Hillel

Argue for the sake of heaven

When they were having their animated disagreements so many centuries ago, could the wise Jewish sages Hillel and Shammai have imagined how much we would still look to them today to help us navigate our fragmented world?

Mishna Avot, a third-century collection of teachings, reminds us that “any mahloket (disagreement) that is l’shem shamayim (for the sake of heaven) will continue to exist, but one that is not for the sake of heaven will not continue to exist. What is a disagreement that is for the sake of heaven? This is a disagreement of Hillel and Shammai.”

In our world that is both full of beauty and goodness and yet also permeated with divisiveness and polarization, Hillel and Shammai remind us that it was, and is, possible to hold opposing views while still respecting and learning from one another. A disagreement for the sake of heaven is one in which the parties are motivated by a genuine desire to seek the truth of the matter. There is no selfishness or lust for power. Rather, the disagreement is approached with humility, curiosity and a willingness to listen.

I recently completed an eight-week Mahloket Matters alumni fellowship through the North American branch of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. I had previously studied at this pluralistic yeshivah (place of study) in Jerusalem, which is itself exemplary in demonstrating diversity, inclusiveness and a willingness to face challenging issues in respectful, cooperative and productive ways. What attracted me to applying for the fellowship was the topic – civil discourse. We would be delving into how to navigate difficult conversations and disagreements. When we all met, virtually, at the first class, we found that we shared a common concern about the fragmentation and jagged edges in our world, as well as a desire to learn and to equip ourselves with more skills to better navigate the types of thorny issues we face in our world.

Our studies were grounded in Jewish texts, which provided wonderful launch points for many of our discussions. We shared thoughts and ideas about what it means to have a disagreement l’shem shamayim and tried to bring those ideas forward to today. As Hillel and Shammai taught us, it is possible that sometimes both sides can be right and still hold opposing views. It’s also possible to debate an issue without harming relationships. Entrenched positions leave little room for genuinely listening to the other side or having the humility to admit that one might be wrong, qualities much needed for any truly healthy and productive disagreement.

U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, may their memories be blessed, perhaps provide a more contemporary example of Hillel and Shammai. They were judges who held vastly different views on many issues and yet had a warm and lengthy friendship, never mind a shared love for opera, which they often indulged in together. In a statement that Bader Ginsburg released to the public on the death of Scalia in 2016, she said: “We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation. Justice Scalia nailed all the weak spots – the ‘applesauce’ and ‘argle bargle’ – and gave me just what I needed to strengthen the majority opinion.”

Over the eight weeks of our studies, our diverse group from all over North America questioned, challenged, debated and confronted a multitude of issues, from moral foundations to creating our own mini Sanhedrin(Jewish High Court), taking on the role of judges and tackling some controversial issues from all angles. It was an enriching and meaningful experience, the fruits of which we are each now able to bring back to our own communities, with the hope that the small ripples we create through sharing our learning will radiate outwards and help, even in small ways. Help to smooth some of the sharp edges, soften rigid positions and create the safe spaces people need to have productive and healthy disagreements that create the fertile potential for new solutions to emerge – all for the sake of heaven.

Elisheva Gray is a lay leader and active member of the Victoria Jewish community and an alumna of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies.

SFU students vote BDS

On April 20, the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) voted in favour of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. The motion is in support of Palestinian liberation, which it defines as resistance against Israeli “settler-colonialism” and the occupation of historic Palestine – including the West Bank, Gaza and the present-day state of Israel.

The Hillel chapter at SFU issued a statement on April 20 denouncing the motion.

“Evidently, this motion, and the student council standing in support of it are not concerned with the safety of Jewish students on SFU campus,” reads the statement. “The adoption of the policy, which passed unanimously this evening, and which violates SFU, provincial and federal law, sets a dangerous precedent for Jewish safety, freedom of association and political mobilization on campus.”

The day after the SFSS vote, another campus group also voted on a motion related to debates over Israel.

On April 21, more than 60% of the Queen’s University Faculty Association (QUFA) voted in favour of a motion that opposed the adoption of the working definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

The IHRA working definition of antisemitism was adopted in May 2016, and states that antisemitism is “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The document also lists many examples that could fall into the broader definition of antisemitism. Among the examples are statements about Jewish people and Israel, including “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour.”

According to the QUFA motion, this definition threatens academic freedom and intersectional anti-racist and decolonial initiatives.

“The IHRA deﬁnition of antisemitism misconstrues antisemitism to include a broad range of criticism of the state of Israel, particularly targeting

decolonial and anti-racist critiques of the policies, structures and practices of Israel,” the motion reads. “Such targeted attacks, which primarily impact racialized faculty and students, will have a negative effect on the academic freedom of our members in the classroom, in their research and in campus politics more broadly.”

