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The Back Page: �We are not connecting effectively with young Jews�
Avraham Infeld
Avraham Infeld, the South-African born Israeli educator who founded Melitz (an organization dedicated to enhancing Jewish education), has spent the last year touring campuses and Hillel Foundations in the United States, the former Soviet Union and Latin America. Just before leaving Jerusalem for Washington, to take up the post of interim president of Hillel International, Infeld talked to The Report about how the leading Jewish campus organization must go about bringing Jewish students back into the fold.
The Jerusalem Report: What can you do about the situation Luntz describes?
Avraham Infeld: Hillel works with students who arrive on campus, it hasn�t created them. What they are when we encounter them is the result of whatever the Jewish community has managed to accomplish before they enter college. The job of a Hillel House used to be provide Jewish kids with kosher food and a place to pray. Today most Jewish kids don�t come to campuses with a perceived Jewish need, and we have to create it.
Some kids have who have been heavily involved in Jewish organizations in high school often arrive on campus and say: "I want to take a break. Now I�m away from home, and there are so many new ideas out there." Our challenge is to keep them engaged. Others have never been involved in Jewish life, and we must begin to engage them.
Why do you think so many Jewish students are turned off today?
Nowadays Jews want to decide for themselves how they want to be Jewish. They don�t want to be dictated to by their rabbis; they don�t want the Jewish establishment to tell them what it means to be Jewish. � We have to challenge kids to think and offer them options. We have to say to them: There are many ways in which you can identify as a Jew; pick the one best for you.
How do you reach them?
By a program of engagement and especially by finding the "coolest" Jews on campus and saying to them: Don�t worry about bringing Jews into the Hillel House. Go out to the fraternity houses, to the dorms, to wherever students mix, and start talking to kids about being Jewish. We have a program called the Judy and Michael Steinhardt Fellows that recruits kids who are really "with it," have been turned on either by Birthright or another program, and are prepared to remain on campus for a fifth year in order to play this role.
And how do they go about it?
The Luntz report shows that the word that most attracts students is "family." If you address students as a member of your family -- which means talking out of a sense of love and concern, not preaching or dictating to them -- you have a greater chance of succeeding.
What percentage of Jewish kids does Hillel reach?
I don�t believe we�re reaching more than a third of the Jewish kids on campus. And if I were asked whether it�s better to reach more of them or to intensify what we�re doing with that third, I�m not sure about the answer. Often, if you create a flame -- a real fire -- in the one-third you have, they will attract the others.
Why is identification with Israel at such a nadir?
Tragically, Jewish education in North America has taught our kids that Judaism is only a religion. Israel doesn�t make sense if Judaism is just a religion. We�ve forgotten to teach them that we�re a people. They don�t remember the Shoah. They don�t remember the excitement of Israel�s creation. For some of them, the Rabin assassination was their introduction to Israel, and Israel is the intifada.
This is going to get me into a lot of trouble, but I�ll say it anyway: The Jewish establishment�s expectation that students should be whole-hog supporters of Israel is real chutzpah. Why shouldn�t these youngsters be critical? If, a month ago, a Jewish student had said what Sharon said three weeks ago -- that occupation is evil -- he would have been attacked as being anti-Israel. But if a kid feels that way, why shouldn�t he be encouraged to say it within the "family." That�s why we�re talking to Jewish kids not about liking Israel but about loving it -- because love is not dependent on specific behavior. You can love something without liking it and struggle to change it.
And why are they so alienated from the community?
A big part of our problem is the establishment�s message that being Jewish means caring only for other Jews. To my mind, being Jewish means caring for the world. Tikkun olam (reforming the world) doesn�t mean making this a better place for Jews alone; it means making it a better place, period. When you talk to Jewish students this way, their reaction is: Wow! That�s why Hillel organizes Jewish students to go to South America and work with the poor. Caring about others makes you more Jewish.
Hillel is run on the concept of being a "big tent." Some kids will be turned on by hesed (helping one�s fellow man); others will be engaged by Israel, or by religion, or by social activities.Our challenge is to provide opportunities to engage in all these things.
Ina Friedman
Middle East
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