// essays //
December 2015
Exposing and Overcoming the Exclusivity of Hillel:
The Role of Dissenting Jewish Voices at Columbia, and Beyond
Eva Kalikoff
“Did you do a gap year in Israel?” These were the first words spoken to me when I walked into a Shabbat dinner at the Kraft Center, the home of Columbia/Barnard Hillel, in September 2012. It was an innocuous question, but it speaks volumes about the culture that pervades the mainstream Jewish community on Columbia’s campus. From my first days of college, it felt like Israel was everywhere; in every space I entered there was a reference, whether in my Comparative Politics discussion section, a Bwog or Spectator op-ed comment thread, or emblazoned on a flier in Butler Library. I was forced to engage with an issue, tied to my identity, that I had never before considered in depth.
I grew up in a liberal town in Westchester with parents who had boring Hebrew school experiences that they did not want to force upon their children. To their surprise, when my twin sister and I were in second grade, we declared one day that we wanted to go to Hebrew school with our friends—the result of feeling left out of a group that had been attending Hebrew school since Kindergarten.
But it was not simply a passing interest. We became ingrained in the community, and soon, it was one of the most valuable parts of our lives. We spent eleven years in Hebrew lessons, becoming b’not mitzvah, working as teaching assistants and participating in a youth group, discussing Jewish values and how they relate to American politics and our lives. My Jewish experience was simple and comfortable, associated with the warmth, humor, and kindness of my Yiddish-speaking grandfather, who went to services every Friday night. With the exception of a lesson about modern Israeli culture in fifth grade, Hebrew school was devoid of any explicit discussion of Zionism. My parents barely mentioned Israel, though when they did, it was with a clearly negative attitude. They had never visited, and they did not plan to go anytime soon. Our ancestors fled persecution at the end of the 19th century, immigrating to America. Since then, we have lived a comfortable and privileged life as American Jews. As a direct result of this heritage, I grew up with the deeply ingrained belief that oppression, in all its forms, whether anti-Semitism that persists to this day or the oppression of the Palestinian people, must be resisted.
In November 2012, the IDF began a bombing campaign in Gaza, called Operation Pillar of Defense. It was the fall of my freshman year. I had been to a couple of Shabbat dinners at Hillel, but found myself unsure of my own place in the Jewish community—Pillar of Defense confirmed the reason. Jewish students on campus represented by Hillel stood in monolithic and unwavering support of the Israeli military and its actions.
I began to focus on Israel and Palestine in a way that I hadn’t before. What I saw was clear: a militaristic, Western-backed superpower exerting its force against an oppressed people, resulting in disproportionate Palestinian deaths. While having breakfast with a new friend in a dining hall one morning I mentioned that I disagreed pretty strongly with LionPAC’s (the pro-Israel group on campus) strategy, which seemed to be an attempt to “other” and demonize the Palestinian people for active resistance against occupation. She would not let me leave the table until I stated clearly and definitively in her presence that Hamas was a terrorist organization.
I learned about Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership around the same time that I discovered Jewish Voice for Peace. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement is a call from Palestinian civil society to empower a dispossessed people through non-violent economic and cultural pressure on the Israeli government as a way of demanding accountability. As the center for Jewish life and culture on campus, Hillel seemed like the place for social justice activism, which, based on everything I had learned in Hebrew school and from my family, aligned with Jewish moral values and texts. The Hillel Standards of Partnership explicitly ban any groups that “support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel” from partnering with or existing within Hillel. This extends to groups that “delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Israel,” which pro-BDS groups are categorized as doing.
This was, to say the least, a confusing time. I found relief in the New York City chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, a strong and active group of politically engaged Jews resisting the idea that Jews ought to blindly support the actions of the Israeli government. A common refrain is “Not in our name.” Not in our name will we allow Israel to commit human rights violations and maintain an apartheid state. I read what I could, and I talked to professors, friends, cousins, and my rabbi. I wouldn’t have to renounce my Judaism, the religion that I had grown up with, studied, and understood to be deeply moral and just.
