Hillel at Michigan, 1926/27-1945: Struggles of Jewish Identity in a Pivotal Era

Exit Adolph Fink, Enter Bernard Heller

The academic year 1930–­31 began with the departure of Rabbi Adolph H. Fink, who arrived in Ann Arbor from the University of Illinois where he had served as assistant director of the Hillel Foundation for one year (1925–­26) in 1926 to open the Foundation at the University of Michigan as the fourth such organization in the country. His successor was Rabbi Bernard Heller, who joined the University of Michigan from Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he served as the rabbi of Madison Avenue Temple for twelve years. The same issue of The Hillel News that announced the leadership change at Hillel ran an editorial entitled “A Bright Future” in which Hillel touts its achievements in the hope of attracting freshmen to join who are “new on the campus with but few friends and little companionship”—both of which, the piece asserts, the Foundation offers galore. But in the editorial entitled “Help Wanted,” which follows the previous one in short order, Hillel admits that “the most difficult obstacle that the Foundation has had to overcome is indifference—indifference to the purposes and accomplishments of the organization, and indifference to the organization itself.”[212]

In a passage of self-criticism, the piece then berates its own failures but promises “to listen to suggestions, and to adopt them if they are worth adoption . . . We are trying our hardest to improve the Federation, and you can make our task much easier if you let us know what you think is wrong with the organization.”[213] It appears to us that this was a lot of chest beating and blaming organizational shortcomings for the real issue confronting Hillel then and in subsequent years, perhaps even today: many Jewish students in the United States constructed and lived their Judaism in ways that did not accommodate Hillel. The paper congratulates Florence Frankel, a prominent and active Hillel member, for being named to the Law Review at the University of Michigan’s Law School, an honor that “few women in the University have attained in recent years.” The piece is introduced by the sentence “Again, the women are coming to the fore,”[214] which could well have been the headline of the next issue of The Hillel News in which there is a first-page story announcing that three women were elected as officers of the Student Council, with Beatrice Ehrlich chosen as its secretary. Touting Hillel’s social dimension, an editorial entitled “The Heller Banquet” urges students to attend this function, which surpasses mixers on many dimensions—not least, of course, offering a space for “Jewish students to get together and become acquainted.”[215]

Rabbi Heller seemed to have hit the ground running with an activist approach featuring his own involvement on a number of fronts. He commenced regular Sunday Reformed services, a feature of the Reform practice of Judaism foregoing the traditional Sabbath celebrated by its Orthodox and Conservative practitioners, testifying to the preponderance among the University of Michigan’s Jewish student body that adhered to the Reform movement in contrast to the other two; he began teaching a course on Judaism; he encouraged Avukah, the student Zionist organization, to offer a class at Hillel on the history of Zionism; and he seemed to be committed to broadening the religious offerings at Hillel on both an intellectual and a practical level. Under the title “New Plan for Services,” The Hillel News’s editorial mentions that “the Hillel Foundation is dedicated to the ‘social, cultural, and religious’ welfare of Jewish students. In the past the former two have been amply provided; the latter has evoked a feeble response. We feel that the three are at least of equal importance.”[216] It is likely that Rabbi Heller introduced various religious practices common to the Reform movement precisely as a way to attract Jewish students who appeared to show little, if any, interest in expressing their Jewishness in religious ways, which Heller believed was part of Hillel’s mission.

The five remaining issues of The Hillel News until the end of calendar year 1930 featured two large topics, each representing one cluster that we delineated above: the first pertained to Hillel’s role regarding gender; the second featured important questions pertaining to Jewish identity and Hillel’s role therein. As to the former, a short announcement on the front page of The Hillel News of October 30, 1930, entitled “Houses Which Accept Jewish Girls Listed” mentions how such a list will hopefully alleviate “many of the difficulties encountered by incoming Jewish girls in the past.”[217]

In Marianne Sanua’s first-rate study of Jewish fraternities, in which she argues that, among many reasons, the lack of available housing for Jewish young people on account of blatant discrimination against them was so important to these fraternities’ proliferation at American universities of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, Sanua says, “Residential discrimination against Jews in small college towns, which had long been a serious obstacle, intensified [in the 1920s]. As early as 1925, the Dean of Women at the University of Michigan had informed a visiting Alpha Epsilon Phi representative that ‘the problem of housing Jewish girls becomes harder every year.’ ”[218]

On the same page of The Hillel News, we read that a “Women’s Gathering” was to be held on November 12: “The members of the committee want this affair to mean as much to the women as the Smoker means to the men.”[219] But perhaps much more important was a note authored in the November 5, 1930, issue of The Hillel News entitled “A Plea for More Women at Open Houses by a Woman,” signed by a K. J. F., in which the author argues eloquently that the reason for the paucity of women at Hillel at any given afternoon when a visitor would find thirty men and five women had everything to do with the women’s sense that the men viewed any visit by women to Hillel as an attempt to land a date rather than to avail themselves of the fine opportunities, such as the exquisite books and great music collection, that the Foundation offered.[220] The author makes it clear that this pervasive male attitude of seeing women as predators who use their going to Hillel only to meet men rather than to enjoy the Foundation’s fine cultural offerings or its amenities makes women avoid going to Hillel just to hang out and have a good time. She ends her piece by exhorting her sisters to attend this week’s tea in large numbers to show that women, just like men, are fully entitled to benefit from Hillel’s cultural as well as convivial offerings without being seen as predators and threats to men’s peace of mind. This then led The Hillel News to respond with a full-blown editorial in the paper’s subsequent issue of November 12, 1930. Entitled “Women,” the editorial dismisses the letter writer’s reasoning and labels her argument that men see women’s coming to Hillel as merely a way to “catch dates” as “a gross and silly overstatement of the situation.”[221] The editorial then proceeds to argue that one of Hillel’s many roles is indeed to have Jewish men and women meet, which, in fact, constitutes one of the founding reasons for Hillel’s creation. The editorial then presents at length the passage in Hillel’s founding document that speaks of Hillel “as a place ‘where Jewish men and women on the campus might meet and share common interests . . . in short, instill in them a greater Jewish consciousness, replacing the isolation or absorption in the large student body that was previously the situation.’ ” The editorial emphasizes that there should be no reason lectures on Zionism or Yiddish or Jewish history should be any less interesting and relevant to Jewish women than they are to Jewish men. And for good measure, the editorial ends by asking the reader to look up to the top of the page where women’s names appear prominently on the newspaper’s masthead. All good, all fine, but the editorial completely failed to address the real fact of and possible reasons for the extant gender imparity at Hillel that the author raised in her original contribution. There is no reason such disparity should exist, the editorial concludes, but it does, which the response ultimately fails to address.

The other large issue pertains to matters of Jewish identity. In an editorial entitled “A Heritage,” The Hillel News touts the quality of its library collection as a crucial way for the students to connect with their Judaism, which, in many cases, has been all but lost: “Jewish students have often been told that theirs is the greatest heritage in the world, and, in the same breath that the future of Judaism rests upon their shoulders. And just as frequently has it been charged that they know less of their history and their people than any other group. In these problems the Hillel Foundation has its roots.”[222] The editorial then continues to mention that the Foundation offers a bevy of lectures and events designed precisely for fulfilling this mission but that it realizes time constraints upon students make it often impossible for them to attend these. Instead, the editorial argues, the Foundation’s library is chock-full of books in “histories, poetry, fiction, exposition and discourses, and biographies” that will enhance the student’s knowledge of and interest in many facets of Judaism: “Here is an opportunity for Jewish students to learn more of their past and to keep abreast of the present.”[223]

Three major topics that have remained as central to all of Jewish life today as they were then appeared in issues of The Hillel News in late 1930: the role of religion and its practice, the deeper meanings of Judaism and why it even exists, and discourses about Orthodoxy, Reformism, and Zionism. As to the former, the best presentation appears in an editorial entitled “Why?” Published in The Hillel News of November 5, 1930, the piece makes clear the frustration that the Hillel leadership must have had with not being able to calibrate the proper texture of religious services that would appeal to a large number of the just-announced nine hundred Jewish students on the University of Michigan campus: “For some reason there seems to have grown up a tradition among Jewish students on the campus that services are to be avoided.”[224] The Foundation had instituted Sunday morning services at 11:15 a.m. precisely to attract the most number of students. Still, an insufficient number, at least to satisfy Hillel’s expectations, seemed to appear. The editorial assures the students that services are not there to preach to them about the putative defective ways of their lives. Services are not preachy and lecturing. Nor are they a form of intellectual discourse on the compelling topics of the day. Nor is the addition of the Hillel Choral Group, recently formed at the Foundation, an attempt to imitate a Christian choir that sings at the students as some must have complained. Clearly, the position of services remained amorphous for the students then as they often continue to do in the present. The editorial concludes with the platitudinous sentence that services “fill a spiritual and inspirational place in his [the student’s] life that no other function or experience can replace.”[225]

In a fascinating editorial entitled “Why Religion?” The Hillel News of November 19, 1930, summarizes the main points that Rabbi Bernard Heller was to address at Sunday services, which were to be followed with much greater elaboration in his class on Judaism. Planned as the first installment of a two-part series with the ensuing topic being “Why Judaism?” (see presentation that follows), Hillel and its director addressed arguably the most central theme preoccupying most, if not all, Jewish students on the Michigan campus at the time: “These religious questions are being considered by students constantly. Raised in orthodox homes and taught to hold orthodox dogma as absolute truth, they soon come into contact with numerous conflicting ideas. These merely serve to throw them into mental confusion, taking the ground from under their feet, and putting nothing in its place. Finding nothing immediately to align themselves with, they often take the attitude that all religion is without a rational and pragmatic foundation, and call themselves atheists or agnostics. This is especially true of the Jew, and is prevalent among many of the Jewish students on campus.”[226] The editorial continues: “Most Jewish students know little of the past history and culture of their people. The origin and reason for religious practices and ceremonies have never been made known to them. Accordingly, when they find no immediate and pressing cause they abandon them, and thinking that these constitute all there is to religion, call themselves agnostics. Religion is not all ritual. When scientists, statesmen, and men of intellectual achievement and renown continue to align themselves with organized religion, there must be some firm basis for it. Students might well learn what it is. The world has always had religion and has regarded it as essential to the welfare of mankind. Can it be overthrown with a mere gesture and without deep and serious thought based upon a thorough knowledge of the facts? And if it cannot, ‘Why Judaism?’ in preference to Unitarianism, Christian Science, Seventh Day Adventist, or any other faith?”[227] While the editorial never provides any answers to these insightful questions, and we have no idea as to how Rabbi Heller responded to his own queries in his course on Judaism, it is evident that these were the topics comprising the core issues of Jewish identity at the time and quite possibly today as well: What is the religious component of being Jewish? What degree of knowledge about Jewish history and religion should one have as a Jew? Is the mere practice of rituals not vacuous and thus susceptible to leading to a departure from Judaism, since, with no content beyond such rituals, the religion and identity surrounding it appear superficial and even burdensome in a world quite hostile to Jews? What road could be easier to assimilation than the jettisoning of meaningless rituals! We found the list of religions mentioned in the editorial quite interesting, since it did not include the two main religions: Protestantism and Catholicism. We strongly suspect that Hillel at this stage was worried about Jewish students converting not to Unitarianism, Christian Science, or Seventh Day Adventism but rather to various expressions of left-wing radicalism that had come to attain popularity on campus at this time.

