A Welcome Home for Orthodoxy

For many observant Orthodox Jews, the decision of which university to attend boils down to whether they want an education within a Jewish environment or a Jewish community in a secular environment.

For observant Jews at Columbia, a school with one of the most active and prominent Orthodox communities of all American universities, that trade-off is less pronounced, though nonetheless unavoidable.

"Columbia is a struggle. Diversity is a seduction. Jewish, non-Jewish, observant, non-observant-if they [Jewish students] don't find the nurturing for their religion, they lose their affiliation," said Charles Sheer, who served as the University's Jewish chaplain for 35 years, until 2004.

Unlike Christian communities, which are largely religion-based, the Jewish community has additional social and cultural identities, Sheer said. These make maintaining an Orthodox lifestyle more difficult on a secular campus.

Sheer said that the University's Jewish community, which he helped "conduct" and grow between 1969 and 2004, when he left the job, is central to the school's Orthodox population.

"The people who tend to be the most involved Jews are the ones who are most committed," Sheer said. "Their Jewishness will be an organizing focal factor of their life."

Though not indicative of the University's total Jewish population, the Columbia/Barnard Hillel mailing list has approximately 1,700 e-mail addresses. The National Hillel organization numbers Columbia's undergraduate Jewish population at 2,000.

Members of the Orthodox Jewish community are seen throughout Hillel as the most close-knit and involved of the organization. Yavneh, Hillel's Orthodox Jewish group, has an estimated 300 active participants, compared to around 100 for the Conservative Koach group and just dozens for the Reform Kesher group, according to the respective group heads.

"We have the opportunity to have the best of both worlds," Joel Ryzowy, CC '07 and president of Hillel said. "I think that the Hillel has a lot of influence in that. We have created the opportunity to allow individuals to come to a University that is not too affiliated with religion, let alone Judaism."

Sheer oversaw the construction of the $11.5 million, 28,000 square-foot Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life as his last major project. Before the completion of the center in 2000, Sheer said the "Jewish community had no place for religious community" and was based in the multipurpose rooms of Earl Hall. Though open to the entire Hillel community, the Kraft Center has primarily been a focal point for the Orthodox and more observant within Jewish community, a place where they can pray three times a day, take on Jewish studies between classes, or socialize.

Eitan Bendavid, CC '07 and one of the Kraft Center's frequenters, says that he prays three times a day, studies the rabbinical biblical commentary of the Talmud on a daily basis for two hours, teaches an extracurricular class on Jewish philosophy twice a week, and sits on a committee overseeing advanced study of the Torah and Talmud. He came to Columbia with a group of friends, many of whom knew him from his private Jewish day school in New Jersey or from his stints in Israel, where he served in the military and engaged in religious studies.

He said that when it came to choosing between Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, which has a comparable Jewish population, he chose Columbia because "here, they are more interested in having an education outside of the classroom."

Despite this comfort, Bendavid said that shortly after coming to study at Columbia, he had considered transferring to Yeshiva University in Upper Manhattan, where Jewish studies are learned side-by-side with secular studies in the curriculum.

"I thought it would be easier to study Jewish studies with my secular studies [at Yeshiva]," he said. "It's not one that is more important than another. I wish I could do both and really become an educated person in all areas."

Ira Miller, dean of the private Orthodox-centric Ramaz Upper School on the Upper East Side, said that attending Columbia is an attractive accomplishment for his school's students. In the past two graduating classes, averaging around 110 students each, 13 students chose to attend Columbia, compared to 30 who chose New York University and 27 who selected Yeshiva University or its all-girls subsidiary, Stern College.

"Someone who chooses YU is someone who wants a dual program in secular and Jewish studies. That's not the same thing as going to a school with a strong Jewish community for a secular education," Miller said. "I am very pleased with the number of students who attend Columbia from Ramaz. It's an excellent school in the Ivy League."

Yavneh President Jeremy Bressman, CC '08, outlined the obvious differences between Columbia, a school with an Ivy League reputation, and Yeshiva, where the academic schedule makes it easier to be Orthodox.

"One of the advantages at Columbia is the ability to create your own community," Bressman said. "The fact that there is diversity is good in that it helps people find what they want and need."

The University has not always embraced Jewish students. In his book Stand, Columbia, Barnard historian Robert McCaughey wrote that the University tried to reduce the ratio of Jewish students to traditionally American Protestants by adopting admissions and financial aid policies that negatively affected prospective Jewish students.

Yet, despite not always having the University's support, Columbia's Jewish institutions are among the oldest in American secular universities. In 1929, Columbia's Jewish Advisory Board and the position of "Counselor to Jewish Students" were created. And in 1970, following the disbanding of the Office of the University Chaplain during a protest-plagued period, about half of a dozen groups encompassing various strands of Judaism created the loosely formed Council of Jewish Organizations, which grew to become the Jewish Student Union in 1990. This group officially adopted the name Hillel in 2000.

Today, the presence of Orthodox Jews within Yavneh's membership has brought about broader effects on the other active religious members of the group. Danielle Klapper, GS/JTS '07 and a leader of Koach, said that the Conservative Jewish community on Columbia's campus seems to tend to the more observant at Columbia than at most other campuses, where Orthodox communities are smaller.

"There's a preponderance of a lot of people from the Orthodox community that make sure that they put into their time in Hillel," Klapper said. "The Orthodox group influences our group [Koach] because they are so strong. It pulls us a little."