After almost two years of trying to figure out how I fit into the conversation on Palestine and Israel, I decided that I had to find my people. I thought seriously about what it would mean to have a chapter of JVP at Columbia. I attended several Students for Justice in Palestine meetings. After the Barnard administration censored an SJP banner which had already been approved by the Student Life office, I was certain that there needed to be a Jewish voice standing in support of Palestinian students on our campus.
I threw myself into creating a Jewish group of non and anti-Zionists, the community I had so badly needed when I first got to campus. I created a Facebook page and spoke to friends and fellow campus activists. We quickly formed a significant group of students, some anti-Zionist or non-Zionist, others unsure of where they stand, only certain of the fact that they have serious questions about Zionism and strongly object to Israel’s actions towards Palestinians.
My experience at Columbia parallels the experiences of many Jewish students on campuses across the country. But the high number of Jewish students on Columbia’s campus raises the stakes and intensifies the discussion of Zionism within the Jewish community here. According to Hillel International and Reform Judaism Magazine’s lists of “2014 Top 60 Schools by Jewish Student Population,” Barnard’s student body is 33% Jewish and Columbia’s is 30%. Both schools rank in the top ten of each list. Also, Columbia comes in at number four on the list of “Top 30 Private Universities by Jewish Population.” Very practically, this means that there is a larger group of students with more deeply rooted emotional connections to Israel’s history and reasons for existence within the student body at large. Regardless of level of religious observance, many Jewish students who attend Columbia and Barnard were raised in Zionist households that prioritize Israel’s control of occupied territories as well as maintenance of a Jewish majority within the country. The high percentage of Jewish students on campus makes for a vigorous and highly active center of student life, which is undoubtedly grounded in the Robert Kraft Center on 115th street. There are forty student groups or religious communities under the umbrella of the Columbia/Barnard Hillel. Students use the space, resources and community it fosters in a very active way. I fully support and value the existence of an international organization supporting Jewish student life on college campuses. My concern lies within the monopoly that Hillel claims to have on Jewish identity.
Hillel’s Standards of Partnership silence disagreement with Israel’s policies and deliberately exclude a large and growing number of Jewish students on many college campuses. This does a disservice not only to the non-Zionist, anti-Zionist, or simply anti-Occupation Jewish students, but also to Jewish students who need a place like Hillel, a comfortable environment that reaffirms their religious and political Jewish upbringing. As we know, college should be a place to experience new ideas and encounter worlds and people previously unknown. It would be incredibly beneficial to expose Zionist students, who have never had their political identities questioned, to views that differ from their own, within their own community.
Open Hillel, the national organization created to change Hillel’s Israel policy, has hosted events and organized campaigns across the country, insisting that Hillel International listen to students rather than donors. Swarthmore College and Vassar College have both declared their Hillels open and neither has lost funding from Hillel International, in spite of threats against Swarthmore by Hillel International CEO Eric Fingerhut. Both schools have seen enormous growth of Jewish life on campus as a result of this change.
But the difference between these schools and the Columbia/Barnard campus environment is clear. Neither of those schools ranks amongst colleges with the largest Jewish communities. Both are small liberal arts schools that receive significantly less funding from the international organization. When I inquired informally with several Columbia Hillel employees it was estimated to me that opening Hillel at Columbia would immediately risk a loss of $400,000. This money comes from individual donors as well as Hillel International, and both of these groups make their funding contingent on unwavering Zionism from all Hillel groups. The relative weakness of JStreet (which is a Hillel group at Columbia) in comparison to Aryeh, SJP and JVP shows this lack of support for any slightly differing opinions on Israel within Hillel. The conversation presents itself as strictly inside and outside, as Israel-advocacy student groups are funded by Hillel's ample Student Governing Board budget and given access to Hillel's privately-donated resources, while groups like SJP and JVP are funded only by the Student Governing Board.
Jewish Voice for Peace at Columbia and Barnard is steadfast in our support of BDS and our support of Palestinian human and civil rights. We would ultimately like to be accepted within the mainstream Jewish community. We have cultivated a thriving and respectful environment for thoughtful discussion about Jewish allyship to the Palestinian cause. It is a wonderful feeling to find a group of friends who share the same background, identity, and politics. Until Hillel is willing to accept us in that form, we will remain outside of the organization, focused on the demands made of Israel by the BDS Movement: To end “its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantle the Wall; to recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and to respect, protect, and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.”