A companion piece featuring important matters concerning Jewish identity appears in this issue of The Hillel News announcing a lecture by Professor John H. Muyskens of the Linguistics and Speech Departments on the subject of “Habitual Jewish Apology.” Muyskens argued that there appeared to be a growing view that the Bible was not divine and contained a good many errors. But, so he submitted, “ ‘religion, to exist, must have an innate feeling which goes beyond the mechanism of rituals. But in the process of transmission this innate quality is lost and replaced by definite outward principles. We do want to be Jews, but we want to know why. If we are to make sacrifices for being Jews, we ought to get back what Judaism means. Let us have a complete reconstruction. Let us evolve a certain set of principles, convince ourselves that these principles are right, and then pass them on to the next generation for their use as a Jewish creed.’ ”[228]

In another editorial entitled “Smoking,” the newspaper explains why a nonsmoking policy had been established by the Foundation on its premises. “The reasons are these: There are on the campus a number of Orthodox students as well as Reformed, using the Foundation, and to them, smoking on the Sabbath is of course very un-Jewish, and decidedly against the grain. Students may find it hard to appreciate this situation unless they have been raised in Orthodox homes and have learned to hold such traditions in reverence . . . Jews are as a rule quick to courteously respect the views and traditions of non-Jews. Why not the same respect to the Jew?”[229] Of course, the issue here is about such marginalia as smoking. But the underlying matter goes a lot deeper because the editorial addresses three points that remained at the Foundation’s core throughout the period of our study: the proper integration of all Jewish students in Hillel, Jews’ role and demeanor toward the outside world, and, in turn, the outside world’s relations to and reflections on Jews.

We also learn from this issue of The Hillel News that Rabbi Heller donated 150 copies of his own books to the burgeoning Hillel library. The books covered a wide array of fields, from psychology to religion, from philosophy to politics. Their authors included an eclectic array, such as Bertrand Russell, Will Durant, William James, Mary Baker Eddy, and George Santayana, demonstrating the catholicity in taste and breadth in interest that the Hillel readership clearly had.[230] Additionally, the Foundation director informed the students that his personal library would be open to them anytime they wanted to avail themselves of it.

The issue of The Hillel News of November 26, 1930, informs us that the aforementioned Josephine Stern was to give a public lecture on “The Jewish Youth Movement in America,” once again underlining this woman’s central role at the Hillel Foundation and among Jewish students at the University of Michigan at this time.[231] In an editorial entitled “Gift,” The Hillel News thanks Rabbi Heller for his extensive generosity not only for giving the Foundation 150 copies of his books but also for opening up his personal library to students, which appeared to have particular value at crunch times when term papers and theses were due. Students had a hard time getting the books they needed from the University of Michigan libraries, with one of their major grievances being “that professors get first choice of books in the University library and it is a long time before they [the students] get them.”[232] There also appears in this issue of the paper a fine review of Shalom Ash’s tragedy Sabbatai Zevi, featuring the famous Sephardic rabbi and cabalist of the seventeenth century who claimed to be the Messiah. In another editorial entitled “Music,” we get a sense of how important—as we have come to see throughout this book—music was to Hillel’s daily life: “Of all the innovations that have been instituted at the Foundation this year, perhaps none is more noteworthy than the formation of the Hillel Choral Group to study and sing Jewish music. It is a significant stride toward the cultural goal which the Foundation has set for itself and which it is attaining more and more every day. In orthodox families Jewish and Hebrew music still holds an important place, and children soon pick up these traditional hymns and festive lyrics. But until recently it was confined more or less to them. The only other place to hear it was in the temple, and with the religious apathy prevalent among a good many, it may be safe to assume that they knew little about it.”[233] The editorial then continues to detail the growing popularity of Jewish music in American culture by mentioning the example of the Irish tenor Peter Higgins who, having sung “Eili Eili” over a nationwide radio program, was inundated with so much positive mail that he had to repeat it one week later. The editorial emphasizes the deep spiritual meaning of Jewish music by invoking the famous chant of “Kol Nidre” that commences the holiest of Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur: “The plaintive charm of that melody seems to embody the whole history of a race through thousands of years of struggle and hardship. To attempt to describe it would be futile. There is nothing else like it.”[234]

But, by extoling the creation of the Hillel Choral Group, the Foundation not only fetes Jewish music but also accords all music a central place in culture and education: “One hardly thinks of the word culture without immediately associating it with music. Anyone without a knowledge and appreciation of the latter has sadly neglected his education.”[235] Confirming this precise point is a short announcement in the paper that in addition to the Hillel Choral Group, various instrumental ensembles are also being organized by Hillel members all over campus. Music’s centrality in Hillel’s outlook could not be rendered more explicit than by these views and deeds.

In a lecture entitled “Why Judaism,” Rabbi Heller mentions that the word Judaism is found “neither in Yiddish nor in Hebrew, and does not refer to a creed, church, sect, or denomination. Instead, it means a culture, a way of life, a hope and an ideal. Consequently the question really means, ‘Why be Jewish?’ ”[236] After presenting some rather weak and tautological arguments, such as Jewishness “will perform for you the basic function of religion in a way that no other can” mainly because it “emancipates the individual from the material things that tie him down,” Heller ends his contribution by invoking the universalizing qualities embodied by Jews whom he liberally substitutes for Judaism.[237] For that purpose, he concludes by citing Ludwig Lewisohn from his The Island Within: “ ‘The Jews as a people should persist because the world needs a challenging minority. The prevalent and dangerous tendency of standardization in thought and habits can only spell stagnation. As a questioning minority, the Jews can perform a great service to the world.’ ”[238] In other words, Jews’ role—and presumably that of Judaism as well—is to provide a critical voice in the world, to be its democratizing agents, to perform the role of opposition and antinomy, and never to worry about its own particularistic problems. It was precisely this restlessness, this universalistic antinomy here extolled by Rabbi Heller, for which the Nazis and many others on Europe’s voelkisch far right despised the Jews as zersetzende Seelen—as corrosive souls wallowing in trouble and causing the disintegration of the harmonic lives of the organic, non-Jewish, Gentile, and Aryan Volk.

Lastly, Jacob De Haas, a Zionist leader, presented a lecture on political Zionism to students on December 10, 1930, under the auspices of Hillel and Avukah, in which he characterized Orthodox Judaism as a form of passive resistance and Reform Judaism as passivity with no resistance. Only Zionism, he argued, provided the active resistance Jews would need to avail themselves increasingly in the future. Interestingly, on the very same page of The Hillel News, Adolf Hitler’s name appears for the first time in the newspaper. The Nazi leader was mentioned in a lecture on socialism presented by Preston W. Slosson, professor in the Department of History at the University of Michigan.[239]

The second semester of the 1930–­31 academic year witnessed a continued debate about the role of religion in Jewish identity. Editorials named “Religious Emphasis,” “Ignorance and Indifference,” “Judaism Analyzed,” and Rabbi Heller’s chiding (though not denouncing) of Darwinian theory for not being able to explain crucial facets of the miracle and marvel that is the human condition continued to inform life at Hillel. The extolling of the genius of Albert Einstein and the favorable mention of his Zionism received coverage, as did a fine retrospective by a departing senior who extolled Hillel’s ninth semester at the University of Michigan and noted that its tenth coincided with his own graduation from the University. Oddly written in the third-person singular, the author thanks Hillel for having provided him not only with true inspiration but also with a fine sense of belonging over the past four years. He also mentions that he cannot help but feel that many of his acquaintances who could and should have joined Hillel in their freshman year, like the author did, would have had a much happier experience at Michigan.

Three items central to Hillel’s role and identity as a fulcrum of social life for Jewish students on the University of Michigan campus as well as the centrality of its educational mission appear in the issue of The Hillel News from January 9, 1931: the annual dance, Hillel’s offering all kinds of tutoring help for the impending final examinations, and the role of Hebrew at the Foundation at this time.[240] Commencing with the dance, an editorial called “Annual Dance” exhorts students to come to it because it “is the social highlight of the Hillel program. It is the one big opportunity of the year for Jewish students to meet informally for the express purpose of ‘having a good time.’ As such it is different from any other Hillel event, and certainly from any other campus dance. Here one is almost certain to know everyone else, lending an atmosphere that is lacking in practically every affair held at a large university.”[241] With these words, Hillel expresses three of its priorities very clearly. First, it is a “serious” institution with very high intellectual standards in which all activities—other than this dance—have some kind of educational angle and scholarly purpose. Second, this dance underlines Hillel’s social mission of being a fun place in addition to an intellectually demanding one. Third, with its annual dance, the Foundation also offers a safe place on the Michigan campus for Jewish students to mix and mingle among each other apart from the pressures of the outside, non-Jewish world: “The fact that it [the dance] will be informal should meet with unanimous approval. When originally announced as a formal dance complaints immediately poured in that it would be restrictive and would force many to stay away who would otherwise attend. These persons should have no objections now. One further consideration should be mentioned. It will probably be the last opportunity for social recreation until after final examinations.”[242]

This leads us to a brief presentation of Hillel’s initiative, announced in this issue of The Hillel News, that the Foundation’s Social Welfare Committee has arranged to tutor any student who needs help in her or his preparations for the incumbent final examinations: “A notice has been placed on the Hillel Bulletin Board under which those students who desire tutoring may sign their names and also the subject. The subjects in which tutoring will be offered will be those of more popular demand, numbering about six. It is expected that there will be about fifteen or twenty students for each of these subjects. No doubt these will be among the subjects selected: French I and II, Political Science, Sociology 51 and a History course. Others will be added upon demand. The tutors will be composed mainly of professors and some advanced students who are very graciously rendering their services on the expectation that students will take advantage of such an opportune offer.”[243] The article ends with an exhortation that no professors, we are sure, appreciated at the time, nor would they today: “Will all those students having old examination questions kindly contribute them to the Hillel file by leaving them with either Victor Rose or Hazel Greenwald. This file is at the disposal of any student.”[244]

As to the teaching of Hebrew, for which there appeared to be some demand, the Foundation directed all those interested to the University, which “offers two years of Hebrew, consisting of instruction in grammar and practice in reading, taught by very competent scholars. The so-called ‘scientific Hebrew’ is used (the Hebrew actually spoken in Palestine today) instead of the dialects which have appeared through use in many European countries. Especially valuable is the grammar, for while many know how to read Hebrew and perhaps understand some of it, they lack a thorough knowledge of the construction and are thus unable to adequately handle the language. In the University Hebrew is handled much like other language courses, giving one thorough grounding in the conjugation, sentence and word structure, proper pronunciation, and vocabulary.”[245] This was to change in later years when, as we will see, Hillel came to teach Hebrew because the Foundation rued the fact that the overwhelming number of Jewish students at the University of Michigan studied all kinds of languages—from French to German, from Spanish to Latin—but failed to enroll in the fine Hebrew classes offered by the University, in which most of the small number of registered students were not Jewish.

