On Campos

Engaging Klingons

Richard Joel is chief
ambassador to the
Klingon nations of
Jewish students.

O VEIL RUBIN

Special to The Jewish News
log,a.

I

f women are from Venus and men
are from Mars, are Jewish college
students from a galaxy far, far
awa?
Y
Richard Joel, whose work impacts
several hundred thousand such beings a
year, travels to their distant outposts to
Cher his own research.
What he's found, he told a group at
the Council of Jewish Federations
General Assembly, is surprising on a few
levels.
"I love telling Federation people that
if they go to a college campus and ask
any Jewish student what is federation,
they'll say, 'Oh, I know. It's a consor-
tium of planets and they have the star-
ship Enterprise,"' he said. "They'll be
willing to listen to you about Judaism if
you can teach it to them in Klingon.
We have to realize that's their reality and
we don't have it."
So goes the world according to Joel
as president and international director
of Hillel: the Foundation for Jewish
Campus Life.
Joel and I worked together in one of
my other lives. Back then, in the late
great 1980s, I served as a writer, for
B'nai B'rith International and then
director of public relations for the B'nai
B'rith Youth Organization.
Joel's office, before he deftly separat-
ed Hillel from B'nai B'rith, was on the
same floor as mine.
To watch him at work is to view a
man having fun — and striving to
make sure that everyone else comes
along for the ride. He's constantly
searching for new talent, bold ideas and
some risks. He's far from perfect, as he'll
tell you. And it's really the hundreds of
Hillel professionals that make his work
possible. But it's Joel's wit and energy
that inspires them.
And that, in part, is why this former
law school dean is today one of the true
stars of American Jewish life.
He's not afraid if you don't agree or
even if you break with his system. He
understands what many Jewish leaders
don't when their work is challenged
with new thought: It's not about the
agency; it's about the Jews. And if the
actions in question are good for the
Jews, particularly if the agency doesn't
have the structure to help make such
•

work a success, get out of the way. In
fact, Joel would add, encourage others
on the outside to do more of this.
As he said, "The goal of Hillel is to
maximize the number of Jews 'doing
Jewish' with other Jews. It's not about
membership or other goals."
Part of the 47-year-old's charm is his
humor, which combined with adminis-
trative talents has helped attract the
biggest financial names in Jewish life to
Hillel's efforts.
As he told the GA, "In September
you can come on campus and hear
about something from students and say,
wow that's really cool. And they look at
me and say, `No, Richard, it's hat. On
another campus, they tell me it's awe-
some. I stopped describing their pro-
grams when they told me it was fat."
And he's more than cautiously opti-
mistic; he's rabidly so.

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— Richard Joel

"I don't believe that most Jews have -
had a confrontation with their
Jewishness and have rejected it," he said.
"I don't think we have allowed young
people to have a conversation with their
Jewishness because we have not spoken
to them in Klingon and we have to fig-
ure that out."
My favorite was his definition of out-
reach. "It means I'm going to go out
and get you, and change you to me, and
show you me, and convince you to be
me."
Put that way, it sure does sound stu-
pid.
The day after his address, he told me
how none of his words were original.
"But Richard," I reminded him, "it's
how you package and market it that
counts."
And so, the master marketer deserves
the last word.
"What's the answer to engaging all
these populations?" he asked his audi-
ence. "The answer is what's the ques-
tion? How do you define Jewish success?
I love the quote from the Mad Hatter in
Alice in Wonderland who said, 'If you
don't know where you're going any road
you take will get you there.'"

❑

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