I grew up in a liberal town in Westchester with parents who had boring Hebrew school experiences that they did not want to force upon their children. To their surprise, when my twin sister and I were in second grade, we declared one day that we wanted to go to Hebrew school with our friends—the result of feeling left out of a group that had been attending Hebrew school since Kindergarten.
But it was not simply a passing interest. We became ingrained in the community, and soon, it was one of the most valuable parts of our lives. We spent eleven years in Hebrew lessons, becoming b’not mitzvah, working as teaching assistants and participating in a youth group, discussing Jewish values and how they relate to American politics and our lives. My Jewish experience was simple and comfortable, associated with the warmth, humor, and kindness of my Yiddish-speaking grandfather, who went to services every Friday night. With the exception of a lesson about modern Israeli culture in fifth grade, Hebrew school was devoid of any explicit discussion of Zionism. My parents barely mentioned Israel, though when they did, it was with a clearly negative attitude. They had never visited, and they did not plan to go anytime soon. Our ancestors fled persecution at the end of the 19th century, immigrating to America. Since then, we have lived a comfortable and privileged life as American Jews. As a direct result of this heritage, I grew up with the deeply ingrained belief that oppression, in all its forms, whether anti-Semitism that persists to this day or the oppression of the Palestinian people, must be resisted.
In November 2012, the IDF began a bombing campaign in Gaza, called Operation Pillar of Defense. It was the fall of my freshman year. I had been to a couple of Shabbat dinners at Hillel, but found myself unsure of my own place in the Jewish community—Pillar of Defense confirmed the reason. Jewish students on campus represented by Hillel stood in monolithic and unwavering support of the Israeli military and its actions.
I began to focus on Israel and Palestine in a way that I hadn’t before. What I saw was clear: a militaristic, Western-backed superpower exerting its force against an oppressed people, resulting in disproportionate Palestinian deaths. While having breakfast with a new friend in a dining hall one morning I mentioned that I disagreed pretty strongly with LionPAC’s (the pro-Israel group on campus) strategy, which seemed to be an attempt to “other” and demonize the Palestinian people for active resistance against occupation. She would not let me leave the table until I stated clearly and definitively in her presence that Hamas was a terrorist organization.
I learned about Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership around the same time that I discovered Jewish Voice for Peace. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement is a call from Palestinian civil society to empower a dispossessed people through non-violent economic and cultural pressure on the Israeli government as a way of demanding accountability. As the center for Jewish life and culture on campus, Hillel seemed like the place for social justice activism, which, based on everything I had learned in Hebrew school and from my family, aligned with Jewish moral values and texts. The Hillel Standards of Partnership explicitly ban any groups that “support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel” from partnering with or existing within Hillel. This extends to groups that “delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Israel,” which pro-BDS groups are categorized as doing.
This was, to say the least, a confusing time. I found relief in the New York City chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, a strong and active group of politically engaged Jews resisting the idea that Jews ought to blindly support the actions of the Israeli government. A common refrain is “Not in our name.” Not in our name will we allow Israel to commit human rights violations and maintain an apartheid state. I read what I could, and I talked to professors, friends, cousins, and my rabbi. I wouldn’t have to renounce my Judaism, the religion that I had grown up with, studied, and understood to be deeply moral and just.
After almost two years of trying to figure out how I fit into the conversation on Palestine and Israel, I decided that I had to find my people. I thought seriously about what it would mean to have a chapter of JVP at Columbia. I attended several Students for Justice in Palestine meetings. After the Barnard administration censored an SJP banner which had already been approved by the Student Life office, I was certain that there needed to be a Jewish voice standing in support of Palestinian students on our campus.
I threw myself into creating a Jewish group of non and anti-Zionists, the community I had so badly needed when I first got to campus. I created a Facebook page and spoke to friends and fellow campus activists. We quickly formed a significant group of students, some anti-Zionist or non-Zionist, others unsure of where they stand, only certain of the fact that they have serious questions about Zionism and strongly object to Israel’s actions towards Palestinians.
