Darlene Paszamant, center, and Stacey Wasserman, right, listen attentively as Rabbi Julie Roth speaks about programs at Princeton University’s Center for Jewish Life/Hillel. Photo by Marilyn Silverstein
January 08, 2008
When it comes to promoting a vibrant Jewish life at Princeton University, the possibilities are endless, said Rabbi Julie Roth, executive director of the university’s Center for Jewish Life/Hillel.
“Our mission is nothing less than to inspire every student at Princeton to make an enduring commitment to the Jewish future,” Roth said as she welcomed board members of the United Jewish Federation of Princeton Mercer Bucks Women’s Campaign to CJL.
“We try to find a way to make Judaism relevant to the students on campus no matter what their affiliation,” the rabbi said. “We know that the work we’re doing is making a difference.”
Twelve members of the Women’s Campaign board were on hand in the CJL’s small dining room to learn about that difference. The Dec. 11 visit was part of an effort to give board members a firsthand experience of the impact federation funds have on the community, said Linda Cohen, federation’s associate executive director for the campaign.
Cohen noted that in recent years, the Women’s Campaign board has sponsored similar outings to the Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Mercer County in Princeton, Greenwood House in Ewing, and the Abrams Hebrew Academy in Yardley, Pa.
“Every year, as part of our leadership training, we’ve been going to different agencies,” she said. “The goal today is to learn about the programs that are being provided for the students on campus that give them an identity with Jewish life while they’re away from home.”
Darlene Paszamant of Skillman, Women’s Campaign president, welcomed the opportunity to learn more about one of federation’s constituent agencies. “We’re here to visit the students, spend time with them, and hear about the programs that our money is paying for,” she said.
Stephanie Will of Montgomery, associate campaign chair for Women’s Campaign, said she was there “to see our dollars at work and to see what a wonderful environment they’ve created here Jewishly for the students that will be a wonderful impact on their lives.”
Visiting the agencies that are supported by campaign funds is very important, said campaign chair Stacey Wasserman of West Windsor. “It’s wonderful to actually see what that money does, to see this beautiful building, to meet some of the students, and to see that there’s a place where they can have a Jewish family away from home.”
Amy Vogel of West Windsor, cochair of federation’s Young Women’s Division, also pointed to CJL’s important role. “Obviously, I’m proud of all the dollars federation raises, and I think something like this is very important,” she said. “When students come to a university that’s so large, this gives them a family and a sense of belonging.”
The CJL offers its diverse population of Jewish students a wide array of activities — Shabbat dinners, holiday programs, interactive seders, and special programs on Jewish business ethics and Muslim-Jewish relations, Roth told the women. She noted that there are about 550 Jewish undergraduates at Princeton today — 12 percent of Princeton’s 4,600 undergraduates — and some 200 Jewish graduate students — close to a quarter of all the graduate students at the university.
“About 47 percent of the Jewish students on campus come from interfaith families or families in which only one parent is Jewish,” Roth said, “so it really is a very diverse Jewish community in a relatively small geographical space within the larger multicultural university.”
The CJL supports its many activities and services through a $600,000 annual budget — a budget that has grown 40 percent over her two years of incumbency as executive director, Roth added. As allocations from the federation and from Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life have decreased in recent years, the CJL has turned more and more to alumni, parents, faculty members, staff, and the greater Princeton community to meet its significant fund-raising goals, she said.
“So we’ve done a better job of knocking on doors and stating our case,” she said.
As the meeting adjourned for lunch in the CJL’s kosher cafeteria, Joanne Berman of Princeton said she had gained a greater awareness of how much Roth and the CJL are doing to involve students in Jewish life on campus.
“I feel very good giving money to this organization,” Berman said. “She made me realize how important it is for Jewish people on campus to have a place to come for seders, Shabbat, and holidays, and I’m very happy to support that.”
Roth also welcomed the give and take of the visit. “I’m hoping they come away with a sense of the important work we’re doing on campus,” she said, “and all the ways we are inspiring Jewish students to make a commitment to the Jewish future.”