(Dr. Frank’s column appears in this space on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.)
For ten years now the lives of many thousands of the flower of Jewish young manhood and womanhood have been affected in a way which portends lasting good to American Jewry.
In the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundations, to be found in some ten of the larger universities in the United States, we have a cultural movement among a highly selected group of Jewish young men and women to prepare themselves for Jewish and general civic leadership. They are wider in scope than their Christian counterparts—the denominational foundations that exist in almost all American colleges and universities.
The Hillel organizations are Jewish cultural, social, recreational, and religious centers upon the campus. Under the direction of their own student councils, a Jewish cultural program of a high order is thus being planned by our students who are brought together in a congenial environment.
From year to year two thousand young persons come under the the humane influence of the Hillel clubs. Now, as a result of the enlarged capacity to evaluate the greatness of their Jewish heritage, they are strengthened in their Jewish affiliations, and the sense of Jewish dignity is greatly enhanced.
A GROWING MOVEMENT
The “Hillel on the Campus” movement, deriving its name from one of the most saintly and adorable heroes of our Talmudic lore, was founded by the late Rabbi Benjamin Frankel of Chicago who gave to it the fullest measure of devotion. Under the auspices of the B’nai B’rith organization, the idea struck deep roots and has made for itself a reputable place in nine to ten great universities from Cornell to California, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf.
At first, exaggerated emphasis was placed upon purely social activities, such as diversion, artistic recreation, open forums, loan funds, and so on. Then it was discovered that Hillel organizations offer a singular opportunity to combine recreation and serious interests. Courses of study, open to Jew and Christian alike, have been offered in such subjects as Hebrew, Jewish History, Modern Jewish Thoughts and Movements, Students’ Reaction to Religion, etc. They are taught either by the director of the Foundation at the given university or by some Jewish member of the faculty.
Most interesting, the course registration of Christian students at Illinois University was not long ago 110; the general registration —405, the highest among the universities taking part in the movement. It has become more than twice as large as that of all the Christian foundations about the Illinois campus combined. Incidentally, Illinois, with its 12,000 students, is the only institution granting full university credit for courses taken at Hillel.
INTELLECTUAL GAINS
Three lofty ideals were in the minds of those who fathered the Hillel movement.
First of all, they hoped to win the loyalty of educated Jewish youth to Jewish, ideals—to make them feel that belonging to the Jewish people, so far away from a humiliation and handicap in life’s race, is a splendid, heroic and exciting adventure.
In the next place, the Jewish students are to be prepared, in and through Hillel organizations, for intelligent and determined participation in the Jewish life of communities in which they may live after graduation.
Finally, besides being trained in loyalty and leadership, the Jewish student is endowed by his Hillel organization with character-strength, this outstanding trait of all truly religiously-minded men and women. Now, this gift is a gift of great value indeed; a weapon to be made use of while meeting the tests of life, enduring its hardships, withstanding its vicissitudes.
All in all, the results are remarkable. The old evasive, almost furtive, attitude of the Jewish student has completely disappeared. It gave place to a nonassertive, self-respecting pride, to the awakened racial self-respect.
Through Hillel, Christian students, on the other hand, get firsthand knowledge of Jewish social ideals and ethical values. In this way, the incipient tendencies in the young Gentile man or woman toward bias and prejudice against the Jew, propensities born of ignorance and credulity, are stifled. No wonder, then, that the group relations between Jew and Gentile have greatly improved under the influence of Hillel.
ADJUSTING PERSONAL PROBLEMS
Among many growing boys and girls on the campus, far away from home influences, grave adjustment problems arise. The Hillel movement is meeting this need of guidance and of a sympathetic understanding of the students’ personal difficulties. It has become a pioneer in a very important field of constructive social-psychological action.
The director of a Hillel Foundation, possessing as he does more than the usual measure of good sense and a common background with the Jewish students, understands better than any member of the faculty how to approach them in a helpful way. In one case the Hillel organization laid the basis for a psychiatric clinic on the campus—a much needed social experiment for scores of cases of maladjustment that call for expert mental treatment.
Without a doubt, the attainments of the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundations are among the greatest gifts to American Israel in the past ten years.
(Dr. Frank’s column appears in this space on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
