NOW IS THE TIME TO BUILD A BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY HILLEL HOUSE ON CAMPUS: “IF NOT NOW, WHEN?”

On 14 May 1948, the United Nations voted to support the establishment of the independent State of Israel. On 11 October1948, I was one of 107 teen-aged boys and girls who experienced another foundational event:

the opening of the first Jewish sponsored, non-sectarian university. Wepioneer students found a haven and extraordinary opportunities on this vacant, 100-acre campus of the failed Middlesex University Medical

School and School of Veterinary Medicine. Both schools had been forced to close because Harvard, BU and Tufts Schools of Medicine had closed doors to the primarily Jewish and Black graduates of Middlesexwho sought residency training in local hospitals. Historic quota systems and profound antisemitism prevailed. During this post WWII period the unprecedented horrors of the Holocaust were just gradually being

disclosed. 

Fast forward to 7 October 2023, Iran-supported and trained Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, brutally, horrifically, murdering more than 1250 civilians and taking 200 hostages. The Hamas attack is recognized as the worst single loss of Jewish lives since the Holocaust. Over the past year, as the Hamas-Israeli War has raged, American colleges and universities and other international locations have witnessed the widespread outbreak of Anti-Israel protests and hateful antisemitic violence and harassment and violent threats to Jewish students. Hillel Houses throughout the world have rallied to provide safe havens and strategies for coping with the physical threats and harassment and the social, emotional, educational and intellectual effects. 

This recounting of recent historical facts is to put in context the purpose of this Letter to the Editor. It is a plea to thousands of students on the Brandeis Campus, thousands of Brandeis Alumnae/Alumni worldwide, President Ron Liebowitz and to his First Lady Dr. Jessica and the members of the Board of Trustees. NOW is the time to build a physical Brandeis University Hillel House on campus. Generous funding by Alumni/ae and other donors of all religious and ethnic backgrounds will

be necessary. 

Brandeis Hillel House will continue to work towards its goals of strengthening the community, providing diverse religious and secular activities, educational programming, and sustenance of identity and wellbeing. In addition, Hillel programming teaches enlightened, respectful, communal cooperation and tolerance. For Jewish people well

understand the experience of being “the other”. Hosting Holocaust education programs for the campus and the local commnities will also be better available.

Rabbi Hillel is especially remembered for his edicts:” If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, when?” and “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. The rest is commentary. Go and study.” The International Hillel organization is appropriately named! Elie Wiesel said, “In the place that I come from (Auschwitz), society

was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims and the bystanders. During the darkest of times, inside the ghettoes and death camps, we felt abandoned, forgotten. All of us did.” Our sages teach us

that Judaism expects that we are not to be bystanders but must take appropriate action and participate in Tikkun Olam.

Brandeis’s first President, Abram Sachar, came to Brandeis from his years as Chairman of the National Hillel Commission. The very first organization he urged our nascent Student Union to establish was the Hillel Chapter. We did. Since then, a magnificent campus was created to support education and knowledge building as a renowned university. Brandeis Hillel, however, has not had a significant physical home on campus for over 75 years.

What could be more fitting in 2024 than to finally fully support the building of a Brandeis Hillel House on campus?


Max J. Perlitsh

Brandeis ‘52