The growth of the Hillel library continued unabated. The books’ themes ranged from every possible aspect of Judaica to global literature, from music to poetry. Magazines included The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Time, Reader’s Digest, The Nation, The New Republic, The Christian Century (which was a Jewish magazine), The American Hebrew, and The Reform Advocate, among many others. In a front-page article entitled “Many Books Added to Hillel Library” published in The Hillel News of January 15, 1931, one cannot help but be truly impressed by the quality and bevy of books that found their way to the Foundation’s library toward the end of that fall semester.[246] The author writes, “The Foundation library has recently added a number of new books to its shelves. Though examinations are just around the corner [exams for the fall semester were held after Christmas at that time] and text books are amply taking care of all literary interests students may have at the present time, the books will undoubtedly see much use as soon as the impending scholastic formalities (?) [sic] have passed. The new books have added variety as well as numbers to the library. Topics range from ‘The life of the Bee’ to ‘Religion in a Changing World.’ A number of the volumes have been ‘best sellers.’ ”[247] But books such as Disraeli and Gladstone, Mother India, and The Rise of the House of Rothschild were just a few of the titles one can easily categorize as highbrow.

Hillel’s interfaith activities persisted. Thus we learn that Rabbi Heller and Reverend Fisher, minister of the local Methodist Church of Ann Arbor, will “preach a joint sermon at the regular Sunday evening service of the latter church, January 18 . . . Their topic will be ‘Einstein’s Cosmic Religion.’ The service promises to be one of the most unique held in Ann Arbor this year.”[248] This topic seems to have fit with Rabbi Heller’s interest and expertise, which, as we learn from another piece in this issue of the paper, centers on the relationship between science and religion, on which he held a sermon at Sunday morning services on January 11.

An interesting editorial entitled “Dr. Slawson” announces the presence on campus of Dr. John Slawson, director of the Jewish Charities in Detroit, who will speak on “ ‘Problems of the Modern American Community.’ And of special interest to Jewish students is the fact that Dr. Slawson is directing the program in Detroit to properly adjust Jews to a wholesome social situation, and eliminate poverty and dependency from among them . . . Most Jewish students on the campus probably know something of the problems confronting immigrant Jews on their arrival in America. Their efforts to become economically established, to adjust to a strange language, different customs, and a new mode of life, are probably not unfamiliar to many. Some of these do not immediately succeed, and need sympathetic aid if demoralization is to be prevented . . . Students should need no urging to be at the League chapel Sunday morning. The advice instead is, more appropriately, come early if you want a seat.”[249] This, we believe, was the only instance in which we saw the paper address the issue of Jewish immigration to the United States. We found its silence on this topic quite telling of the need to downplay one’s immigrant roots and origins. While this was in no way tantamount to denying one’s Jewish identity or opting for a seamless assimilation into Anglo-dominated American society and culture, it did bespeak a clear attempt to create a Jewish identity all its own in this “new world,” in the goldene medine, away from that of the “old country.” Let us also remember that with many of the Jewish students hailing from immigrant families, their class position was quite different from what it was to become in ensuing decades. Rather than being doctors, lawyers, and university professors, these students’ fathers were typically shop keepers, small merchants, or even laborers, with their mothers being housewives or working some kind of low-paying, low-status service job to complement the family’s meager income.

To Hillel’s credit, the services on Sunday, March 22, were conducted exclusively by women. Led by Florence Frankel, member of the Law Review at the University of Michigan Law School, this event was to raise issues concerning women’s role and position in Jewish life in contemporary America. Here is the article announcing this forthcoming event. Note the worried language written from a male perspective: “The woman, at one time, was crowded out of ordinary life. She was submerged in her family and cared little for religion. It is in this modern day, however, that the woman has asserted her rights. She has forced her way to the fore and seems destined to take her place in the front in almost all fields, science, politics, and business. Religion alone still seems to be safe. But is it?”[250]

But gauging from what Frankel said in her speech to her audience, men’s worries should have been allayed: “However, she said that marriage continues to be their [the women’s] chief interest and that the average Jewish girl who goes to college at the present time does so either with the thought of raising her value in the marriage market or of preparing for a career that will be a stop-gap between school and marriage.”[251]

A fascinating editorial labeled “Prejudice” addressed a major issue preoccupying Jews at the time and in the present. According to Professor Angell of the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan, “the greatest percentage of mal-adjusted students on the campus were Jewish, that is that the Jewish share in the number of mal-adjusted students is far out of proportion to the eight hundred odd Jewish students on the campus. This is a decidedly abnormal condition, and one which reflects somewhat upon the Hillel Foundation as the only visible indiscriminating organization for Jewish students here at the University.”[252] Interestingly, the editorial then blames this maladjustment of Jewish students not so much on external factors, such as discrimination against Jews and anti-Semitism—which, the piece concedes, still exists but is “slipping the way of all antiquities of an understanding civilization”—but on another prejudice that “is attempting to grasp for the power of the old one [prejudice] and is trying to squirm its destructive way through modern young Jewish life. We Jewish students cannot deny that there is an obscure yet prevalent feeling of internal prejudice which lurks in our midst. Our aged grandparents would stubbornly deny the existence of any such thing but those who daily wander through the world of modern Jewish youth are entirely aware of its presence.”[253]253 The culprit: Jewish prejudice against and disdain toward other Jews. The editorial concludes, “Suffice it to say that it exists, and should be blotted out.” And the best, possibly only, place to do so would be the Hillel Foundation. In other words, the intra-Jewish tensions of status anxiety, the ever-present but unresolved issues surrounding the desirability or scourge of assimilation, the difficulty of finding the right balance of religiosity—to name but a few crucial conflicts besetting virtually every American Jews’ existence then (and even now)—seemed to have taken their psychological toll on the mental well-being of many Jewish students at the University of Michigan in the early 1930s.

But on the whole, and these major problems notwithstanding, things seemed to be going positively for Hillel and Jewish students at the University of Michigan at this time. Under the headline “Unfortunate,” an editorial in The Hillel News of May 20, 1931, the last issue of that academic year, bemoans the fact that some students chose to smoke at the Hillel Formal dance in a University building where smoking was not allowed, which then led the University to revoke the usage of this building for future Hillel occasions. The reason we found this editorial of particular interest was the effusive language with which the Hillel leadership speaks of the University’s welcoming attitude and generous gestures toward Hillel. It cites the frequent usage of University buildings for various Hillel functions, the many members of its faculty that lecture at Hillel events free of any remuneration, and numerous other benefits that the University extends to Hillel: “The Foundation has been extremely fortunate throughout its existence in the fact that the University, both through its administrative officers and faculty, have constantly exhibited a very friendly attitude [toward Hillel] and have aided it [Hillel] on many occasions.”[254] The editorial mentions that the students were probably not aware of the smoking ban but affirms immediately that ignorance cannot be an excuse for malfeasance. Hillel’s public apology to the University for violating University rules and regulations on the part of some of the Foundation’s members appears to be contrite and genuine.

The fall semester of 1931 commenced with immense optimism. First and foremost, Hillel celebrated its occupancy of an entire building “with tall white stately pillars”[255] that lent the Foundation a hitherto unknown presence of authority and stature, not to mention fine new facilities in which to hold its events and offer its members a great space to meet. Instrumental in this move were Mr. and Mrs. Osias Zwerdling, arguably the most important Jewish family in Ann Arbor, who had very close personal as well as institutional ties to the University of Michigan.[256] Also influential were Professor and Mrs. I. Leo Sharfman who, without a doubt, represented far and away the most active University of Michigan faculty in all matters Jewish on campus throughout the 1930s and beyond.

In an editorial entitled “High Hopes,” The Hillel News announces to its readers that the forthcoming academic year will see a proliferation of cultural events at the Foundation that will surpass anything it had offered in the past. This included visiting faculty members giving lectures both at the Foundation and at the various fraternity and sorority houses, clearly bespeaking an increasing effort in the collaboration between Hillel and the Jewish fraternities and sororities on campus. There would also be dances, teas, an expansion of classes offered on varied topics, and an augmentation of the burgeoning library with the acquisition of the valuable collection owned by the late Louis Marshall, which he bequeathed to the Foundation.[257]

The following issue of The Hillel News presents all these new and exciting things to the freshmen in an editorial simply called “Freshmen” and concretizes its claims by listing the presence of two new courses at the Foundation taught by University faculty: a philosophy course on “Jewish Ethics” and a course on present Jewish problems taught by a “graduate fellow” in the Department of Economics.[258] In addition, a bevy of new all-women programs demonstrated Hillel’s attempts to include women in its purview.[259]

The presence of the venerable Boston Symphony for a concert at Hill Auditorium on October 27 led the omnipresent and multitalented Josephine Stern to commence on Sunday, October 25, something called “Hillel Musicales” (sort of music appreciation sessions), which were to continue every Sunday afternoon thereafter, featuring the Foundation’s extensive record holdings of classical music. First, students listened to these pieces together, and then they discussed them led by Stern’s expertise.[260] As has become obvious throughout this study, we were immensely impressed by the Hillel students’ high level of cultural sophistication in terms of their avid consumption of world-class literature and classical music. Thus we think that it is not by chance that Hillel referred to some of these organized music sessions by the nomenclature of “pop concerts.” To wit, here are two notes hailing from the fall of 1936 that announce such pop concerts: “The first semi-monthly pop concert will be given Sunday, October 25, at 2:30PM at the Foundation. Brahms Symphony 1 and Debussy’s ‘Afternoon of a Faun’ will be played. The second in a series of pop concerts will be given at the Foundation on Sunday, November 8 at 2:30PM . . . The fourth in a series of pop concerts will include Mendelsohn’s Violin Concerto and Schumann’s Quintette.”[261] Amazingly, Brahms’s, Debussy’s, Mendelsohn’s, and Schumann’s music qualified as “pop” for students in those years.

