H EADLINES
Rabbi Continued from Page 1
about the students he’s worked
with, what the next genera-
tion of Hillel leaders can do to
succeed and being mistaken
for a college junior.

What will you miss most
about Penn Hillel?
What I’ll miss most is the
students. Being around an
incredible, high-density group
of smart, passionate, nice, ideal-
istic and super-eff ective people.

Th ere are very few places with as
rich and dynamic of an under-
graduate student community as
the University of Pennsylvania,
and all of that is just maximized
by the incredible richness and
dynamic nature of the univer-
sity itself.

And being around young
people is incredibly stimu-
lating. It keeps you young,
and keeps you tied in to what’s
really happening in the world,
and how the world is changing
in front of us. And I will miss
that very deeply.

When you were hired at Hillel,
you were 28. Do you feel like
you’re the same person as
when you arrived?
No. Th at’s part of what’s so
meaningful to refl ect on.

When I came to Philadelphia,
my wife and I had just gotten
married. And essentially, in a
16-year period, I learned to be
a husband, and learned what
it meant to really be a rabbi. I
learned what it meant to be a
father, three times over. I learned
what it meant to become a leader.

I think that that’s a word
that was thrown around, but
actually having the respon-
sibility of taking care of a
relatively large organization
and a huge constituency of
students, parents and alumni, I
think I’ve learned how to stand
up publicly and stand up for
the things that I believe in.

And I am an entirely
diff erent person in that way.

When I started, people would
be like, “Oh, are you a junior?”
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM best d’var torah that a Hillel
rabbi could ever give is when a
student gives it.

A successful Hillel leader is
someone who knows how to
put their ego aside and to make
room for the student. Th e goal
is not to shine on their own,
but to create space.

The second thing is
that because campuses are
becoming increasingly polit-
ical and fractured, just like
the rest of American society,
future Hillel directors have to
be politically nimble, so that
they can relate to and care for
a very large spectrum of Jews,
of diff erent Jewish identity
formulations, diff erent polit-
ical orientations and to hold
together a very broad tent.

Rabbi Mike Uram
Photo by Scott Spitzer Photography
Th e third piece is a really
And then a few years went by, into Jewish leaders in their deep emphasis on impact over
and students would say, “Oh, own right. We always say, the attendance. If we’re just focused
are you a grad student?” And
now freshmen even say, “Oh,
are you someone’s dad?”
Th e way that I relate to
students has really changed,
from being the cooler older
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Th ere was a period in the middle
UNTIL YOU
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on getting more students to
show up and to participate, that’s
not a deep enough mission.

Th e mission has to be to create
experiences and relationships
and communities that really
provoke students to grow into
fully self-actualized adults. And
that is a much more serious
mission than just attendance.

And the fi nal thing is that
they have to be really gift ed
at both the kind of art of the
work, which is this intan-
gible ability to connect with
people, to inspire people about
Judaism, but also have strong
business skills, to use data and
metrics to work more eff ec-
tively and more effi ciently, and
be able to not just do the work,
but to able to build systems. ●
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What is going to make the next
generation of Hillel leaders
successful? What would you
tell them?
Th e fi rst thing and most
important thing is to be incred-
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students. College is a learning
laboratory, where students take
the lead. And so the highest
level of Hillel work is where it is
not about providing services to
students, but pushing certain
students into action, to grow
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DECEMBER 17, 2020
9