My experience at Columbia parallels the experiences of many Jewish students on campuses across the country. But the high number of Jewish students on Columbia’s campus raises the stakes and intensifies the discussion of Zionism within the Jewish community here. According to Hillel International and Reform Judaism Magazine’s lists of “2014 Top 60 Schools by Jewish Student Population,” Barnard’s student body is 33% Jewish and Columbia’s is 30%. Both schools rank in the top ten of each list. Also, Columbia comes in at number four on the list of “Top 30 Private Universities by Jewish Population.” Very practically, this means that there is a larger group of students with more deeply rooted emotional connections to Israel’s history and reasons for existence within the student body at large. Regardless of level of religious observance, many Jewish students who attend Columbia and Barnard were raised in Zionist households that prioritize Israel’s control of occupied territories as well as maintenance of a Jewish majority within the country. The high percentage of Jewish students on campus makes for a vigorous and highly active center of student life, which is undoubtedly grounded in the Robert Kraft Center on 115th street. There are forty student groups or religious communities under the umbrella of the Columbia/Barnard Hillel. Students use the space, resources and community it fosters in a very active way. I fully support and value the existence of an international organization supporting Jewish student life on college campuses. My concern lies within the monopoly that Hillel claims to have on Jewish identity.
Hillel’s Standards of Partnership silence disagreement with Israel’s policies and deliberately exclude a large and growing number of Jewish students on many college campuses. This does a disservice not only to the non-Zionist, anti-Zionist, or simply anti-Occupation Jewish students, but also to Jewish students who need a place like Hillel, a comfortable environment that reaffirms their religious and political Jewish upbringing. As we know, college should be a place to experience new ideas and encounter worlds and people previously unknown. It would be incredibly beneficial to expose Zionist students, who have never had their political identities questioned, to views that differ from their own, within their own community.
Open Hillel, the national organization created to change Hillel’s Israel policy, has hosted events and organized campaigns across the country, insisting that Hillel International listen to students rather than donors. Swarthmore College and Vassar College have both declared their Hillels open and neither has lost funding from Hillel International, in spite of threats against Swarthmore by Hillel International CEO Eric Fingerhut. Both schools have seen enormous growth of Jewish life on campus as a result of this change.
But the difference between these schools and the Columbia/Barnard campus environment is clear. Neither of those schools ranks amongst colleges with the largest Jewish communities. Both are small liberal arts schools that receive significantly less funding from the international organization. When I inquired informally with several Columbia Hillel employees it was estimated to me that opening Hillel at Columbia would immediately risk a loss of $400,000. This money comes from individual donors as well as Hillel International, and both of these groups make their funding contingent on unwavering Zionism from all Hillel groups. The relative weakness of JStreet (which is a Hillel group at Columbia) in comparison to Aryeh, SJP and JVP shows this lack of support for any slightly differing opinions on Israel within Hillel. The conversation presents itself as strictly inside and outside, as Israel-advocacy student groups are funded by Hillel's ample Student Governing Board budget and given access to Hillel's privately-donated resources, while groups like SJP and JVP are funded only by the Student Governing Board.
Jewish Voice for Peace at Columbia and Barnard is steadfast in our support of BDS and our support of Palestinian human and civil rights. We would ultimately like to be accepted within the mainstream Jewish community. We have cultivated a thriving and respectful environment for thoughtful discussion about Jewish allyship to the Palestinian cause. It is a wonderful feeling to find a group of friends who share the same background, identity, and politics. Until Hillel is willing to accept us in that form, we will remain outside of the organization, focused on the demands made of Israel by the BDS Movement: To end “its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantle the Wall; to recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and to respect, protect, and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.”
// EVA KALIKOFF is a Senior in Barnard College. She can be reached at [email protected]. Photo courtesy of www.wortfh.org.
12/28/2015 Update: An earlier version of this article inaccurately said that Hillel funds Aryeh. SGB funds Hillel, which in turn allocates their budget to Hillel student groups, including Aryeh. The article has been updated to better reflect Columbia's student group budgeting process.