Hillel International

Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, also known as Hillel International, is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world, working with thousands of college students globally. Hillel is represented at more than 850 colleges and communities throughout North America and globally, including 30 communities in the former Soviet Union, nine in Israel, and five in South America.

History


In 1923, Edward Chauncey Baldwin, Christian professor of Biblical literature at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign was distressed by his Jewish students' lack of knowledge of the Hebrew Bible, and he discussed his concerns with Rabbi Benjamin Frankel.

Later the same year, members of the local Jewish and university communities met in a rented loft over a dry cleaner in Champaign, Illinois, and founded The Hillel Foundation.

In 1925, B'nai Brith pledged to sponsor Hillel's activities with a budget of approximately $12,000 that year. By then, it encompassed 120 Hillel foundations and affiliates at an additional 400 campuses.

Beginning in 1988, under Director Richard M. Joel, Hillel underwent an organizational shift in mission and structure. An integral part of this shift was the institution of a Board of Governors, chaired by Edgar M. Bronfman until 2009 when he was succeeded by Randall Kaplan.

Bronfman's involvement began in 1994 during a visit by Richard Joel to the Seagram building, when Bronfman pledged his support to Hillel. When Bronfman agreed to serve as chairman, Hillel gained legitimacy among other philanthropists. The subsequent revitalization of the organization resulted in increased donor support, updated programming, and broad international recognition. Part of the increased donor support came as a result of Bronfman's well-known campus visits, beginning in 1994, that continued until his death in 2013.

Hillel has been described as the largest Jewish campus organization in the world. Hillel foundations are found in Israel, South America, and the Post-Soviet States, and affiliated organizations are found in 18 countries across North America, South America, Europe and the Middle East.

Although the foundation was not organized nationally until 1923, the Hillel at Texas A&M University (at the time called the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas) was founded in 1916 by Prof. Jacob and Mrs. Esther Taubenhaus as the Menorah Club. The Menorah Club then chose to affiliate with the national organization in the 1920s.

Other notable Hillels include Hillel at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, the first Hillel in the world, Columbia/Barnard Hillel, and University of Pennsylvania Hillel, whose Steinhardt Hall is the largest Hillel International building of any college or university in the country.

In 1924, University of Pennsylvania's first Jewish student organization was organized by Philadelphia branch of the United Synagogue of America, Conservative Judaism's leading organization, and initially generically named   the Jewish Students’ Association at Penn and then, after the 1929 death of Louis Marshall, the Chairman of the Board of conservative Judaism's rabbinical college, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, it was renamed in his honor as the Louis Marshall Society but by January 1, 1944, when it merged with Hillel, it became known as Hillel and relocated to the “Jewish Students’ House” at 3613 Locust Street (at center of Penn's campus) and served as a dormitory, Kosher dining room and a social center for Penn's Jewish students.

Leadership
Adam Lehman was appointed CEO of Hillel International in January 2020. He started at Hillel International as chief operating officer in October 2015. Lehman had been senior vice president at AOL. Skip Vichness is chair of Hillel International’s Board of Directors. Mimi Kravetz was hired in 2015 to serve as Chief Talent Officer and is currently Chief Experience Officer. She previously served as head of human resources marketing at Google.

Hillel International Presidents and CEOs have included Rabbi Benjamin Frankel (1925–1927); Abram L. Sachar (1933–1948); Richard M. Joel (1988–2003); Wayne Firestone (2005–2013); and Eric Fingerhut (2013–2020).

Activities
Hillel International says its mission is “enriching the lives of Jewish students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world” through its on-campus network. More than 800 colleges and universities are connected to a local Hillel community that serves as a faith community, Jewish educational resource, social network and a place to develop leadership and professional skills. Hillel uses what it calls a relationship-based model to engage students in need of a community.

Hillel has no denominational affiliation, as compared to Chabad which represents Hasidic Judaism.

Hillel employs more than 1,200 people worldwide and provides extensive continuing education programs for its employees through a professional development program called Hillel U. The organization also invests in early career professionals through the Springboard Fellowship. From 2011 to 2020, Hillel doubled its professional staff, from 575 to 1,200; the amount of funds raised, from about $90 million to about $185 million; and the number of students it reaches, from roughly 68,000 to more than 140,000.

Policy position
Adam Lehman, Hillel International’s president and CEO, has called his organization "radically pluralistic, inclusive, egalitarian home for Jewish students coming from all different backgrounds".

The organization imposes restrictions on activities; Hillel takes a firm stance in opposing certain types of views on Israel, such as the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign, and those who hold them.