Telling of the obvious rapprochement between Hillel and the Jewish sororities and fraternities at this juncture, The Hillel News announced in an editorial labeled “Afternoon Teas” that the Foundation’s Social Committee had transferred the handling of afternoon teas to the University’s sororities and fraternities: “It is also the purpose of the Hillel Foundation to act as the center for Jewish life for Michigan students. It can be readily seen that for the accomplishment of this aim, the Foundation must form a close relationship with Michigan’s fraternities and sororities.”[262]

In The Hillel News of October 28, we encounter for the first time any mention of the economic depression. This happens in the odd context of asking for an extra quarter in the entrance fee to a Hillel dance (going from $1 to $1.25), which the organizers, as did the editorial, hoped would not detain anybody from participating despite the hardships that the Depression imposed on students. On the same page, there is a short notice on the passing of the great Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler on October 22 at the age of sixty-nine. Schnitzler’s brilliant plays addressed anti-Semitism in the Vienna of his time.[263] The last four issues of the paper published in the fall semester of 1931 tout the immense richness and “diversification”[264] of the Foundation’s cultural offerings, which, via the growing number of classes offered at the Foundation, provide a “rare opportunity”[265] for any student to avail her- or himself of diving into topics such as ethics, medicine, literature, politics, and economics.

In addition to this concerted effort to expand the Foundation’s cultural offerings and its attempt to include the fraternities and sororities in Hillel’s nodal role of representing Jewish life on campus, the most salient activity that fall was the loan drive, in which Hillel attempted to persuade every Jewish student on the University of Michigan campus to donate at least one dollar to a fund that was to help students hit by the Depression.[266] This Hillel loan fund must have lasted at least one year because it is yet again featured in a Hillel editorial literally one year after the fund’s creation. In this editorial, called “The Loan Fund,” Hillel makes the fund’s purpose and nature crystal clear by stating that “it is the purpose of the Loan Fund to aid these students, to become a buffer which will tide them over these critical periods in their college careers. It must be realized that the Fund is not fundamentally a charitable organization. It is what its name implies a ‘loan’ fund into which the money is returned by students who have been helped by it. This fixture eliminates the usual stigma which is attached to an outright acceptance of money, and adds to the general success of the Fund in its purpose.”[267]

The featuring of cultural events that was so evident in the fall term of this academic year intensified during the spring term of 1932. There was a well-attended forum on intermarriage. Josephine Stern was the main speaker at a major event featuring the work of Spinoza, arguably one of the greatest Jewish philosophers of all time. After presenting the play Caponsacchi, written by Arthur Frederick Goodrich and Rose A. Palmer, to campus-wide acclaim in 1930—a play, incidentally, that no amateur company had ever performed anywhere in the country—the Hillel Players staged an equally taxing production entitled Death Takes a Holiday (music and lyrics by Maury Yeston, based on a book by Peter Stone and Thomas Meehan), which, too, was widely hailed by the entire University of Michigan community. Both of these performances were presented at the University of Michigan’s well-known Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. Women, notably Josephine Stern among them, of course, continued their prominence at the Foundation’s Sunday religious services. And the Foundation organized a large exhibit of paintings and sketches by Jewish artists whose work had attained lesser prominence among the Jewish public than that of their creative colleagues working in other media such as music, drama, and literature. Lectures on Jews and medicine were presented in which topics such as Jewish attitudes toward autopsy, evolution, eugenics, and science were analyzed, as were medicine’s relations to such particularly Jewish topics as dietary laws and schechita (kashrut).

The appointment of Benjamin Nathan Cardozo as an associate justice to the United States Supreme Court became not only a topic for a Foundation-sponsored and well-attended public forum; it also led The Hillel News to write a very optimistic editorial called “Prejudice Weakening” in which the paper depicts a trajectory in America that has been positive for the Jews, leading them from a society that discriminated against them openly and sharply to one that now accepts them and has muted, if not totally silenced, its voices of hatred and discrimination: “In 1932 we feel that the sharp edge of the blade of anti-Jewish prejudice has been dulled to a significant degree, and we may cite the case of Judge Cardoza [sic] as glaring evidence of this fact.”[268]

In the same issue, we find the first longish article on the dangers of Hitler’s rise to Jews in Europe. That world seemed to be far from the world of America, which—at least gauging by the aforementioned piece in the paper—seemed to be a place of bliss for its Jews. Indeed, in the issue of The Hillel News of April 21, there appears a celebratory note on Hindenburg’s victory over Hitler in Germany’s presidential election.[269]

Tellingly, The Hillel News began the fall semester 1932 with a powerful editorial entitled “What Hillel Means.” The piece commences by detailing how most American Jews, certainly American Jewish students, experienced their Judaism: it all starts with learning its manners, mores, form, and content from their parents’ and communities’ practice of it, a phase that the editorial interestingly describes as “rather juvenile contacts” with Judaism. To be sure, the editorial does not dismiss or ridicule these as useless or infantile or immature, asserting that later in life, one returns precisely to these roots as a form of succor and comfort. But in between these two, shall we say, less-sophisticated phases of one’s Jewish life, a rich middle of learning, living, experiencing, and growing occurs for which no organization constitutes a better hub than Hillel. In addition to listing all the fine concrete items that Hillel offers to all students on campus (Jewish and non-Jewish), among which mention is made of the Hillel Players, the Foundation’s excellent library featuring books on Judaica as well as beyond, its classes on many topics centered on Judaism, and, of course, its rich social activities (such as dances and mixers) involving fraternities and sororities, the editorial invokes the educational and moral authority of Robert Maynard Hutchins. The famous president of the University of Chicago, for whom a college education was only partially about books and lectures and laboratories, claimed that “the development of character”[270] was much more important.

Under a rubric called “The Jew Today,” we read a short note about the travails besetting Jews in Germany and “the adjacent countries” followed by two relatively short and contrasting pieces. The first praises life in America for Jews in general, and the second lists Jews who had made their mark in American politics, most notably in this case contesting seats in the United States Congress in the forthcoming election of November 1932.[271]

But Hillel’s worries about reaching Jewish students the way the Foundation viewed as optimal remained extant. Rabbi Heller bemoaned the fact that B’nai B’rith’s spending about $80,000 per year needed to be amortized by more than mere attendance at dances, teas, and similar social activities. Such intellectually lightweight pursuits have their time and space, but Hillel’s mission centers on acquainting Jewish students with “the glorious history, literature and philosophy” of the Jewish people: “It is with this aim in view that classes are offered, services are held, and lectures are given. A sincere Hillelite is one who distinguishes the more significant from the less significant activities and directs his interests and energies accordingly, to the former as well as the latter.”[272]

Appropriately, an editorial entitled “Classes” published in the same issue of The Hillel News touts the difference between regular classes offered at the University and those offered by Hillel. Tout court, the attraction of the latter vis-à-vis the former manifests itself in that the former are compulsory and hence often met with the students’ boredom, bordering on disinterest—even “an attitude of antagonism for both course and instructor.”[273] This, according to the editorial, is clearly not the case with Hillel classes, in which the topics are of great interest to the students, and their relationship with the instructors are based on mutual love for the topics and the personal acquaintance between teacher and student. In “The Jew Today” rubric, the paper proudly presents that Colonel Herbert H. Lehman and Judge Henry Horner are running for governorships of New York State and Illinois, respectively.

The Hillel News’s exhortations to make the Foundation more than a place for social gathering continue in the subsequent issue of the paper with two editorials entitled “Debating” and “Services.” In the former, the paper’s editors praise the intellectual values of debating and how becoming involved in that activity enhances one’s horizons of knowledge and fosters oratorical and leadership skills. In the latter, the tone of frustration with the lack of student involvement and participation becomes marked: “[A] recurring gap of vacant seats greet those who speak at services. It is useless to bluntly ask why. One cannot answer a question involving what appears to be a fundamental flaw in Jewish collegiate life in a few sentences. The flaw can be described, however, as a peculiar lacking of spiritual interest which seems to forge itself into the make-up of individuals as they reach their college age, a decided indifference to one of the most powerful of history’s and the world’s forces, that of religion.”[274] In this version of “The Jew Today,” the paper warmly congratulates the victorious Governor Horner of Illinois and Governor Lehman of New York and mentions the beginning of the eighth academic year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

In the ensuing three copies of The Hillel News available from that academic year, we see passages that continue to address a clear malaise Hillel seems to experience with its role in the lives of Jewish students on the University of Michigan campus. In an editorial entitled “Spiritual Prosperity” published on March 15, 1933, we read that while Hillel’s efforts and results “have not been thoroughly disappointing, [they] have not been up to the standard that might be expected . . . Without attempting to take away any credit from those who have worked, it is clear that something is wrong.”[275] Despite the bevy of activities and resources that the Foundation has to offer the student body, there seems to be a lack of interest and commitment on the part of the latter toward the former. After listing these, the editorial concludes on a rather glum note: “Students as a whole are thoughtless. It is inconceivable that anyone could or would willfully deny the benefits of the Hillel Foundation . . . not only to himself but to the student body as a whole. This simply means that the Jewish student is not thinking, that he is careless in his judgment of values. Stop and think, view values in their true proportion and then actively join in the functions of Hillel.”[276]

In a more confident tone, the paper’s huge front-page headline reads “Players Will Present The Dybbuk: Famed Play to Be Enacted at the Laboratory Theater.”[277] This turned out to become one of the Hillel Players’ most successful productions in their illustrious work over the two decades under consideration in our study. Indeed, this particular Hillel Players’ production of The Dybbuk attained national attention. Thus The Pittsburgh Press of April 16, 1933, ran an article on Sylvan Simon—twenty-three-year-old graduate of the Pittsburgh-based Schenley High School—who, in addition to his postgraduate studies at the University of Michigan’s Law School, was also assistant director of the University’s broadcasting department: “His acting and directing with the Hillel Players of the University in an English translation of the Yiddish play ‘The Dybbuk’ has resulted in praise for the production from many sources . . . By augmenting the English translation of Dimitri Komonosov with pantomime and suggestion through the use of expression and lighting, the Michigan students have won praise for their simple and clear rendition. Encouraged by the acclaim, the Hillel group plans to send Mr. Simon and the leading actors of the group on the road.”[278] So things were not all bad and gloomy. There were clear moments of pride for the Foundation even in what seemed to be trying days.

That things were on an upswing by the end of that academic year is well revealed in an editorial called “Looking Back” published on May 3, 1933: “When school opened in September, the attitude toward the Hillel Foundation was one of morbid disinterest. However, since then, a small group of zealots headed by President Wermer and Rabbi Heller has managed to make Hillel affairs a topic of interest and concern to a large number of students.”[279] The paper also lists thirty-seven names of Hillel members that received various academic honors that year, which includes eleven elected to Phi Beta Kappa (Josephine Stern among them, of course). Nothing short of impressive!

