Our Children, Our Builders
Dear fellow members of Harvard’s Jewish Community,
I hope my message finds you, and those you love, well: that the lights of Hanukkah, like the lengthening days, are bringing ever-increasing warmth and beauty into your hearts and your lives.
Long ago Isaiah said, “Great will be the peace of your children” — a promise that has grown only more urgent in the past fifteen months. The sages of the Talmud, with their characteristic wisdom and wit, suggested: “Do not read ‘your children,’ but rather, ‘your builders.'”
The Talmud’s dialectic of children and builders captures the diversity and urgency of Harvard Hillel’s work: protecting our children while empowering them as builders. We hold fast to both of these poles: the need to shield our students from harassment and discrimination – and Zionism and Israel from libel – and the inspiring spiritual potential of the Jewish life that students will discover and create, with and for one another.
Empower Jewish Harvard Students Today
Through a year of advocacy and effort, Harvard Hillel has been the bulwark defending Jewish life at Harvard. Overcoming opposition to implement anti-Semitism trainings for hundreds of university staff; hosting weekly gatherings of Israeli and pro-Israel affiliates from across the university; building a diverse and effective coalition to reject calls for discrimination against Israelis and Zionists; advocating at every level of the university administration; supporting individual students as they file and pursue complaints with the potential to remake entire programs and schools; and preparing for work that will continue long after the headline-grabbing activism dies out – our vital work continues daily, often quietly but always steadfastly.
We not only defend Jewish life at Harvard, but ensure that Jewish life is beautiful, ever-growing, and life-shaping – and we do this by supporting our students as they step forward to build their communities. Two weeks ago, nearly 200 students voted in undergraduate board elections, choosing between two dedicated, talented, and passionate candidates. They selected Amelia Heller ‘27, who ran on a platform of making Hillel inviting, diverse, and fun – without compromising on our values of Zionism, kindness, or hard work.
Our staff work day-in and day-out with dozens of students who, alongside Amelia, are bringing this vision to life in remarkable ways. They’ve launched ApiChorus, a new Jewish acapella group which will tour in Israel over Spring Break. They routinely host sold-out events on campus fusing Tel Aviv culture with a finals-club vibe. Students revived Conservative Shabbat morning services, and are organizing numerous retreats this coming semester. They’re recruiting their non-Jewish peers to travel to Israel, representing Jewish perspectives in student government, and serving on Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias.
These initiatives do more than create vibrant Jewish life today – they shape students’ vision of their lifelong relationship with Jewish community. Through their leadership experiences at Harvard Hillel, students discover that contributing to Jewish life is not just a responsibility, but a source of profound meaning and connection – one they can and will pursue in the years and decades to come.
Your support makes all of this possible. Every gift directly enables student-organized Shabbat dinners in residence hall common rooms, retreats for emerging Jewish student leaders, and conference opportunities for Jewish ROTC students. Your contribution supports educational and cultural programs that bring Israel’s vibrancy to campus, while also ensuring we can maintain the enhanced security measures necessary for our community’s safety.
By contributing to Harvard Hillel, you are not only protecting Judaism and Jewish community at a time of vulnerability – you are also strengthening the hands of the students who are building a new Jewish life, and taking their first steps in writing the next chapter of our tradition. A gift to Harvard Hillel is a contribution to Jewish life today, and to Jewish leadership a generation from now, when it will be built on the broad shoulders of today’s children.
Hanukkah sam’each,
Rabbi Jason Rubenstein
Executive Director