There’s something of a rift in the student Jewish community these days, between Chabad and Hillel. Both say there’s no animosity between the groups, but surely they’ve realized that some Jewish students have decreased their involvement with or stopped going to Hillel altogether since Chabad showed up on campus.
Friendly competition isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It means increased programming choices for Jewish students, and, to stretch a classroom metaphor, a lower student-to-rabbi ratio. Thousands of Jews study here, enough for both Hillel and Chabad, anyway.
Which brings us to the problem: Student Union wants to put Chabad under Hillel’s watch. A month ago, Treasury denied the Chabad Student Association direct SU funding. (CSA is separate, but related to, the Chabad religious group.) Part of the rationale was that Chabad should try to get funding by becoming a subgroup of Jewish Student Union, the umbrella group for Jewish student organizations. Treasury is concerned about the unchecked proliferation of student groups, and consolidation under umbrella groups like JSU is a reasonable way to combat that.
But Chabad’s special circumstances warrant an exception to this trend. Chabad has good reason to be wary of being dependent on JSU for funds; JSU’s adviser is a Hillel staff member, as mandated by the JSU constitution. The constitution, in fact, has a whole article affirming JSU’s close partnership with Hillel. “It is also imperative that the Jewish Student Union maintain an amiable working relationship with the staff of Hillel in order to maintain consistency and communication among Jewish students,” it reads in part.
Since Hillel doesn’t represent all Jews on campus, it’s a bit curious that Hillel advises the Jewish umbrella group, which does purport to represent all Jewish students. But we digress.
It’s a bit unfair to have to give Chabad’s competitor influence, even indirectly, over how much money their organization gets. No business would have an executive of their biggest rival on their board of directors. Similarly, putting Chabad at the mercy of JSU for funding is an invitation for conflicts of interest producing unfair funding allocations.
Think of the problems that would arise were Father Gary were to lead a Christian Student Union on campus. Would the Episcopals and Baptists like their student groups’ budgets determined by the Catholic Student Center? Probably not.
There are two solutions to this problem. The first, and perhaps easiest, is to designate Chabad’s student group Category I, Treasury’s moniker for student groups who get their operating funds allocated by Treasury. Chabad could still be part of JSU for coordinating programming and other things.
The other solution, of course, would be to change JSU’s adviser. A non-affiliated staff or faculty member would be able to allocate resources between competing Jewish groups without perceived or actual conflicts of interest. This would require drastic changes in the JSU constitution, however, and it’s not clear such a step is needed.
At Northwestern University, Hillel created a Jewish umbrella group like JSU last May, souring relations with Chabad. With a similar scenario here, we should be careful not to turn friendly competition into a deep and intractable split. JSU is supposed to unite the Jewish community, not divide it. Putting Chabad under Hillel’s control is not a good step toward friendly and mutually productive relations.