Ats

t,

‘tY'

Sin

Of The Hillel

With intellectual passion and
Yiddishkeit, Michael Brooks
is revitalizing campus Jewish life.

JULIE WIENER

Staff Writer

IV

hen his son Ezra was 5
years old, Michael
Brooks took him to an
American Indian pow-
wow in Ann Arbor.
Although they danced in traditional
costumes and headdresses, the perform-
ers changed back into everyday clothes
when they went outside to smoke.
Fascinated, Ezra asked, "When they're
not wearing their costumes, how do
they know they're Indian?"
In his 18 years as the executive
director of the University of Michigan
Hillel, Brooks keeps returning to this
question. Except instead of thinking
about American Indians, he is thinking
about the Jews on his campus, most of
whom "are not wearing Jewish cos-
tumes" but still feel a lingering sense of
connection to "the tribe."
Brooks describes college as "the last
Jewish gas station before the highway
of life in the so-called real world," and
he sees it as an opportunity for creating
a Jewish community so vibrant that
membership will seem like a privilege
rather than a duty.
Recently recognized as an outstand-
ing educator by the Covenant
Foundation, Brooks is nationally
known for his innovative programming
and cutting-edge theories on Jewish
outreach. He's seen as a leader in

11/14
1997

10

Hillel's transformation from a club for
the already-committed to a cultural
magnet.
Ideas piloted at U-M — such as the
Half-Shekel Campaign (see related
story) and the campus-wide Golden
Apple awards for outstanding teachers
— have been adopted at other universi-
ties.
"For a long time, U-M was the
exception that proved the rule. It was
the different Hillel," said Richard Joel,
Hillel's international director who is in
frequent contact with Brooks. "It led
the way so that when a new era
began, the light that shone from
Michigan was one of the mod-
els that we were able to use in
catching up the system."
According to Brooks, 15
percent of Jewish students
come to campus with
strong Jewish identities cul-
tivated through day school
and youth group experi-
ences, and 25 percent are so
disaffected they will not par-
ticipate in anything that
Hillel offers.
While Brooks is thrilled with
the committed students and sad-
dened by the disaffected, it is the
remaining 60 percent whom he sees as
critical in shaping the community's
future.
"They have strong Jewish feelings.
They're the ones that show up for Kol
Nidre but are not sure why they're

there. If they talk to you privately, they
say, 'I hope the person I marry is
Jewish,' but they would never say that
to other people because they are afraid
of sounding racist."
In addition to providing a kosher
kitchen and venue for Orthodox,
Reform and Conservative services, U-
M Hillel hosts countless cultural
events, an annual symposium on the
Holocaust and is the meeting-place for
more than 20 organizations. It also co-
sponsors events not traditionally
thought of as Jewish.
"Much of what we do here is some-
times misunderstood," said Brooks.
"People ask why we publish Consider [a
campus-wide opinion magazine], why
we bring people like Tony Hillerman
and Spike Lee to speak. It's because
they talk about our issues: what it
means to be part of .a community."
Lanky and circumspect, with squar-
ish glasses and bright red hair, Brooks
— who refuses to be photographed —
sometimes seems more like an eccentric
college professor than community
leader.
A first-generation American, Brooks
grew up on the West Coast to a Polish
Hasidic mother and a Russian socialist
father. Although a member of a
Conservative congregation, Brooks —
who with his wife, Ruth, was among
the co-founders of the Havurah
Shalom community in Boston — does
not identify with any one denomina-
tion.
In fact, discomfort with denomina-

The Jewish population as seen through
the eyes of Michael Brooks.

tional lines is one of the reasons he
opted not to become a rabbi, despite
years of Judaic study at Harvard
University and the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem.
"People ask what kind of rabbi are
you, and I don't fit any of the tradition-
al categories," he said. "Also, I didn't
want my kids to be the rabbi's kids."
A 1968 Brandeis University graduate
who "had nothing to do with Hillel" as
a college student, Brooks was pursuing
a doctorate in Greek social history and
lecturing on religious studies at U-M
when he was invited to become Hillel's
director.
At first he declined the offer, but Bill
Rudolph, Hillel's director at the time,
was insistent, and eventually Brooks
gave in, thinking the job would just be`''
a brief stint.
Instead, directing Hillel has become
a career, enabling Brooks to synthesize
his intellectual passion for understand-
ing the boundaries of community
membership with his passion for
Judaism. Ascribing to the motto
"there's no learning without a prob-
lem," Brooks frequently sees opportu-
nity where others might just see trou-
ble. Last week, when a Holocaust
denier tried to run an advertisement in
the Michigan Daily, Brooks suggested
the paper run an editorial on the oppo-
site page refuting its claims and using
the advertisement as a jumping-off
point for a discussion about anti-
Semitism. (The Daily ended up decid-
ing not to run the advertisement at all.)
Brooks even sees opportunity in the \Y
communal handwringing about inter-
marriage because the alarm can serve as
a catalyst for revitalizing Jewish life.
"If 95 percent of Jews married Jews,
but didn't care about it one way or
the other, the community wouldn't
think that there was a crisis," he
said. "You simply don't build
community based on the need
to survive. You have to speak
to people's issues in a vibrant
way."
And according to internation-
al director Joel, that is exactly
what Brooks is doing.
"Michael is one of the leading
voices of provocation and col-
laboration for not just the Hillel
movement, but for a Jewish renais,
sance," he said.
"Michael knows that if you build it
they will not come," added Joel. "If
they build it they will come. To be a
true leader, you have to provide space
for young people to define their lives
and take control." El

