one another as we face external challenges.
Linda Kurz is the president of Hillel at Stanford. Adina Danzig is its executive director.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California