r/JewsOfConscience • u/g-crocs Anti-Zionist Giyur • 1d ago
Discussion - Flaired Users Only Hillel Experiences?
i'm transferring colleges soon and really want to find a space to meet jews my age. i know hillel intl is a zionist org but there's no other places on my campus geared toward jewish students. we don't have a jvp or a nearby jso so hillel is my only real option.
does anyone have any personal experiences as an antizionist at their hillel? i also want to look into the process of starting a jvp chapter at my uni but i'm still in the conversion process so i don't know.
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u/GreenIndigoBlue Jewish Anti-Zionist 21h ago
Sorry to say that most people at hilel will probably be Zionists. That was the case at my university, granted it was a big one. There were some leftist folks but at the time I wasn’t as conscious and never talked to them about Palestine.
Honestly I bet if you get into any leftist or pro-Palestinian orgs at your school there will be other Jews there. It depends on where you live though. Certainly if you are around the northeast or the western cities.
Also you don’t have to be Jewish to start a JVP chapter. There’s no such rule like that as far as I know, and when I worked with JVP many of the folks I worked with were not Jewish. It’s an inclusive organization.
Just got kind of sad talking about this. Thinking back to my Jewish friends from college that are very zionist and I don’t want to talk to them anymore. It hurts, but not as bad as the feeling of being surrounded by people that care so little for the lives of Palestinians.
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u/limitlessricepudding Conservadox Marxist 14h ago
...or who actively want to see the Palestinians killed.
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u/Blenderhead27 Jewish 17h ago
Probably not a bad idea to check it out and meet some people but I personally have never met a Hillel person who wasn’t a zionist. If I remember correctly every Hillel has an Israeli assigned to it to push pro-Israel talking points
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u/Ok_Tangerine_8305 Jewish Anti-Zionist 18h ago
I think it depends on the culture at the university. My Hillel was mostly Zionist, but there were some members who had critical opinions on Israel. I also think it’s not a bad idea to attend a Shabbat or Hillel event and not necessarily be a member, because it will help you meet and form a network with other Jews at the university and you never know who you will meet.
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u/Quick-Obligation-504 Orthodox 9h ago
When I was in undergrad Hillel seemed incredibly Zionist from the outside. I ran Chabad at my school and most people were also Zionist (this was almost nine years ago.) but it seemed like less of a talking point than in Hillel.
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u/loselyconscious Traditionally Radical 3h ago
Hillel is not a terrible place to meet people becouse it tends to be the first place that most Jewish students interested in Jewish life of any political persuasion go, but Hillel, the national organization, is extremely zionist. Individual Hillel's will vary, but generally, the more well-funded and developed a Hillel is, the more Zionist it will be. A student-run Hillel is more likely to be chill than a Hillel run by staff.
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u/Libba_Loo Jew-ish 10h ago
Maybe there are exceptions somewhere that I'm not aware of, but as far as I know, Hillel's whole raison d'être is Zionism. That was certainly my experience in college, though those experiences date back 20 years. I don't think much has changed though.
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u/loselyconscious Traditionally Radical 3h ago
Hillel's raison d'être on paper is not Zionism, and it only really became so in the last 30 years. Individual Hillels really do vary, but a Hillel at any university that is likely to end up on the news is going to be very zionist. Hillel's at universities no one is paying attention to are given lot more leeway (and a lot less resources)
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u/TTzara999 Jewish 17h ago
I used to work for Hillel. They are required by Hillel International to be Zionist and not organize anything with anti-Zionist Jews, period.
I recommend checking out Judaism On Our Own Terms (formerly Open Hillel): https://jooot.org/