Academic year 1933–­34 commenced with Hillel’s first concerted membership drive on campus. To Hillel’s delight, all fraternities and sororities supported this pledge, leading to 104 of their members joining Hillel. These students belonged to 8 fraternities and 2 sororities and paid a dollar each for a year’s membership in Hillel. With an additional 100 unaffiliated students joining the Foundation in October 1934, Hillel secured about two-thirds of the membership that it desired.[280] This increased collaboration between Hillel and Jewish students in the Greek system and received further mention in subsequent issues of The Hillel News, which reported a membership of 300 by November 23 of that year.[281]

Thus, for example, we are also informed in that very same issue of the paper that Zeta Beta Tau, the oldest and most prestigious Jewish fraternity, was awarded “the Cecil Lambert Memorial Trophy for being first in scholarship for the third time since the cup was donated.”[282] Even though there is no mention of this, we think it safe to assume that this trophy was under the purview of the Foundation, thereby demonstrating an institutional link between Hillel as the adjudicator of this award and the fraternities as its recipient. Perhaps less admirable from our current moral standards was the fact that the topic for the very first public intra-Hillel debate consisted of the resolution that a woman’s charm varied inversely with her size, with three men arguing on the affirmative side and three women on the negating one.[283]

Despite these collaborative efforts between Hillel and the fraternities, tensions between the two parties did not disappear. In a rather forcefully worded piece under the rubric “Director’s Column,” Rabbi Heller attacks what he sees as the Jewish fraternities’ dominant belief that Hillel only exists on campus to take care of Jewish students that are unaffiliated with fraternities: “This view, it is true, is less prevalent now than it was a few years ago. There is, however, still a significant number who hold on to that opinion. The truth of the matter, however, is that the fraternity man stands in as great, if not greater, need of Hillel Foundation than does the so-called independent.”[284] And then comes Rabbi Heller’s decisive punchline: “It is an indisputable fact that many men belong to Jewish fraternities mostly because the doors to Gentile fraternities are shut to them. Their Jewish association is a negative one—the mere product of existing social discrimination. The Hillel Foundation, through its religious and cultural work, wishes to convert that negative association or gregariousness into one that will be based on idealistic and spiritual motives and interests.”[285] Lest the rabbi’s stark differentiation between the negative association of fraternities and the positive association of Hillel be misconstrued, he invokes “the danger of provincialism” that the world of fraternities bestows on its members and contrasts this to Hillel’s milieu, which “includes Jewish students of diverse social, economic, and religious backgrounds and beliefs.”[286]

Apropos Hillel’s diversity, in the very same issue of the paper, there is an announcement under the headline “Hillel Foundation Is Real Jewish Center of Culture” that Hillel will be a coorganizer of the Spring Parley, the important all-campus activity. The Spring Parleys were an initiative by the Ruthven administration to foster dialogue between students and faculty on important themes and issues. Established in 1930, the first year of Alexander Ruthven’s presidency, they were administered from 1932 by the Reverend Edward Blakeman, head of the University of Michigan’s Office of Religious Education. Each year, a committee of faculty and students would decide on the theme and subtopics of that spring’s parley. Any student could attend the Spring Parleys, which were generally held over a weekend in April or May, and pose questions to the faculty on the topic at hand. In effect, the parleys functioned as a means for the University, and the Ruthven administration, to channel student concerns and grievances into a structured and disciplined format. Blakeman’s archives contain the notebooks for the parleys from 1931 to 1942 and, indeed, they appear to have been discontinued due to World War II. They were never revived after the war.

Hillel’s concerted attempt to become the undisputed center of Jewish life on the Michigan campus continued unabated, as the editorial in The Hillel News of March 15 makes amply clear. Written most likely by Rowena Goldstein, the University of Michigan Hillel’s first female president and entitled “Make Hillel Yours,” the piece does not mince words: “Numerous efforts to coordinate the Jewish populace on the Michigan Campus have come to dismal but undeniable failure. We who constitute this group are all characterized by a curious lack of interest, a bored complacency, a disinterestedness that we mistakenly construe as characteristic of worldliness. We are content to withdraw into a lethargic smugness and assume ourselves that ‘the thing will take care of itself.’ ”[287] The editorial then continues to argue that this inactivity and studied aloofness is not only unbecoming of Michigan students but actually perilous for Jews, given “current happenings.”[288] It then concludes that under “a new administration [that] has assumed the control of the Foundation,” Hillel hopes to attract every Jewish student, “including the worldly ones who seem to fear that a show of interest [in things Jewish and Hillel] will betray a spark of life incompatible with ‘savoir faire.’ ”[289] This, the editorial concludes, is crucial, otherwise this new Hillel “administration’s attempts, just as attempts in the past, will prove worthless.”[290]

In the April 16, 1934, issue of The Hillel News, we learn that President Alexander G. Ruthven enthusiastically supported the impending showing of “The Romance of a People” at the Olympia in Detroit. Depicting two thousand years of Jewish history, this was a massive theatrical production with more than two thousand people first performed on July 3, 1933 (Jewish Day), at the Chicago World’s Fair as a direct response to Nazi violence in Europe and growing anti-Semitism in the United States. Virtually this entire issue of The Hillel News was devoted to discussions of this pageant that was shown in New York, Philadelphia, and Cleveland—in addition to Chicago—before its arrival in Detroit: “ ‘It is a privilege to welcome this production and to congratulate those who have created it and are bringing it to Detroit,’ ” said President Ruthven, as quoted on the front page of The Hillel News[291] Only Rabbi Heller’s “Director’s Column” dealt with a different, though related, topic—namely, how being Jewish in America, though much more secure than anywhere else in the world, did not absolve the Jews of being a minority, which meant being always perceived as different, always observed, always judged. As such, hiding behind the wall of assimilation was futile, as was an attempt to disengage from being praised or reviled as a Jew in an absolving “I-want-neither-the-honey-nor-the-stings” opting out, which simply never help[292] Hiding one’s Jewishness, so the rabbi argued, is doomed to fail. This, of course, also meant that “in sportsmanlike fashion, [one must] be willing, it seems to me, to share the responsibility of the actions of those whom he [the Jew] would not consider a credit to his race or religion . . . The course, therefore, which the more ideal and refined Jew should pursue is not attempt to exclude himself from the group even as a matter of self-protection.”[293]

The issue of Jews’ standing on the University of Michigan campus must have entered a more acute, heightened, perhaps even precarious, stage by the fall of 1934, as a number of articles in The Hillel News of November 3 reveal. First, there appears a front-page appeal to all the Jewish fraternities and sororities to join Hillel with the added incentive of being offered a yearly free subscription to one of three publications: (1) B’nai B’rith Magazine, (2) Menorah Journal, and (3) Opinion. (We have no idea how attractive an incentive these publications would have been to a Jewish undergraduate in 1934.) Then the “Director’s Column” is a word-for-word rerun of Rabbi Heller’s piece published in the April 16 issue of the paper. Lastly, there is a triumphant editorial entitled “Jews on Campus” in which Hillel not only delights in the more than 900 students on campus who declared themselves Jewish but also assumes that of the 2,000 students who did not declare any religious affiliation, 500 must be Jewish, thus leading the tally of all Jews at Michigan to 1,400 students.[294]

However, in the very same editorial in which Hillel delights at such a fine number of Jews on campus (it remains totally unclear by what logic and metric Hillel arrived at the conclusion that “of this 2,000, it may be conservatively estimated that 500 are Jewish”[295]), there is a lengthy discussion about how the presence of a large and concentrated number of Jews leads to anti-Semitism. Even though unsigned, we assume that this editorial hails from Rabbi Heller because the first-person singular appears: “I can venture to say that if there were but a few persons of Jewish blood on this Campus, there would be absolutely no problems for us to face. However, as it is at present, we must face facts and regardless of what we would like we cannot help but see that this problem [i.e., anti-Semitism] really exists.” It is evident that Rabbi Heller seemed not to know the well-established global and, alas, timeless syndrome of anti-Semitism without Jews. Anti-Semitism’s presence and practice seem to have been independent of the quantity of Jews living in a given society. Be that as it may, here is how the Foundation’s director continues his telling piece: “Every Jew is judged by the action of his coreligionists. It must be remembered at all times that we are Jews and as such must conduct ourselves as befitting the name. We must remember that we are in a peculiar position and should at all times act in such a manner that will reflect only glory in our race. Let it not be said that any Jew conducted himself on this Campus in a manner unbefitting a gentleman. Only in this way can we hope to stem any anti-Semitism that may be arising on the Campus of this University.”[296]

Despite their broad generalizations about the status of Jews in Gentile society, Heller’s editorial comments were tied to a worrisome set of developments, as he saw them. Put simply, Hillel and the Jewish fraternities and sororities were not the only organizations on campus by 1934 to be associated with Judaism. By then, a chapter of the National Student League (NSL), a Communist-directed student radical organization founded in 1931 at CCNY—perhaps the most Jewishly identified postsecondary institution in the United States of that era—had been established at Michigan.[297] Furthermore, given its New York origins, its function as a front organization for the Young Communist League, and the visibility of Jewish students in its leadership roles, NSL’s Michigan chapter was very quickly castigated by conservative students as a redoubt of East Coast Jewish radicalism.[298] As the NSL’s Michigan chapter became increasingly visible in its political agitation, Heller, and Hillel more generally, were concerned that a growing number of students at the University of Michigan and the larger public beyond the campus proper would attribute such radical political activity to all Jews. Hence Heller’s editorial clearly sought not only to minimize the impact of the NSL’s activities on Jewish life on campus but also to remind radical Jews of the effects that their actions had on the broader Jewish community.

