With San Francisco Hillel preparing to break ground on its major renovation, Jewish students have set up their new home in a temporary student lounge at San Francisco State University, where on a recent weekday they danced, chatted and munched on pizza.
The SF Hillel student community was already in a period of transition when things got a little more complicated. On Dec. 5, someone set a fire that badly damaged the Hillel house. Even though a move was being planned, the fire made the search for a new homebase urgent.
No civil suit is planned against the alleged arsonist, according to Roger Feigelson, the executive director of SF Hillel. Feigelson noted that the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office has stated: “It does not appear that the fire was set to specifically target Jewish students.”
Hillel students appeared to be making the most of the new space during a visit from J. on Feb. 18, celebrating the “grand opening” of their lounge in S.F. State’s central library.
With strings of flags running wall-to-wall across the room and a large red-and-white grand-opening sign posted in the middle, Hillel started its yearlong stay at the J. Paul Leonard library while its building undergoes a significant renovation and expansion.
“We’d always planned to be here in January,” said Feigelson, sitting in his new, temporary office with an expansive view of the campus. “We just didn’t plan to be here so quickly. We wanted to leave the building on our own terms, not someone else’s terms.”
Feigelson said Hillel is “just really appreciative of the university. They were very gracious and generous with giving us the space while we are under construction.”
The student lounge is on the third floor of the library, with SF Hillel office suites on the fourth floor.
Eshton Liu, a senior chemistry major and an on-campus ambassador for the Jewish advocacy group StandWithUs, shared appreciation while getting cozy on a beanbag chair.
“It helps give students a space where they can just relax, study, do what they got to do,” said Liu.
Feigelson said S.F. State’s coordinator for Jewish Life and Interfaith Programs, Annie Sterns, will host Shabbat dinners and other events through the S.F. State Office of Diversity, Student Equity and Interfaith Programs. The Jewish student life coordinator position was mandated by a 2019 settlement after two Jewish students accused the university of antisemitic discrimination.
Jess Stewart, 26, a senior studying in the broadcast and electronic communications art department, was fond of the Hillel building but also appreciates the temporary lounge.
“I really liked it,” Stewart said about the former space located about a block from campus and occupied by Hillel since 1982. “It was really cozy and nice, and it felt really homey because it was in a house.” Yet she feels happy about new space “as long as everyone’s together and everyone feels welcome.”
Feigelson said the library, located in the middle of campus, will be secure for Hillel students. He said the overall campus climate seems to have cooled since the anti-Zionist protests and a tent encampment in spring 2024, when student protesters demanded the university divest from Israel and become more transparent about its investments.
S.F. State has long been home to an active anti-Zionist movement. In 2016, protesters disrupted a Hillel event featuring then-Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. Two students later sued the university alleging antisemitic discrimination, resulting in the 2019 settlement that established the Jewish life coordinator position, among many other actions.
SF Hillel will break ground on its renovated and expanded site, named the Nancy & Stephen Grand Building, on March 29.