By Deloris Tarzan Ament, other
Eighty percent of college-age Jews continue their education after high school. It’s a critical time in their lives, an age when they’re searching for meaning. Many of them have only scant information about their Jewish heritage. College years are the last chance to give Jewish content to their lives before they go out into the working world.
At the University of Washington, as on campuses around the world, Jewish students meet at Hillel for social events, Jewish learning and religious services. It’s the place they gather for Shabbat dinners, whoop it up at Purim parties, have the chance to study Hebrew and hear speakers on topics of special interest to Jews. No membership is required, and nearly everything is free.
Rabbi Dan Bridge, who has directed Hillel activities at the University of Washington for 14 years, says there are some 2,000 Jewish students on campus. A number of them have only one Jewish parent. His aim at Hillel is to provide a community and a place in which they feel comfortable enough to explore Judaism. The present building holds less than 300, but Bridge says that for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they crowd in about 500. Anywhere from 50 to 120 students show up for Hillel’s biweekly Shabbat dinners. Sixty people typically show up for pizza night every other Tuesday. A drama group and a group of a cappella singers each number about 20.
Over the past dozen years, Bridge says, he’s seen a lot of change in students’ willingness to be openly Jewish, and to say they want Jewish life-partners. He says, “Hillel’s mission is to maximize the number of Jews doing Jewish with other Jews. For me, that means creating community. Without that, there’s an emptiness to life.” Something is going on at Hillel three or four nights a week, and that’s about to get better, because Hillel is undergoing expansion. They’ll break ground next January for the Saul and Karen Gamoran Center for Jewish Life at the University of Washington adjacent to their present location at 4745 17th Avenue N.E.
The new building will give students and young adults a place for more casual activities. “We’ll have a café, a place to study, maybe exercise facilities, so people can be here every day, to hang out together and really get that sense of community. It’s really what’s missing in our lives,” Bridge said.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle allocated $181,329 to Hillel’s operations this year — about one third of Hillel’s annual budget. The Israel Cultural Committee, a Hillel student group that puts on an annual Israel Independence Day celebration on campus, got an additional $3,780. In addition, the federation funded two new Hillel programs that address the “before and after” of college life: $2,700 for Freshfest and $10,000 to JConnect, for a second year.
Freshfest gives incoming Jewish freshman a head start at the university and an early connection with Hillel. Sixteen freshmen participated in the pilot program last fall quarter. With permission to move into their dorms two days early, the freshmen were paired with Jewish upperclassmen who helped them get set up and do necessary errands. The upperclassmen took them to an overnight session of team-building, Jewish learning and exposure to the UW’s Jewish Studies Program — co-sponsors of Freshfest. All 16 of the pilot program students have remained connected with Hillel.
JConnect is organized for the “gap generation”: those who have graduated from college and moved out to the workforce but who haven’t yet joined synagogues or become involved with other Jewish organizations. That gap in involvement led to a round of focus groups to find out what people in that 21–30 age group want and need. And that, it turns out, is each other.
JConnect began last year simultaneously in Seattle, Miami and Chicago, linked with a national Web site, www.Geshercity.org, a resource for things as varied as finding a seder, finding a job, finding a roommate, carpooling, getting together a women’s softball team or renew a driver’s license. Gesher-city also connects people in Baltimore, Boston and Washington, D.C., but Jconnect’s three pilot cities go the extra step of helping local “gap generation” people with similar interests get together for social activities and things such as baseball, cycling, lectures and concerts, social action projects, political discussions and Shabbat.
“Some were born here and long for a Jewish connection other than their childhood friends. Many others move here for work and have no connection to the Jewish community or any community other than their work circle,” Bridge said. “They have an intense need to create community and no way of knowing where or how.”
“The point is to help them connect with the greater Jewish community; that’s the frontlet that’s always before our eyes with JConnect,” says Rhoda Weisman, director for the Hillel Center for Jewish Engagement in Los Angeles.
Melissa Marlowe, who heads JConnect in Seattle, says, “The program is incredibly important, not only because it creates community, but because it provides a variety of ways for people to get in touch with their Jewish heritage.” An important component of sharing that heritage is helping interested members get together for Shabbat services in members’ homes.
Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world, with centers on 500 college campuses worldwide. In Seattle, the organization plays a central and critical role in Jewish continuity and continues to be one of the Jewish Federation’s largest beneficiaries. Hillel is named for the 1st-century sage best known for a statement quoted in Mishnah 14: “If I am not for myself, who is for me, but if I am for my own self [only], who am I? And if not now, when?”