Архивы Беркли Хиллел: 100-летие организации отмечено оцифровкой газет с 1927 года

Updated Aug. 26 With Berkeley Hillel’s 100th birthday coming next year, Rabbi Adam Naftalin-Kelman thought back to a day in 2009 when he was exploring the musty attic of its building on Bancroft Way. The space was, as he called it, a “mess.” “I looked through some boxes,” he said. “I found old dishes, old file cabinets and a box in the corner with these old newspapers. We took them out and saw they were in amazing condition, and we started looking through them.” What he’d found was every issue of the Hillel newsletter, going back to the first one, published on Oct. 8, 1927, the year the chapter was born (as only the fifth chapter of Hillel, which itself launched in 1923). The newsletters, a goldmine of UC Berkeley Jewish history, have now been digitized and will serve as the centerpiece of the celebration of a century of service to Cal’s Jewish students. “In some ways, nothing has changed in 100 years,” said Naftalin-Kelman, who in his 18th year has become the longest-serving executive director of Berkeley Hillel. “Some of the throughlines you see dating back to 1927: At the core, Jewish students are looking for community and fellow Jews to make connections.” Berkeley Hillel, like Hillel chapters across North America, is meant to be a home away from home for Jewish college students. Its goal is to spark “lifelong learning and friendships [via] Shabbat and holiday services, a weekly BBQ, immersive travel, and more,” according to the website. According to its latest nonprofit filing to the IRS, last year Berkeley Hillel served 1,300 students, prepared 4,500 kosher barbecue meals, hosted 3,000 students at Shabbat dinners and welcomed nearly 120 students to its Passover seder. To mark the centennial, Naftalin-Kelman and his colleagues have chosen not to stage a massive event or host a gala. Rather, they have started by creating a website, berkeleyhillel100.org, which features digitized, searchable facsimiles of every issue of the newsletter, from 1927 to 1957, when publication ceased. The site also includes statements from the rabbi and other Hillel leaders, as well as posts of memories from Cal alumni. In addition, alumni are asked to make donations as a way of saluting Berkeley Hillel’s contributions to Jewish life on campus. That premiere issue of the Hillel newsletter — called Hillel Happenings — begins with a declaration: “A new organization has made its appearance on the [Berkeley] campus… It is a wholly student controlled institution.” From there, stories abound, announcing dances, lectures, holiday celebrations and, occasionally, harbingers of dark times ahead. One story from 1928 notes news of a ban placed on “Jews and dogs in Prague.” A story from 1937 reports “sporadic rioting, ambuscades and murders” breaking out in British Mandatory Palestine. The archives also include historic footnotes: In a lead story from 1947, the newsletter announces the purchase of a building on Bancroft Way that will become the new Hillel headquarters. The institution remains there to this day, across the street from the southeast corner of Cal. Over the years, the newsletter underwent a few name changes, such as the Hillel Call, the B’nai Brith Hillel Call and Hillel Hi-Lites. Although the newsletter stopped publishing in 1957, Hillel carried on through the Civil Rights era, Vietnam War, Berkeley’s roiling Free Speech Movement, the Soviet Jewry movement, the Covid-19 pandemic, the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre and beyond. The centennial website includes testimonials from Cal alumni who thrived at Hillel during their college days. Former students state, “For the first time, Judaism was mine to choose” and “The value of Hillel lasted a long time after college.” Contributor Jason Leivenberg wrote, “I met my wife because Hillel brought people together.” Bearing witness to stories like that is what keeps Naftalin-Kelman in the game. “In the last two years, I’ve been taking stock of what it means to be a steward of this place,” Naftalin-Kelman said. “For 100 years, the organization has weathered the Depression, World War II, the Shoah and all kinds of difficulties. And that has given me a great sense of humility.” Despite forgoing a gala or major event to mark the occasion, the Hillel leadership hopes to recruit several hundred alumni to donate to the organization’s endowment. And there will be some events to tout the centennial over the next year, including a program dubbed “Shabbat Across Berkeley” in which Cal alumni host fellow graduates for Friday night dinners. For the annual Big Game between the Cal Bears and Stanford Cardinals, which will be played in Berkeley on Nov. 21, Hillel will throw a tailgate party, with alumni and students cordially invited. Although anti-Zionist and, at times, antisemitic protests have plagued college campuses worldwide in the post-Oct. 7 world, Naftalin-Kelman remains upbeat about Jewish life at Cal. “There’s a deep sense of privilege to be sitting in this place at this time,” he said of his post at Berkeley Hillel. “In some ways, it’s a gift. I feel that sense of awe being able to be part of this, and I’m inspired by what the future holds.”