Immediately following the aforementioned editorial, there appears another one entitled “The Jewish Emotional Tragedy” in which the text bemoans the mutual disdain and contempt that reformed Jews and their Orthodox brethren feel for each other. But when calamity strikes—as seems to be the case with Hitler in Germany—Jews unite for better or worse and help each other. But there still exist outliers, whom the piece labels “renegade Jews,” toward whom the bitterness and enmity of the Jewish community for their not joining it and for their aloofness from it remain real.[299] And to make matters more complete still, there appears a short, untitled piece featuring the cosmopolitanism of the “Wandering Jew” who, throughout the centuries, was the bastion of Jewish scholarship and whose intellectual contributions might be threatened by a successful assimilation.[300]

The newspaper’s December 3, 1934, issue continues to delight in Hillel’s successful membership drive while still bemoaning that too many of the fraternity and sorority members choose not to join Hillel and opt to conduct their social lives elsewhere on campus. One editorial reveals its content in its title: “Join the Hillel.” The other, labeled “Attend Hillel Dance,” states that “we must face the facts, fraternities and sororities do develop cliques.” Then it pleads that unlike last year when only a few couples joined the annual Hillel dance, this year all Jewish students on campus, be they associated with fraternities and sororities or unaffiliated with either, must attend this festivity.[301]

The paper’s issue of March 10, 1935, once again features discontent with the University of Michigan’s ten Jewish fraternities and two Jewish sororities. But, for once, the editorial bemoans not so much the fact that this world is either rivalrous with Hillel or dismissive of it but rather the situation that its internecine fights are childish and counterproductive. The editorial, entitled “An Open Challenge,” reads as follows: “There are on the University of Michigan campus 10 Jewish fraternities and two Jewish sororities. These organized Jewish groups represent a considerable proportion of the Jewish student body. They could, if the proper spirit of cooperation existed between them, exert a powerful influence on this campus. But the spirit, instead of being one of cooperation, is one of rivalry and jealousy. The fraternities are openly antagonistic; no love is lost between the two sororities . . . The situation can only be termed, to use a slang expression, ‘rotten’ . . . The fraternity men and sorority women have developed the art of cutting each others’ throats with the sweetest voices and actions. For the sake of the Jewish student body as a whole, we must learn the meaning of ‘Co-operation.’ ”[302]

In a subsequent editorial called “Change of Policy,” the paper announces that henceforth it will regularly run stories that ought to be of great interest and relevance to Jewish students, even though these stories might have nothing to do with the University or even with the United States. But The Hillel News will feature them because it deems such stories relevant to all Jews. A case in point occurs in a column on the same page labeled “Max Warburg’s Farewell Speech.” This is the speech that the renowned Hamburg banker and shipping magnate delivered to his assembled colleagues of high finance, politics, and the maritime business at a fancy dinner held honoring his forced retirement by the Nazis. In this famous instance, in which Warburg was to remain silent throughout the sumptuous dinner while being bombastically hailed and falsely feted for his many accomplishments by his powerful peers, Warburg—to the surprise of all—stood up from his seat at his table at the beginning of the banquet and delivered a speech about himself and his immense contributions to the German shipping industry and to the country’s economy as a whole that he knew nobody of the assembled would or could ever give on account of his being a Jew. Upon finishing, he folded his napkin and departed the icy stares and stunned silence of the assembled.

The newspaper’s copy of April 15, 1935, provided three related and personally signed contributions that we regard as among the most important of our research on Hillel. Lending the topic’s urgency a definitive stylistic point, Rabbi Bernard Heller’s “Director’s Column,” which almost always appeared on page 2 of the paper, was featured on this issue’s front page, prominently occupying its left column. It is here that the Foundation’s director voiced his opinion on the profoundly sensitive topic that preoccupied the Michigan campus at this time: the increasingly fraught relationship between the Michigan chapter of the NSL—which was perceived in conservative circles to be a Jewish-led organization—and the Ruthven administration. The chapter had grown increasingly vocal in its political activities during the 1934–­35 academic year. Along with its pacifist platform, the NSL found itself a leading participant in a broad campus-wide campaign against Michigan football coach Harry Kipke, who decided not even to dress, let alone play, the team’s only African American member, running back Willis Ward, for the game against Georgia Tech in the fall of 1934 as per the Southern school’s demands that Michigan not have any African American players on its side when the two teams took the field.[303] Continuing its radical activities in the remainder of the fall 1934 term and resuming them in the winter and spring of 1935, NSL invited a British Communist economist, John Strachey, to speak on campus in March of that year. Moreover, NSL also organized a walk-out of classes in support of the national NSL’s annual antiwar demonstration in April 1935. In response to these actions, Ruthven chose to dismiss summarily four NSL members—all of whom were Jewish students from the New York and New Jersey area—in July 1935. They were William Fish from Newark, New Jersey; Joseph Feldman from New York City; David Cohen from Trenton, New Jersey; and Leon Osview from Elizabeth, New Jersey. In addition to these four dismissed students, there were two others that were suspended in 1935: Edith Folkoff and Leo Luskin. All students, with the possible exception of Edith Folkoff, were Jewish. Of the dismissed students, only “Osview obtained an interview with President Alexander G. Ruthven, and was permitted to resume his studies after an unqualified promise of better behavior in the future . . . President Ruthven remained firm in his decision against readmission of Fish, Feldman and Cohen.”[304]

In its campus publication, Student News, NSL’s Michigan chapter pointed out that the four dismissed students were all Jewish and from the East Coast, and Ruthven himself, in a letter to University counsel George Burke, indicates that this was a factor in his decision.[305] The turmoil surrounding this incident led a talented Jewish student from New York named Arthur Miller to write his second play. Called Honors at Dawn, this play in three acts, for which Miller won his second Hopwood Award in 1937, takes place at a large Midwestern university where a radical student’s activities in support of striking workers at a factory in the university’s vicinity are stymied by his treacherous brother who succumbs to the financial blackmail initiated by the university’s president and its dean at the behest of the factory’s owner and his personnel manager.[306]

In this politically heightened context, the Hillel Foundation’s director found it an absolute necessity to address the sensitive issue of Jewish student radicalism at the University of Michigan on the front page of the Foundation’s publication. The leading sentence of the untitled piece frames the contribution’s tone and substance perfectly: “Idealism to be effective must be coupled with prudence.”[307] Rabbi Heller continues, “Jewish students who are inclined to be radical in their social, political, and economic philosophy ought, it seems to me, to ponder a great deal over this bit of practical wisdom. I hope I will not be misunderstood as exhorting the student with deep and sincere convictions to abjure those convictions out of regard for expediency or a fear of the opprobrium of those who differ from them. If one feels that he must be radical, by all means let him be radical. Nor do I want him to be a clandestine or a ‘morrano’ type of radical. What distresses me, however, is the tendency of these Jewish students to protrude themselves to the leadership or forefront of such groups.”[308] Rabbi Heller then offers his reasons for admonishing Jewish leadership in politically radical organizations on campus and abetting or even approving of Jewish participation among the rank and file of such causes. First, the rabbi avers, the movement would prove much more popular among students on campus were its leaders not readily identified as Jews. And second, the overrepresentation of Jews among the leaders of radical movements poses a problem for all Jews on campus because, as the rabbi clearly states, “Jews do suffer by each other’s actions.”[309]

Both reasons bespeak a clear worry of anti-Semitism on campus and the rabbi’s—and thus Hillel’s—mission to protect Jews and offer them a world in which their being exposed to anti-Semitism be a bit curtailed rather than exacerbated as, per Rabbi Heller’s (and many others’) views, the presence of Jewish activism for radical (in this case Communist) causes inevitably does. The rabbi concludes his editorial by stating that “there are many who are disposed to see in the desire of Jews to be at the head and the helm of such movements a propensity to exhibitionism. One may not agree with such a version. It should, however, impel many of us to a greater degree of self-analysis and a more rigorous scrutiny of our motivations.”[310]

The bottom line is that for Rabbi Heller, it is a pity that Jews become radical leaders and thus embarrass and discomfort and endanger the larger Jewish community. If they cannot help but join radical causes, it would be best were they to do so sotto voce. Thus it is not surprising to find out that Rabbi Heller at least understood, if not welcomed or supported, President Ruthven’s decision to punish students for their radical activism on campus. Above all, Heller clearly rejected any notions that anti-Semitism in any form might have entered into Ruthven’s decision. He also drew an indelible line between Hillel and the radical students. Thus “Rabbi Bernard Heller, director of the Hillel Foundation and religious counselor to the Jewish students, says he does not believe that ‘religious or racial considerations entered into Dr. Ruthven’s decision. Furthermore the young men studiously avoided identification or affiliation with the Hillel Foundation. I can’t recall their ever participating in any of the religious or cultural activities sponsored by the foundation. It is not unlikely that their aloofness was prompted by the belief, current in radical circles, that their only valid associations must be based on class consciousness and issues [sic]. Granted that the general charges of the president are true, then his action is not unwarranted. Attendance at the University of Michigan—especially to non-residents of the state—seems to me to be not a right but a privilege which is conditioned on the proper interest and demeanor of the students. One may not agree with the administration’s conception of what is proper interest and demeanor, but I do not believe one can disagree with the principle involved. It becomes, then, a matter for the regents, the legislature, or the people of the state to decide—but not the courts.’ ”[311]

On page 2 of the same issue of The Hillel News there appear two opposing pieces under the overarching headline “The Jewish Problem and How to Solve It.” A reprint of an address delivered by Justice Louis D. Brandeis delivered in 1915 represents the Zionist “exit” option for the solution of the Jewish Problem, whereas the anti-Zionist-assimilation-to-America “loyalty” option is articulated by the reprint of an interview of Joseph M. Preskauer that he gave to the World-Telegram on February 5, 1935.[312] Missing in these two opposing versions, we believe, is the “voice” option that Albert O. Hirschman so brilliantly presents not only as a course of action but also as a frame of strategic thinking (exit, voice, and loyalty) for people, organizations, and institutions in a complex society[313]

The third piece of interest in this issue of The Hillel News also concerns the situation of Jews in America. An editorial quotes a letter by Franklin Delano Roosevelt written to Philip Slomovitz, editor of the Detroit Jewish Chronicle, in which the president tries to lay to rest for good the constant insinuations in Europe and North America of the time—and even today as still expressed in right-radical and neo-Nazi circles in Germany and Austria—that he was of Jewish ancestry: “ ‘In the dim distant past,’ writes President Roosevelt, ‘they (the ancestors) may have been Jews or Catholics or Protestants—what I am more interested in is whether they were good citizens and believers in God—I hope they were both.’ It is this paragraph that makes the Roosevelt letter to Mr. Slomovitz a historical document.”[314]

Of the four copies of The Hillel News from the academic year 1935–­36 that we found in the archives of the Bentley Library, it seems clear that issues relating to the Jewish people beyond the University of Michigan assumed greater salience. Thus, for example, in the paper of November 1, 1935, there is an appeal for all Jewish students on campus to join Hillel and pay a newly instituted membership fee of one dollar, which would give all students a free subscription to The Hillel News and free access to all of Hillel’s activities and facilities, including the newly established Dr. Louis Weiss Library featuring a bevy of English-language books on Jewish topics. Once again showing his respect for and commitment to Hillel on the University of Michigan campus, President Alexander Ruthven was among the dignitaries who spoke at this library’s inauguration[315]

We also encounter in this issue of the paper a detailed account of institutions in the United States having called for a boycott of the Berlin Olympics to be held in the summer of 1936: “Backing the Columbia Spectator, the Teachers College News and the Student Board of Columbia College, Dean Herbert E. Hawkes of Columbia College has come out in favor of an American boycott of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin . . . Labor rebukes Germany . . . Christian Churches: No . . . Allegheny A.A.U. Speaks . . . on record as favoring American withdrawal from the Olympics unless the Nazi government proves it is not discriminating against Jewish and Catholic athletes.”[316]