Hillel International and local Hillels play a role to fight anti-Semitism on college campuses. Hillel provides security training to local Hillels and engages in dialogue with university administrations about how to recognize and confront anti-Semitism on campus. Hillel has extensive pro-Israel programming and employs post-graduate fellows from Israel from the Jewish Agency for Israel. Hillel is a major partner of the Birthright Israel program.

Intermarriage
Former Hillel president Avraham Infeld was challenged in traditional circles for asserting that Hillel accepts intermarriage—marriage of Jews to non-Jews. The organization has since created resources for Hillel professionals to work with students from multifaith homes. Hillel supports LGBTQ people and pluralism across the spectrum of Jewish movements.

Israel
Hillel describes themselves as "steadfastedly committed to the support of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders." Their Standards of Partnership forbid campus Hillels to "partner with, house or host organizations, groups or speakers" that adopt an anti-Zionist orientation or express support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Jewish members and leaders of Hillels have criticized the organization's use of the motto "Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel" for alienating Jewish students critical of Israeli policies, as well as for attaching a political ideology to an otherwise apolitical religious and cultural organization. Hillel had also been criticized for its use of monopolistic tactics to assume control over the Jewish campus scene.

Open Hillel
In an effort to be more inclusive to a greater diversity of Jewish perspectives in addition to Zionism, Swarthmore College Hillel adopted an "Open Hillel" stance in 2013,  saying that "all are welcome to walk through our doors and speak with our name and under our roof, be they Zionist, anti-Zionist, post-Zionist, or non-Zionist." By 2016, the campus Hillels of Guilford College, Vassar College, and Wesleyan University had joined Swarthmore Hillel in declaring themselves "open." Part of this involved a rejection of Hillel International's Standards of Partnership that they alleged to limit open dialogue and freedom of speech.

In March of 2015, Swarthmore Hillel held an event called "From Mississippi to Jerusalem: A Conversation with Civil Rights Veterans" in which they brought three Jewish veterans of the Civil Rights Movement to discuss their efforts to promote civil rights in the American South and in Israel-Palestine. Because the speakers had voiced support for BDS, the event violated Hillel International's Standards of Partnership. As such, Hillel International threatened legal action against Swarthmore Hillel, with the Hillel International President and Chief Executive Officer at the time Eric Fingerhut saying that it was "not acceptable" to host certain speakers under the Hillel banner, and that "anti-Zionists will not be permitted to speak using the Hillel name or under the Hillel roof, under any circumstances." The student group removed the word "Hillel" from its title so it could proceed with the planned event, and subsequently adopted the name "Swarthmore Kehilah", severing its association with Hillel.

In February 2014, the Vassar College Jewish Union, an affiliate of Hillel, joined Swarthmore Hillel in declaring themselves to be an Open Hillel, and Wesleyan University's Hillel followed suit. Alumni at the University of California, Berkeley have also created a petition calling upon their school to do the same. In response to Open Hillel, a group of students formed Safe Hillel in 2014 to preserve the pro-Israel agenda of the original Hillel organization. According to its founder Raphael Fils, "Hillel should not have to change its mission in order to accommodate those who don't agree with it. Hillel is the one place students are supposed to feel entirely comfortable in their support of Israel. If that makes some people uncomfortable, there are plenty of other places to go just to hear attacks on Israel."

While Hillels at Vassar and Guilford Colleges sought to distance themselves from the explicit Zionism of Hillel International, with Guilford Hillel renaming itself to Guilford Chavurah ("group of friends" in Hebrew) and Vassar Jewish Union placing an emphasis on pluralism and diversity, they did not go as far as the Swarthmore and Wesleyan Hillels did in choosing to fully split from the organization. Both Guilford and Vassar are still listed as "Hillel colleges."

General controversies
In March 2017, a queer Jewish student organization called B’nai Keshet (“Children of the Rainbow”) affiliated with the Ohio State University Hillel hosted a on-campus fundraising event for refugees in partnership with the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) an anti-Zionist Jewish organization. Hillel cut all financial and organizational ties with B'nai Keshet following the event, explaining that despite the fundraiser having no relation to Israel or Zionism, it still violated the Hillel International Standards of Partnership because of JVP's pro-BDS stance.

In April 2016, the San Francisco chapter of Hillel hosted a talk by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat at San Francisco State University. Students protested the event, citing, among other policies, Barkat's record of encouraging demolitions of Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem. Hillel subsequently characterized the protests as antisemitic, which resulted in the widespread smearing and cyberbullying of student protestors including numerous death and rape threats. An independent investigation conducted by the university found that these accusations were unfounded, that the protests were criticizing specific policies of Barkat and not Jewish students as a whole, and that they posed no safety risk.

