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PrintDid you benefit from your campus Hillel experience?
Do you now live in Northern New Jersey?
Did you attend one of the four colleges served by the Hillel of Northern New Jersey?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, the Hillel committee of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey wants your help.
“The people we know who were involved with Hillel have such great memories,” says committee co-chair Howard Chernin. “I’d love to bring all those people together, so Rabbi Allen can talk to them and they can all talk to the students. We would love to get people involved with Hillel activities and events.”
Chernin himself was not involved with Jewish life when he was a student at Fairleigh Dickinson; he is not certain whether there even was a Hillel there. As he moved his daughter into Tulane University last week, however, he was impressed by Hillel’s presence at the New Orleans school.
“We need to look at our program and see how we can improve it,” he said.
Co-chair Lauri Bader also sent her children to campuses with a larger Jewish campus presence.
“There were a lot of Jewish kids, lots of choices, Hillel and Chabad, plus there were so many Jewish kids that they didn’t necessarily need programs,” she said.
“On our campuses here in Northern New Jersey, there are not a lot of Jewish kids, and no other programs. Hillel is it. If you want to be connected to other Jewish kids and be doing Jewish things, Hillel is the only way to go,” she said.
To join the Hillel committee, or to find out how to get involved, contact Rabbi Ely Allen at (201) 820-3905 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
More on: Back to school
Hillel’s hardworking honcho
Serving four campuses while standing on one foot
When Ely Allen was a student at Fairleigh Dickinson University, a Chabad Lubavitch rabbi asked him to help recruit students for Jewish events on campus.
“Why would I want to do that?” asked Allen. He had grown up in a traditional Jewish home. His parents, originally from Egypt, had met in Jersey City. After 12 years of Orthodox day schools, “I was sick of it. I didn’t want to be observant any more. I didn’t want to be Jewish any more.”
The Chabad rabbi and his colleagues persevered. “Through their kindness and teaching, I became re-observant,” he recalls.
Now, it is Allen who brings Judaism, kindness, and teaching to the FDU Teaneck campus — as well as those of William Paterson University, Bergen Community College (BCC), and Ramapo College of New Jersey — in his capacity as the director, and only staffer, of the Hillel of Northern New Jersey.
Why I’ve stayed on the job’
“I really couldn’t say if I would have remained a teacher without a mentor,” said Rabbi Simcha Schaum, now starting his sixth year teaching middle-schoolers in Yavneh Academy. During his first two years, his mentor through the Jewish New Teacher Project was Fayge Safran, former assistant principal at Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls.
“Her mentoring was absolutely invaluable,” said Schaum. “She came each week to observe a class, and we met for an hour to discuss what was going right with my classes, what was going wrong, and what I could do to improve.
Holding on to good teachers
Low pay lowers morale, but mentoring helps keep exits down
As the 2011-2012 school year dawns, financially strapped Jewish day schools are faced with myriad challenges. The statistical likelihood of many new teachers leaving the profession within their first three years on the job, coupled with recent economic constraints, highlights one of those challenges.
“Low paycheck, low morale, and not feeling valued by administrators” is how “Shira,” a young teacher at a Northern New Jersey day school, describes her work. Speaking on condition of anonymity, Shira said she feels at a professional dead end. “There is no protection, no union, no tenure. I should be making about $6,000 or $7,000 more than I am now.”
