A growing community

Editorial

British Columbia’s Jewish community will officially celebrate the opening of the new Hillel House: The Diamond Foundation Centre for Jewish Campus Life at the University of British Columbia this Sunday. Coincidentally, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency released a curious story Monday: “U.S. colleges with few Jews building facilities to draw more.”

“Schools large and small with few Jewish students are actively working to recruit more by building Jewish student centres and creating kosher dining options as part of a ‘build it and they will come’ recruitment strategy,” reported Sue Fishkoff. “Admissions officers and deans at these schools rarely say they are actively recruiting Jewish students; instead, they say they are looking to ‘increase diversity.’ But, off the record, many admit that Jewish students bring certain assets, from leadership skills and good academic records, while they are on campus to a propensity for donating to the school once they graduate.”

While the Jewish population in North America hovers in the low single-digit percentage of the total population, a stunning statistic is the estimate that, of this tiny minority, 80 to 85 percent attend a post-secondary institution. Day school administrators and rabbis may lament the seemingly assimilationist trends of a great many, but there is one aspect of Judaism that unequivocally sticks no matter how secular some Jews may become: reverence for learning.

Something else that sticks, if the off-the-record hopes of these university recruiters prove true, is tzedakah: it’s probably a fair bet that Jewish grads remain among the most generous of alumni. It is with a sense of bemused pride that Jewish community fundraisers note that the vast majority of Jewish tzedakah goes to non-Jewish-specific causes. It is with a sense of opportunity that fundraisers for non-Jewish-specific causes recognize the same thing.

Almost as soon as B’nai B’rith began Hillel House at UBC in 1947, it became one of the strongest in its size category. Through decades of constant support from the community, Hillel has grown with the community – and this is no coincidence. In a sense, this new Hillel House promises to attract more Jewish students to British Columbia and keep more local students from heading out of province.

Hillel recognized some years ago that contemporary students identify with multiple components of their identities in ways akin to a series of open windows on a computer desktop. Jewish students are proud to be Jewish, for the most part, but not if that means nullifying other aspects of their identities. Hillel’s old, still amusing, slogan “Jews doing Jewish with other Jews” has given way to a vision that is “Distinctively Jewish, universally human.” In this revised scenario, Jewish students may choose to engage in non-Jewish-specific activities – environmentalism, say – but celebrate the components of tikkun olam, Torah and tradition that specifically address stewardship of the planet. In other words, they act in universally human ways based on distinctively Jewish precepts.

By adapting to the times and meeting the needs and desires of students, Hillel has remained relevant across the generations. The ultimate contribution that the new structure makes to the community will be seen in the community leaders of generations to come.

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