The next issue of The Hillel News, not appearing until February of 1936, mentions how the Nazis denounced Albert Einstein as the “apostle of Jewish physics.” We also learn that following the enlightened policies instituted by Kemal Pasha (known as Ataturk) in Turkey, Mirza Reza Phalevi, Shah of Persia, decreed that all Jewish ghettos be abandoned in Persia (subsequently known as Iran) and the Jews no longer be forced to wear the distinctive garb that they had to for centuries.[317]

The next issue of the paper featured an editorial called “Boycott Heidelberg” that appeared alongside two full-page columns under the headline “Reunion in Heidelberg?” In these, we are informed that the Yale faculty urges a ban to attend the Heidelberg festivities; that Harvard accepts the invitation to attend them; that English universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, London, Manchester, and Liverpool all decline to send delegates to Heidelberg; and that various petitions were signed at Columbia and Cornell to have the respective universities not send representatives to the festivities in Heidelberg celebrating the 550th anniversary of the founding of that university. Together with several leading American universities, the University of Michigan, too, was invited to participate in the anniversary celebration of Heidelberg University, the third-oldest university of the German-speaking world following those of Prague and Vienna. This invitation caused quite a commotion at Michigan, just like it did at most other universities, leading to intense discussions among all constituents on campus—faculty, students, administrators. Under the title “Boycott Heidelberg,” Hillel’s position—not surprisingly—could not have been clearer: “We are astonished that American educators, so frequent in their denunciation of Nazism, [are] becoming so ‘impartial’ when faced with an opportunity to serve the cause of human freedom. Hitler has destroyed German learning; he has openly challenged the research and experience of years of scholarship, and has driven men of achievement and ability from German universities . . . Will American universities now join in the Heidelberg festivities—to commemorate the death of German learning? Or will they repudiate this latest attempt by the Nazi party to hide its cruelties by celebrating the anniversary of what was—before Hitler—a great center of knowledge?”[318] The only telling matter here is the fact that in its impassioned plea, the editorial never mentions the University of Michigan and its leadership in particular, preferring not to implicate either by leaving it all vaguely in the realm of “American universities” at large. President Ruthven received significant correspondence from Jewish organizations and even Jewish members of his own faculty, such as longtime economics chair I. Leo Sharfman, protesting Ruthven’s decision to send a faculty delegation to Heidelberg.[319] The letters reveal a kind of collective incredulity that the president was unwilling to consider the symbolic importance of sending an official University of Michigan delegation to an event sponsored by a Nazified university.

A fine case in point is a public letter written by “George L. Abernathy, Grad.” published on March 11. Under the header “Heidelberg Decision,” Abernathy writes to the editor: “I regret very much that the University of Michigan has found it desirable to accept the invitation to be represented at the 550th anniversary of the founding of the University of Heidelberg. My regret is not based on the fear that the National Socialist Party will try to convert the anniversary celebration into a political rally, but on considerations of principle . . . The invitation from Heidelberg forces the universities of the world to come to some decision as to whether they wish to remain true to their liberal heritage [that the author in an earlier part of his letter identifies with ‘the primacy of reason,’ ‘the development of international technology and scientific culture,’ ‘the value of freedom and individuality,’ and ‘the faith in progress and humanitarianism’], or whether they wish to embrace a new philosophy of totalitarianism, racialism and nationalism. The British universities have chosen the former . . . Why has the University of Michigan accepted the Heidelberg invitation? Was it just a thoughtless and conventional acceptance? Or was it an implicit repudiation of the ideals of American university life? If it was the former, it is not too late to reconsider and to cancel the acceptance. If it was the latter, it is of sufficient importance to warrant much wider discussion by the entire university community—students, faculty, and administration.”[320]

Although it is difficult to gauge whether Ruthven’s insensitivity to Jewish concerns in this matter had any long-term repercussions, it does suggest some strain between the president and his Jewish constituency despite the president’s rather awkward view that his approval of Michigan’s delegation to Heidelberg had nothing to do with his personal sentiments about Nazism. Perhaps part of this tension was exacerbated by a short piece in The New York Times published on the Heidelberg controversy in which President Ruthven was mentioned. The piece, untitled and undated, reads: “The University of Michigan authorities today confirmed a previous announcement that two university delegates would attend the celebration of the 550th anniversary of Heidelberg University in June. This announcement was made despite the fact that the Nazi political machine would assume an important role in the celebration. President Alexander G. Ruthven of the University of Michigan stated that he believed that Germany’s presecuting [sic] of the Jews and Catholics had been no worse than Italy’s treatment of the Ethiopians, and recalled that academicians from all parts of the world attended similar scholastic ceremonies in Rome a year ago, which were presided over by Premier Benito Mussolini.”[321] Apart from the slight factual error that Italy’s war against Ethiopia had not yet commenced when these ceremonies occurred in Rome in the summer of 1935, Ruthven claimed to a number of people that he had been misquoted, his views distorted and misrepresented—perhaps even deviously so—by someone he trusted. This was made particularly clear in Ruthven’s reply to Rabbi Bernard Heller, the Hillel Foundation director at Michigan, who wrote a letter to Ruthven expressing the dismay these remarks had caused people in the Jewish community who felt that Ruthven’s attitude was clearly contrary to what they wanted the University of Michigan’s policy and action to be.

Yet what also emerges in the tone of the exchange between Heller and Ruthven is the obvious goodwill, trust, and close relations that these two men shared with each other and how much both cared about the University of Michigan’s public image and reputation. Here is Heller’s letter of May 11, 1936, to Ruthven: “My dear Dr. Ruthven: The enclosed is one of the very many letters that I have received with reference to an interview which a newspaper account claims to have obtained from you. I must confess that I am at a loss to know what reply to make to such inquiries. If you care to be of aid to me in this matter, I shall be very happy to avail myself of it, especially if it will redound to the best interests of the University and to the esteem which I know you were held by many of the writers.”[322] And here are excerpts from Ruthven’s reply to Heller written on May 19, 1936: “My dear Rabbi Heller: I am really surprised for, confidentially, the situation is as follows. I said to one or two friends, in the course of general conversation something I remember saying to you. It was that I was surprised the University had not been criticized when it certified delegates to Rome a year ago. Someone, and I do not want to mention who it was, evidently told this to the papers or to some reporter with the statement that I was using this as a justification for certifying staff members to the Heidelberg celebration. This, of course, is ridiculous and a rather disheartening experience. I refuse to comment any more on the whole matter. If my record is not sufficient to indicate my breadth of interest, then certainly nothing that I can say will be of any avail.”[323] While Ruthven may not have fully understood the importance of sending Michigan faculty to Heidelberg, Hillel—certainly at Director Heller’s behest—did not perceive this controversy sufficiently grave to address it beyond its aforementioned editorial entitled “Boycott Heidelberg,” which made Hillel’s stance clear in a general way without, however, embarrassing President Ruthven in the University of Michigan’s particular case.

The next issue of the paper, published on May 27, 1936, featured an across-the-page headline in bold letters the like of which we had not encountered in any of the paper’s preceding copies: “Hillel Foundation to Raise $3,000.” This was part of a national drive by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to help the Jews in Germany, if possible, and—better still—to help them depart from Germany. In addition to the article on the paper’s front page and the editorial labeled “Support the Drive!” there were a number of other instances in this copy of The Hillel News where its readers were urged to contribute to this important cause. None was clearer in its exhortatory voice than an entry under the “Reflections . . .” column, which was written in all capital letters: “IT IS THE DUTY, IN OUR OPINION, FOR EACH AND EVERY JEWISH STUDENT TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE JOINT DISTRIBUTION DRIVE. REMEMBER THAT A PRICE OF A FEW SHOWS WILL FEED A FAMILY FOR A WEEK. LET’S GO OVER THE $3,000 QUOTA.”[324]

Alas, we could not find any copies of The Hillel News for the academic year 1936–­37 or for the fall semester of 1937. We could not locate any issues of Volume XI or the first few of Volume XII.

However, we did find a few items relevant to our themes in the boxes at Bentley Library housing the Hillel scrapbooks for 1936–­37 and one containing “loose materials.” It is clear that Hillel’s irritation with what it perceived to be the Jewish fraternities’ and sororities’ persistent parochialism and their reluctance to engage with and in Hillel remained salient in this period as well: “Because of the dangers of provincialism and parochialism arising from the limited contacts afforded by fraternities and sororities, a need has arisen for student movements whose objectives counteract this tendency, Dr. Bernard Heller told 70 persons Sunday night at the Hillel Foundation.”[325]

This was not the first time that this Hillel Foundation director, like his predecessor as well as successors, expressed his irritation with the Jewish fraternities’ and sororities’ reluctance to engage with Hillel to a degree that was to the latter’s liking. Of course, there were consistent contacts, and the quality of relations ebbed and flowed. But somehow, Hillel could not rid itself of viewing the fraternities’ and sororities’ lived Jewishness as shallow, parochial, even provincial—much too concerned with solely experiencing Judaism’s social dimensions, while neglecting its intellectual and “deeper” meanings.

On other relevant matters, “Francis A. Hensen, widely known anti-Nazi and formerly executive secretary of the Emergency Committee on Aid of Political Prisoners from Nazism, who recently returned from a trip through the Reich on a fake press pass,” not only spoke on the Catholic, Communist, and Social Democratic underground in Nazi Germany but anticipated “that these groups will lead in rebuilding Germany upon ashes of the Reich.” Hensen predicted this to happen much sooner than it did, leading a newspaper to summarize his lecture with the headline “Hitler’s Reign Is Almost Over.”[326] Were that only to have been the case!

In a series on “Jews in Science,” Samuel A. Goudsmit, professor of physics at the University of Michigan, delivered a lecture on Albert Einstein, whose name The Hillel News mentioned with some frequency throughout the two decades spanning our study.[327] It is also clear that Hillel students at the University of Michigan were in no way bothered by Richard Wagner’s rabid anti-Semitism in terms of having that affect their appreciation for his music. Thus, in one of the regular music afternoons at the Foundation, students enjoyed excerpts from Wagner’s major operas, such as Lohengrin, Siegfried, Die Walkuere, Goetterdaemmerung, and Tristan und Isolde[328]

Far and away the greatest loss by not having copies of The Hillel News for this period was our missing out on what probably were detailed discussions and lengthy reviews of the Hillel Players’ presentation of Arthur Miller’s play They Too Arise, which was awarded the Hopwood and the Theresa Hepburn Awards in 1936. The Players presented this play at the University’s Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, where they had become regulars throughout the decade of the 1930s.[329] According to one report, “ ‘They Too Arise,’ the prize-winning play of Arthur Miller, ’38 . . . is one of those plays which by its sensitive character treatment sends you out of the theatre with the warm feeling of having been in good company. The material of the play . . . is a middle-class Jewish family in New York, the father a small cloak manufacturer. The play alternates between the scenes in the home and at the factory with economic stress and a strike creating a dramatic progression.”[330] Another report stated: “Arthur M. Miller, twenty-one-year-old junior at the University of Michigan, came home from a final examination in a history course Monday afternoon to find himself winner of a $1,250 scholarship award from the Bureau of New Plays in New York for his dramatization of an industrial strike, ‘They Too Arise.’ ”[331]

Our next issue hails from March 1938, in which we noticed two stylistic changes. First, the paper’s name had changed from the previous The B’nai B’rith Hillel News and the preceding The Hillel News to Hillel News. Moreover, while in all earlier issues an exact day of the month denoted the date of publication, now only the month appeared without any day.