Jordan Morelli, QUFA president, said in an email that the motion was brought forward by individual members of the association, as is their right according to the association’s democratic processes. He also said the vote itself was preceded by a balanced discussion in which everybody who wanted to speak was given the opportunity to do so. Morelli further added that Queen’s recently revised policy on harassment and discrimination defines antisemitism in a manner consistent with the Ontario Human Rights Code policies, and that other faculty organizations at other schools, as well as at federal and provincial levels, have expressed similar concerns with the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

Before the vote, Queen’s Hillel published an open letter signed by more than 1,600 people – current Jewish and non-Jewish students, alumni, family members and community members – asking the faculty to vote against the motion.

“This statement contributes to the erasure of Jewish history, religiosity and values. To exclude the Jewish community from impacted ‘racialized faculty and students’ does harm to multi-racial, long-established Jewish communities. It overwrites our lived reality of centuries of constant displacement, colonization, conquest and migration,” the letter reads.

The letter also says that the fears about restricting criticism of Israel and academic freedom do not follow from a “fair” reading of the definition, as Israel is not mentioned in the definition itself, but only in the follow-up examples of what may constitute antisemitism. The letter also questioned why it does not fall to Jewish groups to define their own oppression.

“It is our understanding that a fundamental principle of anti-oppression work is allowing affected communities to define their own oppression,” reads the letter. “It is not the place of any organization external to our community…. It is the Jewish community, and the Jewish community alone, who get to decide this. This double-standard is antisemitic.”

The Hillel letter did note that some of the faculty who proposed the motion are Jewish, but said their views are out-of-sync with the vast majority of Canadian Jews.

After the motion passed, Queen’s Hillel published a statement that said they were “deeply saddened,” called the vote “an utter disgrace,” especially because no actionable steps were suggested in the motion to combat growing antisemitism on campus. However, the statement also said they were “immensely proud” of the support shown across the community.

At McGill, a similar motion in support of Palestinian solidarity that was passed by more than 70% of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) was not ratified by SSMU’s board of governors. In a statement published on April 22, the board said they could not adopt the policy because it contravened numerous SSMU governing documents, including its constitution, equity policy and Quebec law.

The original version of this article was published by The CJN. For more national Jewish news, visit thecjn.ca.

A testament to free speech

A new book on an incendiary topic turns out to be not quite as expected. The Conflict over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate, by Kenneth S. Stern, may be the most comprehensive assessment of the (at least) 20-year battle on North American campuses between pro-Israel and anti-Israel forces.

Jewish and pro-Israel readers picking up the work might anticipate a litany of horrors, anti-Zionist if not antisemitic incidents, brawls, screaming matches, vandalism, boycotts and the like. There is that. But Stern argues that the perception that campuses are aflame in anti-Zionist rage is simply not true. More, he offers proof that the pro-Israel side is far from innocent of engaging in disgraceful tactics, too. There is ill will and there are bad actors on both sides. Most unexpectedly, as much as the book is about the conflict, it is more than anything an exercise in applied ethics on the topic of free expression.

Stern is the director of the Bard Centre for the Study of Hate, an attorney and an author. For 25 years, he was the American Jewish Committee’s expert on antisemitism and he was a lead drafter of the Working Definition of Antisemitism. He is also, it appears, something close to a free speech purist. As such, he rails against efforts by Israel advocates who have organized campaigns to censure (and censor) anti-Israel voices. He doesn’t let the other side off easily, either, calling out acts of harassment like drowning out pro-Israel speakers with the “heckler’s veto.”

The book, from New Jewish Press, an imprint of University of Toronto Press, begins with an empirical assessment. In institutions of higher learning in the United States, Israel is an issue in very few, he writes.

When speaking with Jewish audiences, Stern asks for a show of hands to gauge perceptions on anti-Israel attitudes. He asks for guesses on how many American colleges have divested from Israel.

“Many seem surprised when I say ‘zero,’” he writes. “There are relatively few campuses where Israel is a burning issue, and every year the number of pro-Israel programs … is usually at least double the anti-Israel ones. There are over 4,000 campuses in the U.S. – in the 2017-18 academic year, 149 had anti-Israel activity.… So the campuses aren’t burning.”

He does not dismiss the extreme tensions on a few campuses, however.

“[O]n some campuses where anti-Israel activity is prominent, pro-Israel Jewish students may feel marginalized, dismissed or vilified, sometimes with antisemitic tropes.” Identity politics and the conflation of Jewish people with “whiteness” creates racial conflict. “[T]he labeling of Jews as white becomes a problem when shared victimhood becomes a sacred symbol, a badge of honour, a precondition to enter a club of the oppressed. Antisemitic discrimination is rendered invisible.”

