Student Quest for Jewish Identity Features Hillel Summer Institute

Participants in the 20th national Hillel summer institute, which is in the middle of a week-long series of sessions here, have indicated some vital areas of Jewish student concern, according to a mid-session evaluation made today. A determined search was seen as emerging among Jewish university students for the meaning of “Jewish values” and “Jewish identity,” as distinguished from the generally accepted human values of America.

A total of 215 Jewish students from 123 American and foreign universities brought to the institute a quest which leaders of the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation sought to answer. Most questions were aimed at finding a uniquely Jewish approach to life in an age marked by a universal quest for social justice. The students want to know, for instance, whether there is a separate or different Jewish approach to such problems as civil rights, the war on poverty and world peace.

Leaders noted that the students displayed a distinct commitment to social Justice and human welfare, without consciously relating these concepts to Judaism. The students felt integrated in the general culture and wanted to learn what was distinct about Judaism as a current mode of life. A deficiency was seen by Hillel leaders in education that could link Judaism with current world developments.

Rabbi Benjamin M. Kahn, national Hillel director, stated that most of the students frankly admitted to being inadequately informed about Judaism, and appeared eager “to know who they are.” The students appeared to him to lack a sense of conviction “of the uniqueness of being Jewish and knowledge of Jewish values; of what Judaism has to say to them as human beings.”

YOUTHS DO NOT APOLOGIZE FOR JEWISH NESS, SEEK ITS MEANING IN PRESENT ERA

A point made by many students was that the Nazi holocaust and defiance to anti-Semitism were inadequate Justification for being Jewish. They asked repeatedly “What is unique about being Jewish today?” Committed to a yearning for universal social Justice, students said they could not see that it differed if a Jewish youth chose to serve in the U.S. Peace Corps instead of spending time on an Israeli kibbutz.

The students appeared to show greater personal security, did not feel a need to apologize for Jewish ness, but wanted to know its meaning in today’s world.

Rabbi Oscar Groner, assistant national Hillel director, pointed out that Jewish values have been incorporated into Western values, but that there was a special Jewish distinction in the emotion, sentiment, and warmth of Jewish commitment, In his answer to questions by students, Rabbi Groner said that Judaism’s greatest counter-challenge to the world is that “we are here today discussing the questions raised concerning challenges to Judaism.” He said that “more than physical survival, the continued Jewish presence means that the religious and intellectual ideas that we have carried in our collective entity as a people have survived as well, and their power is still felt among Jews and in the world in which we live.”

Rabbi Groner pointed out that, in intellectual circles, there was not only great admiration for Jewish ideas” but it is even a yichus to have a Jewish great-great-grandfather.” He said: “Our task here is not to justify our existence as Jews; being alive is Justification enough; but rather to seek for the meaning which lies behind our continued existence as a people.” He undertook to explain the meaning of existence as a Jew.

Among the universities represented were a number of Canadian institutions, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Oxford University of England, and more than 100 American universities. The institute will adjourn Sunday.