As usual, issues of what best defined Jewish identity (in all its facets, from religiosity to nationalism, from culture to politics) remained central to Hillel. To wit, in addition to an editorial explaining the most basic tenets of Zionism, yet also making it clear that “we do not mean to urge the cause of Zionism upon anyone,” Rabbi Heller uses his “Director’s Column” to delineate the rich history of internecine fighting among the Jewish people over centuries. He employs this as a setup to plead with his constituents to attend Friday evening services, “which will be traditional in structure and yet esthetic and appealing even to the liberal-minded Jew. We consider it silly and stupid either to insist that all worshippers pray with donner or doffed headwear. We allow each to follow his own predilections. We love the Hebrew of the liturgy but we refuse to consider ourselves derelict when we translate certain prayers into the vernacular. Jews have occasion to plead for tolerance and liberalism on the part of Gentiles. They vibrate their pleas if they manifest an attitude of intolerance and bigotry to fellow-Jews, who may be disposed to adhere to customs which do not chime in with theirs.”[332]

In its ever-present quest to enhance its stature and relevance to all Jewish students on the University of Michigan campus, Hillel announced a massive reorganization plan in April 1938. All extant committees experienced enlargement in terms of their membership, and a few new ones emerged, yielding the following ten: Social Welfare Committee, Book Club Committee, Classes Committee, Hillel News, Forensics Committee (commissioned to commence planning on a thousand-mile debate itinerary across the United States to be made the following academic year by the Hillel debate team), Library Committee, Religious Committee, Art Committee, Forum Committee, Music Committee, and Social Committee.[333]

In an editorial entitled “Hillel Reorganizes,” which accompanied the announcement of Hillel’s reorganization effort, the reasons for such become clear. They are centered on what the editorial—in this case, signed by Nathaniel Holtzman, Hillel’s just-elected new president—preciously calls “mischievous inertia,” a sort of passive-aggressive identification with one’s Jewishness: “Nowhere is it appreciated that the antipathy of students to their race is not the only operating motive that impels even this elementary promotion of Jewish identity and activity. Most important of all it is the mischievous inertia of those of you who consent to your Judaism but refuse to assert and express it, a dilemma which perverts the reality of sound living that has given rise to this new implementation . . . A structure in itself is without purpose or meaning. It can obtain its necessary vitality only by harnessing the creative capacities of those it would comprehend. For this there must be an admission of the failure of mechanical indifference and the abhorrence of positive antipathy . . . Hillel is the only organization that can do anything really substantial for Jews as Jews.”[334]

In an ensuing and, in this case, unsigned editorial entitled “The Jewish Problem Again,” which was written as a response to a lecture at Hillel by Ludwig Lewisohn, an ardent Zionist whose passionate advocacy of Zionism’s exit option being the only viable strategy for survival for Jews in the United States and elsewhere in the Diaspora clearly caused much controversy. Some of the students did not share the speaker’s Zionist convictions and believed that the Jews’ fate was better served by their adaptation to, even assimilation in, America. The argument emerged that the best protection for the Jews lay in strong and lasting democratic institutions that would always successfully oppose forces such as fascism that were the Jews’ worst enemies: “The salvation of the Jew depends on the salvation of democracy. The Jew and the Gentile have a common cause, our bond. Let the differences in the fatherhood of God be obliterated in the brotherhood of man.”[335] In other words, reject the exit option in favor of a mixture of the loyalty option (adaptation and assimilation) but with a modicum of the voice option as well (in the form of being outspoken proponents for democratic institutions and avid opponents of fascism).

The panegyric on democracy continued in the subsequent issue of Hillel News in which a speech by Jonah B. Wise—the national chairman of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee—equating democracy with Moses received prominent mention. Only democracy can be the Jewish people’s savior from a situation in which “there is not one, there are a number of Egypts.”[336]

The Foundation’s director, Rabbi Bernard Heller, devoted his entire “Director’s Column” to the horrors befalling Jews in Germany and Poland. In that context, Rabbi Heller reprimands the Ann Arbor Jewish community, including the Jewish students at the University of Michigan, for underachieving in its donations to the Joint Distribution Committee, whose help to Europe’s Jews in need literally meant life or death for thousands, if not millions, of people. According to Heller, Ann Arbor’s Jewish population, including the University of Michigan’s Jewish students, hovered at around 1,400 people at the time, the equivalent to the Jewish population of El Paso, Texas. However, whereas the latter oversubscribed its quota of a $10,000 donation as its contribution to the Joint Distribution Committee’s national drive, Ann Arbor was having difficulties reaching its quota of a relatively paltry $1,600. Indeed, places like Orlando, Florida, and Fall River, Massachusetts—also with Jewish populations comparable to Ann Arbor’s—far surpassed their respective quotas. To be sure, students cannot be expected to donate amounts comparable to those of money-earning adults. Still, the apathy on the part of at least some portion of the University of Michigan’s Jewish student body appeared palpable and irksome to writers in Hillel News: “If after reading reports and explanations of the drive and its purposes . . . the Jewish students do not respond with vigorous support, there is little this writer can say here that will be of any influence,” signed by Morton Jampel.[337]

That academic year’s last issue of Hillel News was brimming with confidence and delight. Apparently, the major organizational restructuring assumed during the course of the year bore the desired fruit: the classes offered by Hillel created wide student interest, the $1,600 quota stipulated by the Joint Distribution Committee to aid the Jews of Europe was exceeded by $800, a new Sunday evening lecture series drew large crowds, noted speakers and socials highlighted Friday services that were much better attended than previously, and many new books joined the Hillel Library by authors as varied as Thomas Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger, Thomas Hardy, and Elmer Rice, to mention but a few. An editorial entitled “Thanks a Million” penned by Morton Jampel extolled all these positive developments and attributed much of their existence to Rabbi Bernard Heller in a tone that sounded eerily like a good-bye: “But the same influence that saw to it that the Foundation achieved its present height of success will prevent it from sliding backward. We are naturally referring to Dr. Bernard Heller. We hesitate to use such a trite phrase as ‘hero unsung’ but no other describes Rabbi Heller. We feel we are not misinterpreting the consensus of student opinion when we say were it not for Dr. Heller the Foundation would not be where it is today.”[338]

The first issue of Hillel News welcoming the new—and old—students to the fall semester of October 1938 ran an editorial with the title “Welcome Home,” which, we find, most aptly and succinctly characterized what the Hillel Foundation at the University of Michigan hoped to embody: “In a sense it is a paradox to extend an invitation to you [to participate in various activities], since the invitation comes in the last analysis from you. Hillel is simply the crystallization of the existing community of Jewish students on this campus. It is the framework, so to speak, of the community that would exist in chaotic form even without it. So when we invite you to participate in Hillel we are merely urging you to take your rightful place in the community to which you already belong. An invitation to express your Jewish interests through the agency of Hillel is not a call to join a few narrow pre-digested activities. It means that you are given an opportunity to experience here and develop here all the factors which enter into the eddy and swirl of living as a Jew in the modern world. As a democratic Jewish community center Hillel can invite you to help it be a cross-section of the Jewish life outside. Here for the first time many of you will have the opportunity to come in contact in social intercourse with many Jewish patterns of living which you may not have encountered before and which may be suitable to the mosaics of your lives. Welcome, then, to the complex structure of which you are a vital part. Welcome to your own.”[339] As is only appropriate, we read elsewhere in the paper that Hillel commenced this new academic year with a mixer in which “smooth seniors and foolish frosh rub elbows on the stag line to cut in on the many fair damsels . . . at the Union, with Charlie Zwick and his band furnishing the jam.”[340] The article ends as follows: “The following Thursday, October 20, after everyone has been well Mixed, the first of the weekly Teas will be held at the Foundation. These events are expected to make Thursday afternoons a popular social hour at the Foundation when one and all may gather for a bit of music, be it Count Basie or Count Beethoven, a bit of intellectual discussion with someone young and pretty, a bit of meeting new faces, and last but not least a bit of tea, as only it can be prepared by our Social Committee.”[341] From Count Basie to Count Beethoven just about aptly characterizes the Hillel community’s musical catholicity at this time!

In a column appropriately labeled “Outside Eden,” the paper informs its readers of the brutal realities that beset the world away from the halcyon campus of the University of Michigan: “Fascism has taken another goose step forward with the sell-out of Czechoslovakia by Tory Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain,” starts a lengthy piece that acutely analyzes this dire situation in Europe with a Jewish angle in mind.[342] Lastly, we are also informed in this issue that a newly instituted Hillel Foundation Loan Fund had become available starting this academic year: “Men and women in need of funds are invited to take advantage of this opportunity.”[343]

The November copy of Hillel News revealed to us immensely useful results pertaining to the geographic origins and religious preferences and orientations of Hillel members. Buried on the paper’s last page under the odd headline “Did You Know?” and hailing from a student census that the University of Michigan was conducting at the time, we learn that 132 Hillel members indicated their preferences for Friday evening Reformed services, 81 favored Conservative services, and 44 favored Orthodox services. We also learn that Hillel members hail from more than 200 different towns, “making an average representation of five students per town; that next to Michigan in state representation come New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio; that the largest number of students (163) come from Detroit; that 77 students come from New York City and 60 from Chicago; that 39 students come from Brooklyn alone.”[344]

In an otherwise cheerful editorial labeled “Saturday We Dance” and featuring sentences like “we were all one gang of happy Jewish kids having a heck of a swell time,” the reader is simultaneously reminded that there also exists an ever-present “conscious or subconscious feeling of uneasiness that undeniably exists among Jewish people in a Christian world.”[345] As if to reinforce the pervasive existence of this underlying insecurity, another editorial called “Sokolsky on Jews” exhorts the reader to “remember that one Jew to Gentile eyes, represents the entire Jewish people. Every word one may speak and every move one person may make, may be condemned or praised as a typical Jewish act. It is our duty to our people, as well as to ourselves, to remember the brand we bear.”[346] Heavy stuff, this!

Because we are missing the December 1938 issue of Hillel News, we cannot bear witness as to how Hillel commemorated and accounted for Kristallnacht, which occurred on November 9 of that year. Indeed, Michigan students demanded that classes be canceled for one day so that they—as a community—could honor the victims of this Europe-wide atrocity and protest against its Nazi perpetrators. This actually happened on November 22.