Though bigotry may play a role in the discussion, Stern does not see constructive resolutions in neologisms like trigger warnings, safe spaces and microaggressions.

“Faculty should have the right to give trigger warnings if they want, but I never do, and I think the idea is a horrid one,” he writes. “I teach Mein Kampf. It’s disturbing – get over it. College should prepare one to be an adult, and there are no trigger warnings after graduation day. Why are we encouraging students to be ostriches? Shouldn’t they, rather, be learning how to navigate things that will likely unsettle them over the rest of their lives?”

He quotes CNN commentator Van Jones, a strong civil rights proponent, who opposes “safe spaces” on campus: “I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I’m not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take the weights out of the gym. That’s the whole point of the gym.”

Stern contends a fundamental error has been made in defining terms.

“We want campuses that are open to expression – including, perhaps even especially, difficult and disturbing ideas – but which protect students from real harassment and intimidation. Hate speech codes were efforts to say that ideas themselves can harass and intimidate. Ideas can and should make one uncomfortable (a comfortable college education is a wasted college education). But harassment is something different.”

Strategically, he argues, trying to censor hateful ideas is self-defeating and advances hate agents by martyring them.

“By trying to censor, rather than expose and combat, speech the students perceived as hateful, they were actually helping the alt-right and white supremacists,” writes Stern. “It’s no coincidence that the white nationalists in recent years have wrapped their racist and antisemitic messages around the concept of free speech. Why would progressives allow these haters to steal the bedrock democratic principle of free speech, disingenuously saying that this is what their fight is about? By trying to deny alleged racists platforms, progressives are helping white supremacists recast their vile message as noble protection of a right.”

Another strategic failure, he argues, is buying into the Palestinian narrative’s good/evil dichotomy.

“Israel’s case is best understood as inherently complex and difficult; playing into the ‘all bad’ and ‘all good’ binary of the other side renders those complexities invisible,” he writes.

The conflict on campus spills over, of course. Israel has created a list of 20 organizations, those that urge boycotts of the country, for instance, and bars their members from entering the country. Stern sees this as counterproductive: “You don’t make the case that blacklists (especially of academics) are proper if your goal is to oppose blacklists. You are conceding the argument.”

He gives an example of an anti-Israel campus activist who defends his group’s refusal to meet with Zionists “over cookies and cake” because “you Jews, in all due respect, you wouldn’t sit down with Nazis for tea and cake.”

He also reflects on the “Standards of Partnership” adopted by Hillel International, the Jewish campus organization, which proscribe engaging with groups or individuals that deny Israel’s right to exist, or who delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard Israel, who support BDS or who exhibit “a pattern of disruptive behaviour towards campus events or guest speakers or foster an atmosphere of incivility.”

Writes Stern: “For those who are not yet ideological soldiers, but want to learn more, and want to do it around their campus Hillel, what sense does it make that adults are telling them they can only bring in certain types of speakers? Yes, the adults defined BDS as hateful. But does it make sense to tell students they have to go elsewhere than the Jewish address on campus to hear about it firsthand from those who support it?”

The litany of bad behaviours on all sides of the ideological divide is likely to make readers of Stern’s book uneasy, whether the reader is Zionist or anti-Zionist. But it is a rare and uncompromising testament to free expression that should give genuine free speech advocates an uplift, particularly in an era when ideologically driven regulation of expression and ideas, especially on campuses, has left many advocates of core liberal, academic values feeling beleaguered.

Be sure to wash your hands

Before bed each night, our kids practise their reading, both in Hebrew and in English. We have a routine where I knit and sit next to a kid, listening to him reading his Hebrew Grade 3 stories, and their dad does English with the other kid. Then we switch. Recently, I’ve heard two separate easy-reader versions of the story about Hillel and the mitzvah of cleanliness.

For those of you who might not be up on Grade 3 curriculum, Hillel was a great teacher of Torah. One day, he is rushing off and his students ask him, “Where are you going?” He answers, “To do a mitzvah!” And they say, “What is the mitzvah?” And he says, “Cleaning is a mitzvah!” as he heads to the bathhouse.

In one story, it points out that Hillel was also trying to show that, in general, keeping clean is important. We should clean our fruits and vegetables before eating, clean our bodies, clean our houses, etc. This is obviously a useful lesson for kids. It’s good to know that Hillel taught us to keep clean. (I’ll need to mention this next time I’m asking everyone to tidy up their toys and things!)

