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July 29, 2005
A fund-raiser's mission
Druker aims to help Hillel meet its challenges.
PAT JOHNSON
In what Hillel leaders are calling a coup, the local branch of
the worldwide Jewish campus organization has hired a familiar face
as its first fund-raising director. Geoffrey Druker, who until recently
was the Vancouver representative for State of Israel Bonds, is the
new development director for Hillel Vancouver.
Druker is a well-known leader in British Columbia's Jewish community,
having arrived here from Israel in 1988. He has held senior volunteer
and professional positions ever since, with such agencies as the
Canadian Zionist Federation, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver,
the Jewish National Fund and, for the past six years, as city director
for State of Israel Bonds.
"I left the Bonds after six years, wanting to go back to develop
my company which I had all along, which imports Israeli rehabilitation
products," Druker said. "I wasn't looking for the Hillel
position, but once I got exposed to what they are planning to do,
I was impressed, because I've been exposed to what happens on campus
through my Israel Action Committee volunteer work."
Druker moderated a couple of Zionist events on local campuses, including
events featuring American commentator Daniel Pipes and Israeli diplomats.
The anti-Israel sentiment Druker witnessed predisposed him to do
what he could to help Jewish students on campus.
"For the first time, I realized that whatever's happening on
campus is not what's happening outside of campus," said Druker.
"So when Hillel approached me and I learned of what they're
looking to do and the challenges they're facing, even though I wasn't
seeking this [position], it was easy for me to get tempted."
Druker will officially take up the job when he returns from spending
August in Israel.
The role of fund-raiser is urgent, Druker said, because circumstances
have forced Hillel to respond to a range of needs.
The main physical presence of Hillel – a double-wide prefab
structure on the University of British Columbia campus – is
located where the university plans to develop its ceremonial entrance.
If Hillel hopes to remain in a good location as changes occur on
campus, the facility will need to fit into the university's plans.
"We would like to ask UBC to grant us a 100-year lease,"
Druker said. "But we have to show that we're serious and one
of the ways to show that we're serious is to build a different Hillel
House."
The university's plans are not the only pressing need.
"The current facility's just not enough," Druker said.
"They are, I understand, turning away students from events
they are holding because there's not enough space."
Eyal Lichtmann, Hillel's executive director, said Druker's appointment
is part of a professionalizing that his organization has undergone.
"We've improved our standards of governance in programming,
communications, human resources, management systems and we're bursting
at the seams in student involvement and community participation,"
said Lichtmann. "We had to bring somebody else on board in
order to properly manage and maximize our involvement with the community."
With a permanent development director, Lichtmann said, Hillel can
reasonably aspire to create a new permanent location planned for
Simon Fraser University and proceed with a range of infrastructural
and programming initiatives.
"We consider ourselves extremely fortunate that Geoffrey has
chosen to be with Vancouver Hillel, because he really could be anywhere
he wants," Lichtmann said.
The South African-born, Israeli-raised Druker has a daughter who
will soon, he hopes, attend UBC.
"I want there to be a strong Hillel House when she goes there,"
he said. But Druker has broader motivations, seeing Hillel as a
crucial tool for Jewish continuity.
"These are young adults who are one step at home, one step
outside of home," Druker said. "We have to keep that link
and we have to draw in those who have never been affiliated, because
a lot of students haven't gone to Jewish schools or have not been
affiliated in any way. There we have another opportunity –
and it may be the last opportunity – to connect with them."
The influence of anti-Israel activism on campus is another factor
of which Druker is mindful. If Jewish and other Zionist students
do not strongly counter the anti-Israel atmosphere on campus, it
could become a dominant ideology in Canada.
"The attitudes that are on campus today are the attitudes perhaps
in Canada 10 years from now," said Druker, who was educated
at Technion and Tel-Aviv University. "Everything Hillel does
affects not only our Jewish students there, but the future leadership
of Canada. Future MPs, civic leaders, business leaders – they're
all now on campus and what they're getting exposed to with regard
to Israel is maybe what they'll carry and will form their ideas
for many years."
Pat Johnson is a B.C. journalist and commentator.
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