jews d

in
the

To Be a Jew at OU

continued from page 8

were looking for a leader, not a
presider.”

BOOSTING DIVERSITY

Since she started her new gig in
July, Pescovitz has already laid
out a vision for her five-year term.
That includes boosting diversity
in the student body and faculty on
the Rochester campus. According
to OU’s Office of Institutional
Research and Assessment, 8.5
percent of the student population
is African-American, 3.5 percent
is Latino, and 1 percent is Jewish.
That means there are roughly 200
Jewish students.
One of the first orders of the day
was creating the position of chief
diversity officer who will oversee
the university’s Office of Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion.
“I’m very interested in seeing
us enhance tolerance,” Pescovitz
says. “I’d like to see us become
more global.” Making world citi-
zens of students means exposing
them to new experiences, among
them being with people of differ-
ent economic, racial and religious
backgrounds.
OU has taken strides in the
past decade in diversifying its
academic programming. Ten years
ago, the university launched Judaic
and Islamic studies programs,
which now are under the umbrella
of the Center for Religious
Understanding, led by Religious
Studies Professor Alan Epstein.
Nine years ago, OU introduced
a study abroad program in Israel
that is underwritten by Nina and
Bernie Kent, an
OU alumnus
who serves as
chairman of the
Jewish Studies
Community
Committee at
the university.
Each year, 10-15
Bernie Kent
undergradu-
ates — most of
them non-Jewish
— travel in Israel and participate
in an archaeological dig for three
weeks. It is the only program of its
kind in Michigan, Pescovitz says,
and for many students, it’s their
first time out of the U.S. (See a
story on the program, page 25.)
“We wanted to do something
to connect OU to Israel,” says
Kent, who serves on the executive
committee of the United Jewish
Foundation. “I thought it was
very valuable for people at OU to
understand what Israel is really
like.”
When she first arrived on the
OU campus, Pescovitz, a rabbi’s
daughter who studied at Hebrew

10

January 4 • 2018

jn

University, wondered where the
Hillel was. It turned out there is a
Hillel presence, but it is one with-
out walls.
“I’d like to see Jewish students
develop a Jewish culture here,” she
says.
Pescovitz has promised all the
religious groups that they’ll have a
physical space at some point.
That cheers Dovid Roetter of
Oak Park, an observant Jewish stu-
dent who has been active in Jewish
life on campus.
“If we even had a desk in an
office with other religious orga-
nizations, we can tell students to
drop by. It’s important to have a
space, no matter how small, that
we can call our own. Jewish stu-
dents don’t know we exist and we
don’t have a way to tell them,” he
says.
“I think Ora will help us in ways
a non-Jewish president can’t,”
Roetter continues. “She under-
stands what it’s like being a minor-
ity. It gives her insight into what
other groups are feeling and the
challenges they face.”

LIVING JEWISH VALUES

Pescovitz is proud to call herself
a “RK,” or rabbi’s kid. She was
reared in a home filled with clergy
and civil rights activists, includ-
ing her father. Rabbi Richard
Hirsch, considered the architect
of Reform Zionism, was a con-
fidante of Martin Luther King
Jr. who marched in Selma and
helped organize the 1963 March
on Washington. He founded
the Religious Action Center in
Washington, D.C.
The Hirsch home was a place
where the issues of the day — pov-
erty, racial equality, social justice
— were hashed out at the dinner
table.
Richard and Bella Hirsch, a
nurse who had emigrated from
Russia, made aliyah in 1973.
Pescovitz followed, living in
Jerusalem and studying at Hebrew
University for a year, with plans to
go to medical school. Her accep-
tance came from Northwestern
University’s Feinberg School of
Medicine before she heard from an
Israeli school, so back to the States
she went.
Today, her parents divide their
time between homes in Jerusalem
and Florida. Her mother’s family is
in Israel, so Pescovitz is a frequent
visitor.
She says her Jewish values are
what make her who she is, and
they inform her sense of social jus-
tice and moral framework.
“It infused my childhood as a
Jewish American and as a Jew,”

