COMMENT

Who Are Our Jewish
Student Leaders?

RICHARD M. JOEL

Special to The Jewish. News

W

these are only a few of the
features you'll find weekly
in The Jewish News

order a subscription or
gift subscription today!

i i......,...............--------si

I To: The Jewish News
I 27676 Franklin Road
I Southfield, Mich. 48034
1 Gentlemen:
I
I Please send a (gift) subscription to:
I
1 NAME

I ADDRESS
I
I CITY

STATE

I
1

e

1
I
I
I
I
I
I

I
I
I

ZIP

I
1 From:

I If gift state occasion

I

I ' 1

I

L

year - $29 — 2 years - $49 — Out of State - $37 — Foreign - $52
I
Enclosed $
m...mmo•Huiumg..................J

13/NAITSRAEL NeAtoa Ceadeire

TRANQUIUTY, BEAUTY AND DIGNITY ENHANCED BY PERPETUAL CARE

42400 12 MILE ROAD

ACROSS FROM THE

NOVI, MICHIGAN 48050

TWELVE OAKS MALL

$4450°

Exclusively
Serving Our
Jewish Community and
Featuring The
Gardens of

THE TREE OF LIFE and
THE TWELVE TRIBES
OF 'SAW

FOR COMPLETE
DETAILS CONTACT

Per Space

WHILE THE CEMETERY DEVELOPS,
PRICES WILL CONTINUE TO RISE!

AMENITIES INCLUDE:

(1) Membership of notional lot exchange
(2) Free credit life, for those 65 years
of age or younger
(3) Free children's protection until 18
years of age
(4) Free perpetual core
(5) Payment plans, of course

Accepted by
representatives of the
Orthodox, Conservative
and Reform communities

851-4803

hat's happening on
campus today is not
what you think.
Students from around the
nation gather in Washing-
ton, D.C., to discuss strate-
gies to redirect Soviet Jewry
activism in response to new
realities.
A computer message from
students at a Midwest uni-
versity calls out to Jewish
students across the nation to
participate in an electronic
newsletter to share Jewish
student concerns and pro-
gram ideas.
Students from campuses
throughout the Philadelphia
area join forces to create a
citywide network to reach
out to uninvolved students.
Seventy students from the
New York metropolitan area
volunteer to work with new
Soviet emigres towards their
acculturation into American
society and their engage-
ment with the Jewish com-
munity.
If we but look and listen,
we will see and hear the
emergence of a new Jewish
student activism — an ac-
tivism not placard-based,
but computer driven; not of
global gestures, but of grass-
roots meaning; an activism
by objective that is as de-
termined as it is refreshing.
Simply put, student ac-
tivists are serious and soph-
isticated about impacting on
their communities, and deal
with the challenges in prac-
tical and strategic fashions.
The new student activism
seeks to define what could be
called the "post-anti" phase
of Jewish campus life. Stu-
dent activists demand more
of a rationale for their Jew-
ish identity than one based
on responding to haters.
They will, of course, corn-
bat anti-Semitism, anti-
Israel activity and all the
other villains who seek to
weaken us. But more, they
seek to affirm their Jew-
ishness, to explore it, to
celebrate it, to contribute to
it, to share it, and, yes, to de-
fend it from the evil of
assimilation.
It may well be that the
campus Jewish community
is divided into at least two
components: the involved,

Richard M. Joel is the interna-
tional director of the B'nai
B'rith Hillel Foundations.

152 FRIDAY, MAY 11, 1990

aware Jewish activists, and
the marginally involved or
non-involved students.
Hillel's new National
Center for Campus Study re-
cently concluded a survey of
100 Jewish student leaders
from around the nation. The
data, developed in coopera-
tion with Brandeis Univer-
sity's Cohen Center for
Modern Jewish Studies,
suggest a profile of student
"leaders" involved in cam-
pus programs.
The profile that emerges is
one of a "super-Jew." These
students represent the
success story of the Jewish
community; they are the
return on the communal
Jewish investment. Who are
our Jewish student leaders?
The group studied yielded
this profile:
• 94.5 percent had some
formal Jewish schooling;
• 95.3 percent belonged to
a family while growing up
which affiliated with a tem-
ple or synagogue;
• 80.2 percent were in-
volved in Jewish overnight
camping;

• 84.6 percent participated
in Jewish high school youth
organizations;
• 73 percent had visited
Israel.
This group was active in
other aspects of campus life,
was strongly committed to
Israel, was strongly opposed
to intermarriage, was deeply
concerned with Jewish social
issues, and was interested in
maintaining active in-
volvement in organized Jew-
ish life after the college
years.
That's the good news. The
harsher reality is that this is
not the profile of the pro-
totypical Jew on campus.
Most students don't seek ac-
tive involvement in Jewish
life, or seek to avoid it.
Student activists are de-
termined to raise the level of
support for the Jewish cam-
pus community. These
leaders seek a partnership
with the community; they
seek communal support;
they offer us all a Jewish
future.
Indeed, these students
could well be our teachers.0

NEWS 1

Drop Idea
Of Cutting Israeli Aid

=NMI&

TAMAR KAUFMAN

Special to The Jewish News

T

en members of the
Congressional Black
Caucus have backed
off from their proposal to cut
U.S. foreign aid to Israel to
provide more funds for
Africa and the Caribbean.
When the caucus, which is
headed by Rep. Ron Dellums
(D- Calif.), completed its
budget and presented it to
the House Budget Com-
mittee in April, Israel's full
$3 billion allocation was in-
tact.
The 24-member caucus'
budget plan, which was pre-
sented by Dellums, contains
$1.7 billion for international
affairs over what President
Bush had proposed in his
own budget — including an
additional $1.5 billion to
assist Africa and the Carib-
bean.
The caucus was able to
leave Israel's appropriation
untouched by reordering
priorities in the interna-
tional affairs budget, cutting
military spending, and rais-

ing some corporate taxes.
The original aid-cut sug-
gestion had been made in a
"dear colleague" letter in
February initiated by Rep.
George Crockett (D-Mich.)
and signed by the 10 black
members of Congress,
although they were acting
individually and not as
caucus members at the time.
Dellums spokesman H.
Lee Halterman, meanwhile,
has said the letter was only
meant to start a discussion
on the foreign aid budget.
Jonathan A. Kaufman,
who chairs the Eighth Con-
gressional Caucus of the
American Israel Public Af-
fairs Committee, has ex-
pressed satisfaction with
that approach.
"Dellums told us he's in
favor of maintaining the
amount of foreign aid to
Israel," he said, referring to
a March meeting between
the Berkeley representative
and AIPAC members.
"It was refreshing to hear
him," Kaufman added.
"He's all along been very
much on our side on (retain-
ing Israel's funding)." 0