By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
It has been nearly a year since Rabbi Will Berkovitz, the previous executive director at Hillel at the University of Washington, gave notice that he would be moving on. At that time, the Hillel board began a search for a replacement, but came up empty handed for a permanent director. According to incoming board president Julia Bacharach, these types of searches are best begun at the start of the school year.
“Last spring we were a little late in the process,” she said.
So the organization brought in Jeremy Brochin, who had retired as executive director of the Hillel at the University of Pennsylvania, to act as interim director for the year. The search committee began its search again in September, and announced in mid-February that Rabbi Oren Hayon would be the Jewish student organization’s new Greenstein family executive director.
“We were looking for our next executive director to continue what Rabbi [Arthur Jacobovitz], may he rest in peace, Rabbi Dan [Bridge], and Rabbi Will created,” said Suzan LeVine, Hillel UW’s current board president. “We wanted to make sure the person we hired was up to that. But we also wanted to hire a person who could put his own stamp on [the organization]. With Oren, what we found was someone with this energy.”
Bridge, who served on the search committee, agreed.
“The excitement he showed about being here, and the programs that we do, and the kinds of questions he asked really showed the committee and the board and the students and the young adults that even though he’s new to Hillel, he knew what he was talking about,” Bridge said.
Hayon, 38, is currently an associate rabbi at Temple Emanu-El, a large Reform congregation in the Dallas area.
“Once I got the phone call from Seattle, it became clear that what was going on with the UW and what was going on with Jconnect were really, really ideal for the next step of what I wanted to do with my career and with my life,” Hayon said.
Hayon has been working extensively with the young adult population at his current synagogue, though most of his work with college students has been to “check in with them from afar and be with them during breaks,” he said.
As executive director, “I’m really excited about taking the wheel,” he said, “and really getting the chance to steer a place and vision that is significant and productive and meaningful for the constituents.”
Bacharach said that since announcing Hayon’s hiring, she has been impressed with his proactive attitude toward the job.
“He doesn’t start until July 1, and yet he has already said, ‘Hey, I understand that staffing decisions get made around this time, is there anything I should know,’” she said.
Though Hillel UW told supporters last month that Hayon had been hired, the organization still had one hurdle to overcome before it became official: Approval from headquarters.
“We’re very particular about the directors who we bring into our system, and put them through quite a rigorous process,” said Scott Brown, executive vice president of Hillel International. “We think he brings a lot to our organization. He’s inspiring, he inspires others to act, nurtures growth, strives for excellence, and relates to others.”
LeVine said that Hayon won’t have many major challenges to confront as he begins his new job.
“There is no mandate for him other than to make sure that he’s helping to make this organization succeed, and carrying the mantle that was established” by Hillel’s previous directors, LeVine said.
As someone who has held the position, Bridge said Hayon’s challenges would be two-fold: “One is the idea of reaching out to young adults who really are not affiliated — not just with Hillel but any Jewish organization,” he said.
The other, he said, are the “financial challenges in this tough age and our era, and making sure the financial support is always there.”
But, Bridge added, “He’s a young guy so he understands young people and how to find and reach them…. He’s a smart, delightful young man. He will be a great rabbi and executive director.”
Hayon and his wife and two small children enjoy being outdoors, so he said he is looking forward to what the Puget Sound region has to offer. If he is nervous about his impending move, it’s the adjustments he will have to make both personally and professionally.
“I have to learn a new city, I have to learn a new international organization that I haven’t worked with before. Even an investment banker or a car mechanic moving from Dallas to Seattle would have challenges dealing with those two very, very different communities,” he said.
He also noted how as executive director he would have to shift his thinking from serving a synagogue, where membership dues keep it afloat, to running an organization where the biggest supporters don’t make use of the services it offers.
“Moving from a community where programming is sustained by people who generously, regularly, willingly pay dues to be part of their organization to where that isn’t the case — that’s a big change, and it says a lot of really good things about Hillel’s donors,” Hayon said. “That’s tzedakah, right?”