Even in the Torah, there are multiple reminders to wash. While this isn’t news for Jews, frequent washing isn’t every culture’s practice. During outbreaks of the Black Death in Europe, Jewish communities were often spared because of their insistence on cleanliness, while those around them were dirty and, therefore, more prone to catching this illness. This meant most Jews avoided the plague (Black Death), which was transmitted by rats and fleas. Unfortunately, this also led to situations in which the Jewish community was blamed for the illness, because why weren’t the Jews getting sick, when everyone else was? Through the lens of history, we know why – they washed and, therefore, had fewer fleas and rats around.

In the Torah portion Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11-34:35), G-d tells Moses to construct a fancy washstand for Aaron and his sons in the Tent of Meeting. Essentially, being clean is part of doing holy work.

The weird thing about all this isn’t that our tradition spends a lot of time on how to properly wash and keep clean and, therefore, be ready for holy work. The weird thing is how often we forget to wash despite this information.

The outbreak of COVID-19 (the coronavirus) is a firm reminder of what we can do, every day, to stay well. We can wash our hands, with soap, with some frequency. You can recite the alphabet or the aleph-bet to be sure you’ve washed long enough. Washing well is not some mystical religious ritual. It’s essential to our health and well-being.

We can also practise social distancing, another tradition straight out of the Torah. Lepers had to stay outside the camp for several days, for example. This is not new information, folks! It was old news by the time the rabbis were creating our oral tradition, what became the Talmud.

The advice around a virus outbreak changes every day, so I cannot predict what officials will know or say when this article is published. However, disease outbreaks aren’t new. We’ve been wrestling with how to deal with them for as long as the Jewish people has been around. Considering things like skin diseases and leprosy as part of this, then, as mentioned, there’s information about how to deal with that going to the Torah.

One parallel that I can’t skip is – remember the golden calf? When Moses was getting the Ten Commandments, there was a mad rush to collect valuables and build the golden calf as a way to reassure the scared and frustrated Israelites. But it didn’t turn out so well. Acquiring wealth or idols didn’t help us avoid scary or frustrating things. We can’t know the future and alas, no amount of gold – or toilet paper – can keep us healthy.

The gold calf story reminds me of the reports of preppers, who are madly hoarding hand sanitizer, toilet paper, masks and other essentials. They are afraid, of course, but this illogical amount of acquisition causes shortages. It also gouges others by trying to resell these items at high prices. Of course, medical professionals haven’t advised anyone to do this hoarding – and Moses didn’t tell anyone to build a golden calf either.

We have to rely on the best medical advice we can get and do practical, everyday things to stay safe, like washing and social distancing.

I hope everybody stays healthy, but it would be wrong of me not to do my part in encouraging that. So? In the words of another famous character in our household, Ernie from Sesame Street, “Now everybody wash! Everybody – wash your hands!”

Some things just don’t change.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Two new scholarships

In an effort to lighten the financial challenges presented by the growing costs of higher education, Hillel International announced in November that it is launching two annual scholarships for students attending college anywhere in the United States and Canada. The two merit-based scholarships will total $4,000 US (roughly $5,200 Cdn) each and are available to any student who identifies as Jewish. The deadline for applications is March 15.

The Handeli First-Year Scholarship will be awarded annually to graduating high school students who demonstrate a record of leadership and volunteerism and are preparing to enter a four-year college or university. Students currently on a gap-year program are also eligible to apply.

The Hillel Campus Leadership Award, meanwhile, will be presented to full-time college students in their freshmen, sophomore or junior year who exhibit exceptional leadership skills and are pursuing a degree at an accredited school.

“Thanks to the estate of a wonderful donor, David Handeli, we were able to create the two new scholarship opportunities. Four students will receive awards this year, and we’ve already received more than 200 applications since the application went live in November and more than 1,000 applications have been started. Our hope is to expand these scholarships down the road, since we will have way more demand than supply,” Etan Harmalech, Hillel International’s vice-president of marketing, told the Independent.

For both scholarships, applicants must have a grade point average (GPA) of 2.5 or above to be considered. A full list of eligibility requirements can be found on the Hillel International website, hillel.org/college-guide/hillel-scholarships/eligibility-requirements-and-faqs. The applications for the respective scholarships can be also be found on the site, at hillel.org/college-guide/hillel-scholarships.

Like their counterparts throughout North America, Jewish college students and their families have had to contend with ever-mounting educational expenses, the increase in which over the past 20 years has exceeded the rise in household income.

The daunting cost in the United States, for example, was cited in a recent report by the College Board, an American nonprofit whose goal is to expand access to higher education. The report noted that the annual tuition for a college student had increased by more than 25% in the past decade for both private and public institutions. In several states, the cost for a year’s tuition competes with average income.

