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Hillels Are Under Attack

(Atlantic) Mayim Bialik - In 1923, as elite American universities began adopting quotas restricting the number of Jews they admitted, the Hillel organization was formed to provide a home for Jewish students on campus where they could congregate to pray, socialize, and feel welcome. Hillel has been the central address for Jewish life at colleges and universities ever since. When I was a student at UCLA, overwhelmed by the size of the university, I found at Hillel a smaller group of individuals with whom I shared values, history, and a sense of cultural belonging, and formed relationships that have lasted my entire adult life. That is why I have been heartbroken and horrified in recent months as the broader Hillel organization has become the target of regular threats and attacks, a dynamic that emerged after Oct. 7 and that appears to have grown more frequent and intense. It is, to put it plainly, undemocratic to support the tactics of drowning out and protesting Israeli or Jewish speakers simply because they are Jewish. It needs to be called out for what it is: anti-Semitism. It is anti-Semitic to seek to deny Jewish students the ability to access the most important organization for Jewish life on campus. We cannot allow this to be normalized. I have been uninvited from venues since Oct. 7 simply because I am Jewish. I have been shouted down, asked to leave, accused of a hatred I know not how to summon. And my response is one that I and generations of students have learned at Hillel. Hillel teaches that we should not be afraid to be Jewish. We can be proud to be American. And we deserve the rights and privileges awarded to every minority on campus: a safe place to gather, to pray, to learn, and to fight for what is right. The writer is an actress and neuroscientist.
2024-10-13 00:00:00
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