Latest News from Campus

The California Faculty Association is backing legislation to repeal a 2024 state law that requires public universities to enforce time, place, and manner limits on campus protests These limits prohibit violence, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination. Jewish advocacy groups supported the original law in response to concerns about campus antisemitism and student safety during protests related to the Hamas-Israel war. Dozens of local Jewish organizations have submitted a joint opposition letter against the new bill.

Bob Pollack and his wife Marion provided a matching donation to Hillel International’s Ruach Fellowship, a new cohort program training and empowering Jewish student ritual and songleaders. Pollack, who also has supported Hillel at Princeton University,  says he and Marion believe investing in Jewish community is a great privilege that has brought them deep purpose and joy. Their gift is helping to train more than 60 student ritual and song leaders across over two dozen campus Hillels, building joy and resilience within weekly Shabbat services and other Jewish experiences.

University of Vermont graduate Hadley Kalson credited their campus Hillel with providing an environment that supported both their queer, non-binary identity and Jewish identity. Kalson, who served as the UVM Hillel student president for two years, noted that inclusive leadership practices and programming like “Queers and Schmears” helped build the confidence needed to hold public student leadership roles. Following graduation, Kalson joins Hillel San Antonio as an incoming Springboard Fellow.

The Hillel at the University of Arizona appointed Shoshi Lipschultz as its next executive director. Lipschultz, an Arizona native and University of Arizona alum, returns to Tucson with more than 20 years of experience in Jewish communal leadership, including campus engagement work at York University in Toronto. She said her early experience with Hillel at the University of Arizona shaped her path in Jewish professional leadership.

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) police launched an investigation after an unrecognized campus group painted anti-Israel slogans alongside the phrase “By any means necessary” on the university’s landmark Fence. CMU President Farnam Jahanian denounced the messages, saying,  “[It] is categorically unacceptable for an anonymous message painted on CMU property to incite or imply support for violence, and it is equally unacceptable for members of our campus community to feel physically threatened or unsafe.” Jahanian’s statement prompted a second round of graffiti on the structure, this time directed at the university administration.

Initially developed at Penn State Hillel and supported by the Maimonides Fund, the Men to Mensches (M2M) initiative trains student facilitators to lead discussions on Jewish values and identity within their existing networks, including fraternities and athletics teams. This spring, Hillel International piloted M2M on 17 college campuses to address declining participation and leadership roles among male Jewish students. This model shifts professional staff into coaching roles while placing the ownership of the educational conversations onto the students themselves.