By Emily K. Alhadeff, Assistant Editor, JTNews
Twelve hours before he started work as Hillel’s new Greenstein Family Executive Director, Oren Hayon rolled into Seattle with his family.
“It was a bit of a whirlwind,” he said.
Hayon, who worked for a large Reform congregation in Dallas before taking the position at Hillel at the University of Washington, said that all things considered, his transition into the Seattle scene has been seamless. For Hayon and his wife, Julie, “it feels like a place where we can live the kind of life we’ve wanted to live.”
And as for the weather?
“I’m feeling a little bit like there was a bait and switch,” he said, laughing. “I’m trying to feel like I was not misled. I’m being patient.”
Hayon’s pre-rabbinic background in the entertainment industry and his interest in music, film and nature may help to shape Hillel’s programming, but “so far I’ve been doing a lot of listening,” he said.
Through conversations with students, staff, board members and donors he’s learning the dynamics of the community in order to keep the momentum of Hillel going.
“I’m doing my best to be as much a receiver as anything else during this first phase,” he said. “That’s helped me shape my vision, my goals for the place.”
While he’s keeping his visions and plans vague during this learning phase, Hayon can foresee bringing tools like
popular culture into Hillel’s programming, as well as spending time with students outdoors, engaging in social justice projects, and text study.
“My goal as a rabbi is to demonstrate Judaism’s relevance and to invite people to use all of the sophistication and creativity to make their Jewish lives relevant,” he said.
Working with college students is ideal, too, “because it is the most exciting, dynamic time in a human being’s life, a time when you’re figuring out who you are,” he said, “and you start charting your course to that place.”
Great possibility and potential come with the open-mindedness and experimental nature of college students, Hayon said.
“If you look at the national Jewish scene,” he said, “almost without exception the people who are doing the most exciting, dynamic, entrepreneurial work are part of this demographic.”
A couple of things Hayon toys with are social media and music. “I think that there is still some really good untapped potential for Hillel’s social networking strategy,” he said. “I’m working to improve and expand our presence online.”
And then there’s the music.
“At some point I would love to offer an extended course on the spiritual depth of Bruce Springsteen,” he said.
One thing that has surprised Hayon is the role Hillel plays as a community institution outside of campus.
“I think I’m still trying to navigate those communal relationships,” he said. The presence of Jconnect and Hillel in the greater community “give it an influence and a personality bigger and better than a lot of other Hillels.”
Julia Bacharach, Hillel’s board president, told JTNews via email that the board feels Hayon is “off to a running start. He has been busy making connections in the community and doing the all-important work of talking to people. I know that the staff is excited to have him on board as they prepare to welcome the students back to campus in the fall.”
In his Hillel UW bio, Rabbi Hayon invites everyone to come to him for conversations about movies, music, and to learn those 35 Scrabble words that contain “q” but not “u.” What are they?
He laughs. “There are a lot of them. If you want to play scrabble seriously you have to learn those words.” “Sheqel” is one, and “qabbalah” is another. Apparently it’s not cheating to use Hebrew, either.
“I’m telling you, that’s some powerful ninja scrabble right there,” he said.
Hayon is excited to “do the work I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” he said. “It’s a place where you can bring about real, lasting, transformative change in people’s lives. Very humbling, and very exciting.
“And I’m really excited about the coffee.”