The average Canadian undergraduate pays close to $7,000 a year in tuition. Surveys conducted by Macleans in 2017 and 2018, however, found that the average cost of post-secondary education – with all of its expenses, such as rent, tuition and food, included – came in at just under $20,000 per year, with the commensurate level of debt rising with each additional year of study.

In British Columbia, students are confronted with one more challenge: finding affordable lodging near campus in an overheated housing market, an obstacle that is further exacerbated by the scarcity of available units, often leading to crowded living conditions or dwellings located far from the schools students attend.

“I am happy to see that these scholarships incentivize student involvement in Jewish life on campus. Hillels are a hub for Jewish life and often act as the last gas station before students head off into the working world,” said Sam Heller, the executive director of Hillel BC. “If we don’t get to them in college, there are fewer opportunities for Jewish young adults to engage with the community in an easy way and we may not see them until they start to have families and so on.”

Founded in 1923 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Hillel is the largest international Jewish student organization, with representation at more than 550 colleges and universities around the world. In British Columbia, a Hillel presence can be found at University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria, Langara College, Quest University Canada, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

All applications will be reviewed by Hillel’s scholarship committee following the March 15 deadline. The recipients of the scholarships will be chosen and announced on May 1.

Students looking for more scholarship opportunities should visit Hillel’s Jewish Scholarship Portal (hillel.org/college-guide/hillel-scholarships/jewish-scholarships), which contains information on several hundred scholarships available to Jewish students.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Mystery photo … Aug. 30/19

A group of people at a Hillel gathering, 1970. Back row, left to right: unidentified, Richard Bass, Rabbi Marvin Hier, Bob Golden, unidentified, unidentified. Front row, from left: unidentified, unidentified, unidentified, Hildy Groberman. (photo from JWB fonds, JMABC L.11673)

If you know someone in these photos, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting [email protected] or 604-257-5199. To find out who has been identified in the photos, visit jewishmuseum.ca/blog.

Faculty boycott Hillel

Hillel House building at the University of British Columbia. (photo from Hillel BC)

The University of British Columbia Geography Students Association (GSA) recently canceled a gala that was to take place in rental space owned by UBC’s Hillel chapter, due to pressure from some of the faculty in the department of geography.

The faculty members said they insisted on boycotting the event because of what they called the “controversial” and “political” nature of Hillel, according to numerous reports. The faculty members had not been publicly identified as of press time and could, therefore, not be located to clarify their position.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) has accused them of boycotting the GSA gala based on the perception that Hillel supports the state of Israel, which CIJA is calling discriminatory.

“Boycotting Jews or a Jewish organization simply because you object to the state of Israel’s policies is classic antisemitism,” said Nico Slobinsky, CIJA’s director for the Pacific region.

“It is hard to believe that there is such blatant antisemitism on a Canadian university campus in 2018. There should be zero tolerance for any expressions of discrimination, racism and antisemitism on campus and anywhere else in Canada.”

Samuel Heller, the assistant executive director of Hillel BC, told the CJN that, “The actions of these faculty members have resulted in a de facto boycott of the Jewish student centre on campus. To boycott Jews based on one’s political views about Israel is discriminatory and antisemitic. Their actions have led to the resignation of the lone Jewish student on the executive of the GSA, as he felt marginalized and discriminated against because of his Jewishness.”

Addressing the claim that Hillel is a controversial and political space, Heller said, “Hillel doesn’t have any politics. What these faculty members really object to is Hillel’s support of Israel’s existence. We are a Jewish organization and Israel is a part of Jewish identity.… To demand that Jews disavow parts of our identity to placate faculty members is wrong and discriminatory.”

But not everyone accepts Heller’s characterization of Hillel as “having no politics.” The Progressive Jewish Alliance at UBC (PJA) released a statement on Facebook on March 16, saying: “While we recognize the right of the GSA to move the gala based on political considerations, we urge the GSA to recognize that Hillel is the physical Jewish space on campus, alongside having a political position. While we wait for a statement from the GSA, we would like to point out that the ramifications of their decision are alienating Jewish students on campus. Likewise, we encourage Hillel to consider how their political positions, such as an opposition to all boycotts of Israel, can alienate other Jewish and non-Jewish organizations and students.”

The PJA is referring to Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership, which state that Hillel will not partner with, house or host organizations, groups or speakers that deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders; delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel; or support the boycott of, divestment from or sanctions against the state of Israel.

