by Aiden Pink, Assistant Editor of The Tower Magazine and
A new movement started by college students seeks to dramatically disrupt Jewish activities on campuses. How the community responds will have a large impact on the future of American Jewish life.
There’s a story about the Dalai Lama, who was looking for advice on how to keep his community united after being exiled from Tibet. Knowing that the Jews have had centuries of experience living as a minority in diaspora, he asked for a meeting with the two Chief Rabbis of Israel. One chief rabbi said, “Before we begin, your Holiness, you should know that we Jews never agree on anything.” Immediately, the other chief rabbi yelled, “That’s not true!”
I thought of this joke a lot when I attended the first ever “Open Hillel” conference, which took place October 11-13 at Harvard University. The Open Hillel phenomenon is a largely student-led effort devoted to eliminating the standards that guide Israel-related programs at Hillel houses, seeking to legitimize and include groups that advance anti-Israel (and sometimes anti-Semitic) agendas in mainstream Jewish campus life. Hillel houses, which host religious, political, and cultural events, and provide resources for many Jewish- and Israel-related campus student organizations, are the most important (and sometimes only) centers of Jewish life on college campuses, providing Jewish students with a safe environment at a time when hostility and violence is being directed at them with disturbing frequency—aggression that in some cases is being perpetrated and encouraged by the very groups Open Hillel says Hillel itself should now legitimize.
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