College Guide

It’s not everyday a celebrity pops into your Zoom call. But as the Coronavirus pandemic has pushed Hillels across the world to get creative with their virtual programming, it’s not uncommon to see a pop culture icon sit down for a video chat with Hillel students.

We are so excited to welcome our seventh cohort of Masa-Hillel Fellows. This fellowship is a seven-week professional development seminar designed to prepare the fellows of Masa Israel Journey, founded by the Jewish Agency and the Government of Israel, to work as Jewish professional with Hillel. The goal of the Masa-Hillel Fellowship is to build a talent pipeline and populate Hillel’s professional cohort with talented individuals and budding leaders who are actively exploring Israel and reinforcing their Jewish and Israel connections.

In the early 1990s, as the Iron Curtain fell in Europe, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Hillel Director Yossie Goldman noticed something of a trend—Russian Jews were arriving at the university and joining Hillel in droves. Through conversations with these Russian students, Goldman realized that there were more than 1.5 million Jews who remained in Russia, and he began to reflect on how Hillel could help them seize this newfound opportunity to form a strong Jewish connection.

At 2:30pm on March 11, 2020, just as our sephardic Jewish learning programs were finishing, Governor Cuomo shut down the CUNY schools for the rest of the semester. We were worried. Not because many of our secular students would lose their only Jewish outlet, or our traditional and orthodox students would lose their only secular environment, and not only because our students would lose their communal space for programs and personal growth, but because so many of our students relied on Hillel for some of their most basic needs.

While Gen Z, those born after 1995, are often known for being “digital natives,” like all humans before them they overwhelmingly crave in-person connection. Their adolescent digital lives are often disrupted in college by life-changing interactions, which we all recall from our own college experiences. Of the many assaults of 2020, the deleterious effects of the pandemic on college students and their quest for human connection should rank high.

By using online platforms like Zoom, Hillel International has strengthened its global programming efforts, connecting Jewish students thousands of miles apart. And for all those travel restrictions, it’s certainly been a very global year for Hillel.