In 2012, concerns about Hillel’s refusal to partner with Jewish organizations that support the BDS movement led to the formation of Open Hillel, an organization that agitates for Hillel to end the Standards of Partnership.

Numerous controversies have broken out over Hillel boycotting groups or individuals in recent years. In one example, in March 2017, B’nai Keshet, a queer Jewish group at Ohio State University, co-sponsored a Purim fundraiser for LGBTQ refugees in the Columbus area. Because Jewish Voices for Peace, an organization that supports BDS, was one of the sponsoring groups, OSU Hillel cut ties with B’nai Keshet, due to pressure from Hillel International, prompting students on numerous American campuses to hold “solidarity Shabbats” with the LGBTQ group. In June, a letter calling for the end of the standards was signed by more than 100 rabbis and submitted to Hillel.

The UBC Progressive Jewish Alliance hopes that the controversy will not only provoke change in the GSA, but in Hillel, as well.

“We hope that both organizations take this opportunity to engage in genuine dialogue around the complexity of politics and place,” it concluded in a statement.

Philip Steenkamp, the vice-president of external relations at UBC, told the CJN that the university is “aware of concerns that have been expressed by CIJA” and “are looking into this matter and will follow due process to ensure it is appropriately addressed.”

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the Forward and All That Is Interesting, and has been published in Religion Dispatches, Situate Magazine, Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter. This article was originally published by the CJN.

Sumekh swipes out hunger

Rachel Sumekh is one of five speakers who will participate in FEDtalks Sept. 13. (photo from Rachel Sumekh)

University students with meal plans often end a semester or term with a surplus on their cafeteria swipe card. Whether because they skip a few breakfasts, go on vacation or eat in a restaurant the occasional night, some of the meals they pay for go unpurchased. In most instances, students are not reimbursed for uneaten meals.

When Rachel Sumekh was studying history at the University of California Los Angeles in 2010, she and some friends went to the cafeteria, stocked up on to-go food using the amounts remaining on their swipe cards and handed it out to hungry people on the streets of the city.

The dining provider didn’t like the gesture of goodwill, as it created an unanticipated run on to-go food. Sumekh talked it out with the administrators and created the pilot project for Swipe Out Hunger, an initiative that is now on 32 American college campuses, helping feed hungry people across the country. Sumekh will talk about the project here on Sept.13 at FEDtalks, the opening event of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign.

The original idea, she admits, came from her friend Bryan Pezeshki, but he was busy continuing his studies – he’s now a doctor – and so Sumekh and a few friends carried it on as a side gig, meeting on Sundays and creating Swipe Out Hunger. In 2013, they decided to see what would happen if a full-time staff person were devoted to the project and Sumekh took on the job.

In such a venture, the humanitarian impulses of dining providers compete with their bottom line – unused amounts on meal cards means lower operating costs for them. So, in getting suppliers on board, Swipe Out Hunger organizers emphasize doing the right thing, while also implying there might be bad publicity if campus media discover food providers’ reluctance to participate in a program that fights hunger. Nonetheless, it is a challenge. Sumekh said students from about 300 different campuses have approached Swipe Out Hunger to start their own chapters, yet only about 10% of those have been successfully launched.

“So, it comes down to how difficult it is for universities to actually agree to implement this,” she said.

Originally focused on feeding hungry people in the communities around campus, Swipe Out Hunger has transitioned to focus mostly on addressing the hunger of students on campus.

Ironically, the problem of student hunger is exacerbated by an increasing accessibility of post-secondary education, she said. Financial aid and need-based scholarships are making it easier for young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to attend college. But, once there, they confront the realities of student life without money.

Educational institutions are giving financial aid, even full tuition in some cases, Sumekh said, but the students still have no money. “So who’s going to pay for their housing or their meals or their books or their transportation and all the other stuff?” She estimates that 75% of those benefitting from Swipe Out Hunger now are college students.

Sumekh says hunger leads to increased absenteeism, poor grades and dropping out. She pointed to a Canadian study that suggests 39% of Canadian college students cannot afford balanced meals and fear not having enough food at all. Almost half of the more than 4,000 students who participated in the study said they chose books, tuition and rent over healthy meals, one-quarter said the lack of good food affected their physical health and one in five said their mental health was affected. While there are no Swipe Out Hunger chapters in Canada yet, a similar program, Meal Exchange, exists here.

Universities are slowly coming to the awareness that their students’ well-being depends on healthy, sufficient diets, among all the other factors, Sumekh said. This is evidenced by the shift her organization has seen in the type of people who are approaching Swipe Out Hunger.

“Previously, 100% of the interest in our program was from students,” she said. “Now, over 50% of our interest is coming directly from administrators.… Universities are finally recognizing that they have students on their own campus who are going hungry and they have to do something about it.”

