Dec 13, 2002 -- As he prepares to depart for the presidency of Yeshiva University, Hillel's international director Richard Joel is being lauded by current and former campus Hillel directors and observers of the Jewish college organization, who say he revitalized a once-struggling institution and made the college campus a major Jewish communal priority. Since he took its helm in 1988, Joel has shepherded Hillel to independence from its parent organization B'nai B'rith, deepened its financial ties to the Jewish communal federation system and brought leading Jewish philanthropists on board. Current and former local Hillel directors also credit Joel with bringing them unprecedented financial and organizational resources with which to engage much larger numbers of Jewish college students. Hillel's budget has surged from $14 million in 1988 to $51 million in 2002, according to Hillel's director of communications, Jeff Rubin, and the organization raised $210 million in its five-year "Campaign for Jewish Renaissance." "Richard has transformed not only the quality and quantity of Hillel as an organization and as an agency, but even more profoundly I think he has transformed the way in which North American Jewry sees Hillel and understands its mission," said Rabbi James Diamond, the Hillel director at Princeton University, who has worked at Hillel for the last 34 years. "He's raised the consciousness of North American Jewry to the positive possibilities and potential of the campus. And he has enabled us to see the campus as a Promised Land and not as a disaster area of the Jewish people." Observers attribute Joel's success at Hillel to his vision, charisma and organizational talents. Good timing also played its part: Soon after Joel, whose previous job was associate dean and professor at Y.U.'s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, took over the movement, the controversial 1990 National Jewish Population Survey data showed an intermarriage rate of 52%, and efforts to save the "vanishing American Jew," especially of marrying age, became a communal priority. Hillel also became the central address of Birthright Israel, a program created by several major philanthropists that in 1998 began offering free trips to Israel for college-age Jews. Current and former Hillel directors say expanded financial resources and new programs initiated during Joel's tenure, such as the Jewish Campus Service Corps, funded by philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, in which recent college graduates perform outreach work on campus, have helped them engage unaffiliated Jews. Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, director of Tufts Hillel for the last 24 years, said that during Joel's tenure the number of students active in his Hillel has "quadrupled," something he attributes in large part to Joel's leadership. Hillel has also expanded internationally during Joel's tenure. Working with the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Hillel has opened 27 Hillel foundations in the former Soviet Union, with the first launching in 1997. The Hillel system Joel leaves behind stands in sharp contrast to the one he took over nearly 15 years ago. Hillel's relationship with its strapped parent organization B'nai B'rith was known to be strained, and many Hillel directors say that staff morale throughout the system was low, with many campuses suffering from a dearth of financial resources. By 1994, however, Joel had successfully managed to gain Hillel's independence from B'nai B'rith. The following year, Hillel secured a new funding arrangement with the Council of Jewish Federations, a precursor to today's United Jewish Communities, under which Hillel became "the central federation agency through which campus services are delivered." "Would there be Hillel without him? Oh boy, that's almost a tough question. I mean how close were we to not having Hillel? I'd say we were closer than I think anybody wanted to admit," said Rabbi Abie Ingber, executive director of the Cincinnati Hillel Jewish Student Center. "Just for not having let Hillel falter any more than it did, I think he deserves tremendous credit." Indeed, in the process of transforming Hillel, Joel has managed to win over even some of those who were initially skeptical of the former assistant district attorney in New York who had never previously worked for Hillel. Rabbi Albert Axelrad, who was Hillel director at Brandeis University from 1965 to 1999 and is currently chair of the Center for Spiritual Life at Boston's Emerson College, said he was initially vociferously opposed to the appointment of Joel because he preferred a Hillel insider for the job. He now says he was "really wrong" and that Joel is "the most energetic and dynamic person I've ever been exposed to, and charismatic too." Rabbi Gerry Serotta, the former Hillel director at George Washington University who worked for Hillel for 27 years, said that Joel "gave us the resources to reach the almost unreachable." Today, he said, compared to other student clubs and organizations, "usually the Hillel is bigger than anything on campus at this stage. That was not the case 20 years ago.... Hillel is far and away the success story of the American campus, and that's because of the resources that Richard's been able to develop." However, Serotta added that as Hillel became "more connected to the establishment" it also lost its "anti-establishmentarian, creative edge," which he said "helped nurture the Jewish student movement in the late 1960s and the 1970s." "Hillels have become very strong Jewish community centers on campus," Serotta said. "They used to be havurot with intensive relationships with students and faculty and leadership training and high-quality Jewish education around the rabbi." Increasingly, he noted, Hillel directors are not rabbis. He said, however, that Joel has given Hillel "a much broader approach" that may have benefited "the masses of students." Still, there are critics of aspects of Hillel under Joel. Several people who during the 1990s worked for independent national Jewish student organizations said that while Joel deserves credit for revitalizing Hillel, during his tenure Hillel failed to create an atmosphere conducive to sustaining independent Jewish student groups and initiatives. And in a March 1999 Tikkun magazine article, a former student member of Hillel's international board of directors, Jeremy Deutchman, accused the organization of adhering to a philosophy of "bodies first, religion second," favoring "cool," entertaining events over programs emphasizing Jewish study and prayer. The chairman of Hillel's international board of directors, Neil Moss, said that Joel would likely step down from his Hillel post sometime in the spring. He said that a search committee composed of members of Hillel's board of governors and board of directors has already been appointed and will conduct "a broad and very open search" for a successor.

©Forward - Daniel Treiman