Tagged Hillel

It is our collective responsibility as members of this community to examine the part that we play in these frameworks,” Graham Hoffman, president and CEO of the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona, told the audience at a recent community event addressing sexual harassment in the Jewish communal world.… Read more »

The University of Arizona Hillel Foundation, Chabad, and Jewish Arizonans on Campus held a vigil on the UA Mall Monday, Oct. 29 for the 11 victims of the Oct. 27 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Participants observed a moment of silence, sang prayers and lit… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – The organizers of a rally to support pro-Israel students at Columbia University didn’t want the Jewish Defense League to show up. And yet there they were, a few demonstrators wearing the extremist right-wing group’s insignia, a clenched fist punching into a yellow Jewish star. The… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — If there’s overlap between Hillel and the National Council of Jewish Women, it’s in two areas: defending Israel and combating violence against women on campus. Leaders of the campus Jewish organization took a look at the record of Kenneth Marcus, President Donald Trump’s nominee to run… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Hillel International’s swift decision to cancel a campus tour featuring Israeli journalist Ari Shavit has prompted other organizations to consider similar policies on speakers and sexual assault. On Thursday, following allegations that Shavit sexually assaulted a reporter, Hillel nixed a speaking tour featuring Shavit scheduled for later… Read more »

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (JTA) — Recently, in an article for JTA, “The Missing Left: Where’s the support for liberal Zionists on campus?,” Andrew Silow-Carroll noted that “many American pro-Israel organizations and leaders ignore or ostracize liberal Zionists.” In the absence of progressive Zionist groups on campus, who should be… Read more »

(JTA) — When Hillel International President Eric Fingerhut announced his decision to withdraw a commitment to speak to over 1,000 students at the upcoming J Street National Conference, he expressed only one major regret. In his statement last week, Fingerhut lamented that he would miss the opportunity to “thank… Read more »

Jake Rubin, the director of the University of Virginia Hillel, on Dec. 4, 2014 in front of the Hillel building in the vRugby Road neighborhood of Charlottesville, Va. (Ron Kampeas)

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (JTA) – Jewish campus groups were ready for the painful national dialogue that took place in the wake of murky rape allegations at the University of Virginia. That’s because organizations like Hillel and historically Jewish Greek houses such as Alpha Epsilon Pi, Zeta Beta Tau and Sigma… Read more »

PHILADELPHIA — Hillel, the campus student group, is expressing “outrage” over an attack on a Jewish student at Temple University on Wednesday and is calling on the university to ensure the safety of its Jewish students.At the same time, the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine is condemning the… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — On Twitter, pro-Palestinian activists dubbed it “DivestApalooza.” Student governments at three Southern California public universities all voted on divestment resolutions targeting Israel in a single day. The April 23 votes were part of a surge in student governments at American universities voting on divestment resolutions.… Read more »

Orlando real estate developer and Jewish philanthropist Hank Katzen is aiming to create a perpetual funding source for the new Hillel at the University of Central Florida. (Uriel Heilman)

ORLANDO, Fla. (JTA) – Real estate developer Hank Katzen has a conviction: If you build it, they will come. Except this is no baseball field in an Iowa cornfield. It’s a $60 million, 600,000-square-foot luxury dormitory at the nation’s second-largest college campus, the University of Central Florida in this… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The older generation always thinks of the younger generation as losing its traditional values, wondering “Why can’t they be just like us?” But in a time of expanding globalism, open social networking and greater geographical disbursement, a surprising finding of a recent poll we conducted shows that… Read more »

Former Penn State University President Graham Spanier was forced to resign following criticism of his response to the sexual abuse scandal at the school. (via Creative Commons)

NEW YORK (JTA) — One unlikely venue for fallout from the Penn State University sex abuse scandal is the campus Hillel, for which now ousted university president Graham Spanier — the school’s first Jewish leader — was a fundraiser and vocal supporter. On Monday, the Penn State community was… Read more »

Alan Dershowitz, right, speaking at the University of Pennsylvania in a bid to galvanize pro-Israel students there, Feb. 2, in light of the expected anti-Israel message expected at the BDS conference on the Penn campus. Political journalist Robert Traynham served as the moderator for the program. (Scott Weiner)

(Jewish Exponent) — Did the National Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Conference at the University of Pennsylvania over the weekend backfire for organizers and illustrate the strength of the pro-Israel community on campus? Or did BDS speakers like Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah reveal how much pro-Israel students need to… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Just as college students were finishing their winter exams, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg selected a partnership of The Technion Israel Institute of Technology and Cornell University to build a campus on Roosevelt Island that will become a global center for technological talent and entrepreneurship.  Few… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabbi Jordi Gendra feels fortunate that he found a full-time job at Temple Beth Shalom, a central Pennsylvania Reconstructionist synagogue, shortly before the recession hit. But now the 41-year-old spiritual leader is worried that the job he began in 2007 won’t last. The budget of… Read more »

Nicole Siegel, a University of Arizona sophomore from Columbia, Md., wears a t-shirt displaying the names of 20 campuses taking part in Hillel’s “Talk Israel: Join the Conversation” initiative. (Sheila Wilensky)

The University of Arizona Mall is often peppered with tents promoting various causes, but on Sept. 21 the discussion inside the UA Hillel Foundation’s “Talk Israel: Join the Conversation” tent was reminiscent of college teach-ins during the 1960s. Around 30 students and faculty were standing around or sitting on… Read more »

The Koren and "Lev Shalem" machzors are among the many High Holiday prayer books that have been published in the past year. (David A.M. Wilensky)

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. (JTA) — New Jewish prayer books typically come in waves, the rarest of which bring new High Holidays prayer books, or machzors. The current wave has seen five new machzorim in a one-year span. Following on the heels of last year’s release of the official Conservative… Read more »

Artist’s rendering of proposed Hillel renovation

After more than three years in the planning, the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation is ready to begin work on renovating and expanding its current building. Hillel will hold a ceremonial groundbreaking at the site (1245 E. Second Street) at 8 a.m. on Thursday, May 5. Hillel serves as… Read more »

Joan Rivers wouldn’t mind meeting a nice Jewish man who is affluent, healthy and can drive — that is, if she can find the time. “It would be nice, but at my age? My god, the curtain is down, the hotel is closed,” jokes Rivers from her home in… Read more »