There has been a stigma around colleges acknowledging hunger among their students, she added, but this is diminishing in the face of recognition of the need.

Swipe Out Hunger also had a recent advocacy triumph. In June, thanks to pressure from Sumekh’s organization, the California state legislature and Governor Jerry Brown approved $7.5 million in funding to encourage colleges throughout the state to adopt a Swipe Out Hunger program, establish food pantries and hire staff to help students access nutritious food. So far, 1.3 million meals have been shared – and that number is likely to grow, as Swipe Out Hunger catches on in California and nationwide. Despite this success, Sumekh hopes her organization goes out of business.

“If there’s anything we believe, it’s that the old model of charity doesn’t work,” she said. “We don’t want to exist 20 years from now.”

Swipe Out Hunger is aiming for a systemic shift, where universities take it upon themselves to ensure that students’ needs are met, a universalization of an ad hoc program now on some campuses in which meals are provided to students in need.

While Swipe Out Hunger isn’t aimed specifically at Jewish students or any other cultural demographic, Sumekh credits both her Jewishness and assistance from the Jewish community for inspiring the initiative. The daughter of refugees from post-revolution Iran, Sumekh is excited to be sharing the stage at FEDtalks with Eric Fingerhut, chief executive officer of Hillel International, because she was involved with UCLA Hillel and got lots of support from the campus group when she was starting Swipe Out Hunger.

“When I was getting the program off the ground, I would go to Hillel and they would say, Rachel, whatever you need, tell us and we’ll make it happen,” she said. “It was an amazing way to see the Jewish community say, let’s just support this young Jew, even though what they’re doing isn’t just for Israel or just for Jewish people. If they’re doing something that’s living out our values, we should want to support that.”

For the full FEDtalks lineup and tickets, visit jewishvancouver.com/fedtalks2017.

Unity, not uniformity, Hillel’s goal

Eric Fingerhut, chief executive officer of Hillel International, will be part of FEDtalks on Sept. 13. (photo from Hillel International)

There are internal and external challenges facing the Jewish community, said Eric Fingerhut, and their solutions will come from the young people who are currently on college campuses.

The former U.S. congressman has served since 2013 as chief executive officer of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life and is one of five speakers at FEDtalks, the opening of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign, which takes place at the Chan Centre next week.

“The one place that the future of the Jewish community actually comes together in a relatively concentrated way for a relatively concentrated period of time is the college campus,” Fingerhut said in a telephone interview with the Jewish Independent. “The question that I want to address with the audience is, how can we use the opportunity of the college years to build a unified Jewish community – not a uniform Jewish community, but a unified Jewish community – that will enable the next generation to make their contribution to the long-term growth of Jewish life, Jewish learning and Israel?”

Finding unity among Jews, particularly around issues of religious and political expression, and in the face of anti-Israel activism that is prevalent on college campuses, is not easy, he acknowledged. Occasional reports emerge claiming that Jewish students are disengaging from the contentious debate around Israel and Palestine, but Fingerhut said confronting these issues is a matter of personal choice and disposition.

“There is no question that, on far too many campuses, there have been contentious debates – and sometimes worse than debates, sometimes really disturbing incidents involving anti-Israel and even antisemitic behaviour,” he said. “For some students, being engaged directly, encountering that kind of behaviour, is something that they feel comfortable doing, that they are inspired to do. But, for others, those kinds of situations are less comfortable and it’s not what they came to college to do. They have many other things on their plate. We don’t judge the level of commitment that a Jewish student has to the Jewish community and Israel by whether or not they show up at a counter-protest or a meeting about BDS. We encourage students to do that, but there are many, many ways for Jewish students to engage with Israel.”

Hillel, he noted, is the biggest recruiter for Birthright, Masa and other Israel experience programs. Hillel also coordinates Jewish Agency shlichim (emissaries) on 75 campuses, young Israelis who engage face-to-face with Jewish and non-Jewish students on North American campuses.

“We provide many, many ways to engage with Israel so that students can build a relationship with Israel, but not necessarily have to do that through being involved in the middle of some of these very ugly protests,” said Fingerhut.

Almost immediately after becoming CEO, Fingerhut was confronted with the development of the Open Hillel movement, a group that rejects Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership for Israel Activities, a policy that outlines the sort of groups with which Hillel will partner. Fingerhut took a firm line and he maintains it.