Pescovitz says.
Pescovitz’s brother, Rabbi
Ammiel Hirsch, is senior rabbi at
Stephen Wise
Free Synagogue
in New York
City and for-
mer executive
director of the
Association of
Reform Zionists
in America. Two
Rabbi Ammiel
other brothers
Hirsch
are prominent
physicians.
How did their parents raise four
very driven children? Their mom,
Hirsch says.
“My mother was the parent who
raised us 24 hours a day. Back
then, my father was out doing the
conventional thing. Plus, he had
positions that took him traveling.
He is very influential in our lives.
At the same time, we credit our
mom with infusing us with basic
qualities of what eventually was
important to succeed: tenacity,
discipline, respect of all people
and ambition. She was dogged in
pushing us not to be the second
best,” he says.
As for his sister, Bella told her to
become a doctor and then, if she
wanted, she could pursue a differ-
ent career.
“That’s an example of her insis-
tence that we aspire to the high-
est possible achievement,” Hirsch
says.
After Ora’s husband died, his sis-
ter picked herself up and did what
she always does — focus her mind
on the present.
“Ora is a very, very strong per-
son,” Hirsch says. “She felt and
exhibited that basic Jewish urge
to take the time to mourn and get
back into the world. She is in pain,
but she didn’t let that pain tear
her apart. And she found comfort
in work. What was strengthened
in her more was the desire to give
back.
“She is the kind of person you
don’t meet too often. She will be
so good for the university and for
the region, and she’ll be a credit
and source of pride for the Jewish
community.”
Bernie Kent hopes so.
“Ora is, I think, going to be a tre-
mendous asset to the Jewish com-
munity in Southeast Michigan,” he
says. “She never really lived in this
area but knows so many people,
so many large potential donors, so
many community leaders. It can
only be a tremendous benefit to
Oakland University.”
Pescovitz says that once she is
settled, she’ll search for a syna-
gogue to join. •

JULIE EDGAR CONTRIBUTING WRITER

D

ovid Roetter doesn’t mind being in a tiny minority of
Jewish students at Oakland University — estimated at
around 200 of about 20,500 undergraduate and graduate
students. As a religious Jew, his kippah and tzitzit make him easy
to spot.
The Oak Park resident, 21, is studying
journalism at OU and working at its TV sta-
tion as an anchor. He earned an associate’s
degree at OCC (where he was Hillel presi-
dent), then transferred to OU. Roetter plans to
start a master’s program in the fall at Central
Michigan University in electronic media man-
agement and then one day to own a Jewish
Dovid Roetter
radio station in Michigan.
“I love a small campus with small classes where I get to know
professors on a first-name basis,” he says. “I can stop by their
offices and chill out. That’s what OU is.”
Roetter figured it would be easier on a smaller campus to get
involved with the student radio station or newspaper. He was right:
He got his own show right out of the gate.
A thriving Jewish presence on campus wasn’t topmost for
Roetter when he chose OU, but he got involved and was elected
president of the Jewish Student Organization, an umbrella organiza-
tion for Hillel, and is vice president of Students for Israel. He says
there are a few other observant Jews, but the events JSO hosts —
Shabbat dinners, lunch and learns, a rally — draw a “nice mix” of
Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jews.
Erin Ben-Moche, another OU senior, is often too busy to par-
ticipate in extracurricular activities. On occasion, she’ll go to a
lunch and learn with Rabbi Michele Faudem or to a J Talk, where
Jewish students from area campuses get
together to discuss issues of the day.
Ben-Moche of West Bloomfield, plans to pur-
sue a journalism career. She is currently news
director of OU’s radio station.
She works more than 20 hours a week
providing content for WXOU. Last summer, she
interned at the Chicago Tribune as a reporter.
She’d
like to go to Los Angeles or back to
Erin Ben-Moche
Chicago, but Ben-Moche, 21, says she feels
rooted in the metro area.
At WXOU, which broadcasts from the Oakland Center building
(undergoing renovations), Ben-Moche writes, edits and does on-
air interviews. “This is a professional radio station. It has opened
doors for me,” she says.
Heather Rosenbaum, Hillel of Metro Detroit’s adviser at OU, says it
was kind of a shock coming to OU after going to MSU as an under-
graduate. She is happy that Jewish students want more resources
and more connection with other Jews on campus.
“We do a lot of communication with students to see what kind of
events they want us to bring to campus,” says Rosenbaum, a West
Bloomfield High graduate.
That OU is a commuter campus makes it
more challenging to reach students, but a few
weeks ago they did a Shabbat dinner at a stu-
dent’s home in West Bloomfield.
“You gotta meet them where they are,”
Rosenbaum says.
To that end, she is at the student center twice
a week, where she helps set up tables with
Heather
information promoting events. Last year, the
Rosenbaum
Hillel ran an anti-bullying awareness day that
won an award for best student organization-run campus event.
Roetter spearheaded the event.
“Obviously, we’re thrilled to hear the new president is Jewish. I
haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her. Our students are excited.
We’re looking to see what a growing Jewish student body is going
to do,” Rosenbaum says. •