In January 2016, Boston University Hillel hosted a public event called "All Students, All Israel Think Tank" which included sections on how to "combat BDS." The event was marketed towards the entire student body and had an optional advance registration. Nine members of Students for Justice in Palestine, one of which was Jewish and seven of which were students of colour, showed up to the event and were subsequently removed by university police. The students were told that BU Hillel felt uncomfortable with them being there because they were not part of BU Hillel's "inner circle." An independent investigation by the university's Equal Opportunity Office found that the students were not being disruptive and should not have been removed from the event.

In November 2013, Harvard Hillel barred Avraham Burg, a former Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, from speaking at Hillel because the event was co-sponsored by Harvard Palestinian Solidarity Committee, which supports BDS. Burg was forced to give his talk in an undergraduate dormitory instead. Harvard Hillel faced widespread criticism with some students calling their behaviour "a naked attack on free speech."

In September 2021, the Graduate and Professional Student Senate at Virginia Tech proposed a resolution calling on the university to divest from Israel. Hillel at Virginia Tech led a harassment campaign against the resolution's supporters, which was denounced by several student organizations as antisemitic and racist.

In November 2023, an independent contractor associated with the British Columbia chapter of Hillel created and distributed stickers that read "I [heart] Hamas" on the University of British Columbia's Vancouver campus. The contractor included the name and logo of the UBC Social Justice Centre on the stickers, a student organizing group engaged in Palestinian advocacy, in an attempt to frame them. Upon the stickers' publication on social media, multiple pro-Israel commentators and politicians called for action to be taken against the Social Justice Centre and its members, including former Canadian senator Linda Frum and executive director of the BC Conservative Party Angelo Isidorou. This led to Social Justice Centre members facing threats of burning, deportation, calls to "hunt" members down, and widespread Islamophobic and racist abuse. Hillel BC subsequently alleged that it had terminated its relationship with the "independent contractor." The Social Justice Centre subsequently sued Hillel BC.

Controversies involving individual directors
In March 2015, the Student Board President of Muhlenberg College's Hillel resigned over Hillel's refusal to sponsor Open Hillel's Caroline Dorn, protesting Hillel's refusal to allow the civil rights veterans to speak at Hillel, said in her resignation: "I can't be a representative of Hillel International, an organization that I feel is limiting free speech on our campus and prohibiting academic integrity." The event was held without the sponsorship of Hillel and had an estimated 100 attendees.

In 2014, multiple members of Princeton University Hillel, known as the Center for Jewish Life, criticized executive director Rabbi Julie Roth for sending a mass email encouraging Hillel members to oppose a petition by tenured Princeton faculty members calling on the university to divest from companies that profit from "the occupation of the West Bank by Israel." In addition, 38 Jewish Princeton students wrote an open letter criticizing the Center for Jewish Life for acting as if its members would automatically oppose the faculty's petition without debate. The students' letter, which appeared in the campus newspaper, The Daily Princetonian, also criticized Hillel International for prohibiting member chapters from hosting or engaging in discussion with groups or individuals who promote boycotting, divesting from or sanctioning Israel.

In 2006, a George Washington Law School student organized an on-campus rally to focus on disinvestment from Israel. In response, the director of George Washington University Hillel Robert Fishman claimed that the rally's organizer was considered a terrorist by the state of Israel, had been convicted of crimes in both Israel and the United States, advocated for the destruction of Israel, had openly admitted to associating with suicide bombers and had made comments about his desire to become a suicide bomber. All of Fishman's accusations were false.

Robert Fishman also orchestrated a group of Hillel members to read highly critical questions pre-drafted by Deborah Lipstadt as if they were their own to President Jimmy Carter who spoke on campus in March 2007. Along with blocking the microphones from other students, the activities gave the media the false impression that the audience was critical of Carter despite repeated standing ovations.

UCLA Hillel rabbi and director Chaim Seidler-Feller was accused by journalist Rachel Neuwirth of verbally and physically assaulting her on the UCLA campus in October 2003. Eyewitness accounts were contradictory, with some indicating Neuwirth did not provoke the incident, but others indicating that she had. After more than three years of litigation, in a legal settlement, Seidler-Feller provided Neuwirth with a letter of apology accepting full responsibility for the attack on Neuwirth and a large financial arrangement with her.