“Every student, regardless of their opinions or the issues they want to discuss, is welcome,” he said. “Every conversation is welcome. But, as an organization, we are Zionists. We are seeking to support Israel as our Jewish, democratic state. So, while that would certainly involve debate and discussion … it also means that we will not work with organizations whose mission is to hurt the state of Israel, who are trying to undermine the state of Israel. Certainly, that describes organizations that promote BDS.… We’re not going to work with them and we’re not going to host speakers whose career and work have been about trying to undermine Israel and its role as the sovereign representative of the Jewish people. Those are our guidelines and there are some who would want us to change those and we respect them. They have a right to argue for change, to make their case for change. They are welcome as individuals at Hillel, as everybody else [is], even though they disagree with our policies. But we’re not going to change our policies.”

Geopolitics is not the only potentially divisive area for Hillel. Religion is another factor. Building a pluralistic campus community is hard work, he said.

“Hillel is totally committed to Jewish pluralism,” he said. “Hillel’s a place where you’ll see a Friday night service in one room where men and women are praying separately on either side of a mechitzah, the divider. You’ll see another room where men and women are praying together and a woman is leading the service wearing a tallit. You’ll see in another room where maybe a song leader with a guitar is singing and leading music in a different style. You’ll see another room where people are meditating or discussing the issues of the day because prayer isn’t their thing. There may even be a room where people are discussing why they’re not in any of the other rooms.… And then we all come together and we have dinner and we make Kiddush and we celebrate together as a community.”

Respecting this diversity places a unique responsibility on Hillel, he said, and it portends a better future.

“It’s a core value of ours,” he said. “And we believe that, if a student learns to live in a vibrant, pluralistic Jewish community, where we’re not trying to change each other but we treat each other with love and respect, that will hopefully influence how they lead communities as adults when they graduate and go out into the world.”

As the leader of an organization that is almost a century old, one of the things Fingerhut confronts is an outdated perception of what Hillel is.

“Perhaps the number one question I still get asked from folks who remember Hillel from their college days is, how many people go to Hillel?” he said. “That’s just not a question we ask anymore … because our job is to inspire Jewish life on a college campus, and we do that wherever students are. Certainly, some of the activities happen inside a building that is called Hillel. But Hillel is inspiring Jewish life and Jewish activity all across campus, engaging students where they are.”

For example, he said, students sometimes tell him they don’t go to Hillel, but prefer to spend Shabbat with friends in their apartment or dorm.

“And I smile because I know that that was a Hillel-sponsored program,” he said. “We knew that, if the only Shabbos dinner we offered on campus was coming to Hillel, that will attract a certain number of people. But some are going to say, that’s not the way I want to spend Friday nights, going to a large group dinner. So, we knew that, by getting one popular student in a dorm to invite their friends to a smaller group dinner in an apartment building or in a dorm, that would attract additional students.”

As the news doesn’t generally focus on the positive, what doesn’t make headlines are the numbers of Jewish students engaged in a vast range of activities and programs, Fingerhut said.

“People tend to hear the negative, the problems, the anti-Israel activities, the antisemitism,” he said. “They tend not to see the very vibrant Jewish life that exists on so many campuses.”

FEDtalks takes place on Sept. 13 at the Chan Centre. For tickets, visit jewishvancouver.com/fedtalks2017.

Guide to Jewish campus life

On May 8, Canadian Hillels in partnership with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) released Going Somewhere? The Canadian Guide to Jewish Campus Life. Inspired by Maclean’s annual university guide, Going Somewhere? Provides students with information about Jewish life on campuses across Canada, as well as tips on how Jewish students can make the most of their first-year experience.

Going Somewhere? includes campus-by-campus details on everything from Jewish student population numbers, access to kosher food, Jewish studies programs, academic exchanges with Israeli schools and popular housing locations for Jewish students, as well as Jewish social opportunities, such as holiday parties hosted by Hillel. Going Somewhere? also provides information about Jewish and pro-Israel campus advocacy opportunities, and paid internships offered by Hillel.

“We are proud to publish the first coast-to-coast Canadian guide to Jewish life on campus,” said Marc Newburgh, chief executive officer of Hillel Ontario, in a statement. “For Jewish students, the university experience provides a unique opportunity to connect with their community, shape their Jewish identity for the long-term and develop skills by engaging in Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy. Our hope is that Going Somewhere? will prove a valuable resource for students and their families.”

Judy Zelikovitz, vice-president of university and local partner services at CIJA, added, “CIJA is pleased to have contributed to Going Somewhere?… As the only Jewish student organization with staff on the ground at schools across the country, Hillel offers an unparalleled window into everything Jewish on campus. The practical advice and campus-by-campus details in Going Somewhere? make for required reading for every Jewish student as they consider their options for the fall.”

To download a free copy of Going Somewhere?, visit gettheguide.ca.