The academic year is well underway, and with it, pro-Israel activists are gearing up for what they predict will be tough times. Boycott, divestment and sanctions resolutions will inevitably come up at colleges and universities across the country, accompanied by the type of acrimonious debates we’ve seen in past years that serve to heighten tensions and draw dividing lines among students.
The move to delegitimize Israel on college campuses is real. But it is not the sum of the Jewish experience that our students should encounter on their educational journey. We want them to explore their Jewish identities and find their own place in the Jewish community. That is what Jewish campus organizations aim to help them do.
Hillel is the largest and oldest of these, providing opportunities for Jewish engagement at more than 550 campuses in North America.
But there is another fast-growing national Jewish student organization, one not often talked about in the same breath as Hillel. Chabad on Campus, sponsored by the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, started outreach slowly in the 1970s and ’80s, but in the past two decades it has increased its reach to nearly 200 campuses.
Like Hillel, Chabad offers Shabbat and holiday programs, Jewish and Israeli-themed lectures and cultural events, and opportunities for young Jews to get together and socialize. Both organizations reach out to the same broad base, seeking to welcome all Jewish students where they are.
The impact of Hillel participation on Jewish students’ lives has been studied, but until recently, no independent study had been conducted on the effects of student participation in Chabad programs.
In this week’s cover story, senior writer Dan Pine examines results from a new Hertog Foundation study of Chabad programs at 22 American colleges and universities, the first such study on the effects of its campus activities. The upshot: Students who are most active in Chabad show increased markers of affiliation in every area, from Shabbat observance to synagogue membership to support for Israel. Studies of Hillel’s impact have found similar results.
Our takeaway? With evidence in hand that Jewish campus groups are doing meaningful work with longlasting impact, it would behoove the wider Jewish community to support them in the name of our Jewish future.