Hillel 1.0 to Hillel 2.0: Notes for the Journey

One of my biggest learnings from the Consultation is that those of us 
in the room–and those of us in this discussion online–have a 
radically different view of Hillel than many of our key stakeholders. 
As my colleague Andrea Jacobs pointed out, there is a significant 
difference between an established institution and a new one: an 
established institution, like Hillel, has relationships, history, and 
expectations from its stakeholders. A new institution is free of those 
things (tutelage?)–for better and worse. 
It dawned on me that those of us in this discussion have an image of a 
“new Hillel,” one highly responsive to emerging adulthood, and 
motivated by a strikingly different set of questions than “Hillel 
1.0.” The essence lies in the animating questions of these contested 
visions. “Old Hillel” begins with the question, “Why be Jewish?” And 
while that’s an important question, it is a non-starter for anyone for 
whom the answer is, “Being Jewish isn’t important to me.” End of 
conversation. “New Hillel,” however, begins with the question, “What’s 
your story?” Our methodology is about helping a student author his or 
her personal narrative. As we ask “Where have you come from?” we 
unpack elements of a Jewish narrative, and we use those elements as 
rich context for exploring the question “Where are you going?” This is 
the difference between outreach and engagement: The one tries to bring 
the student into the narrative of Jewish life; the other acknowledges 
a co-created, negotiated narrative between the student’s story and the 
Jewish people’s story.