Student Life: Jewish Life

The history of Jewish life on Oberlin's campus predates the records held in this collection. In April of 1918, the Oberlin College General Faculty approved the foundation of the Menorah Society, a literary society open to students of any religion but focused on Jewish thought and ideas. Marion Benjamin Roth (OC 1920), founder of Oberlin's branch of the Society, noted that there were a number of Jewish students on campus in the 1910s. The Menorah Society was relatively short lived, existing from 1918 through the early 1920s. Beginning in 1934, Jewish students could receive exemptions from Oberlin College's daily chapel services. The official exemption for students who practiced other religions may have helped make Oberlin more attractive to Jewish students. In 1948, Oberlin's Jewish students founded the Oberlin Jewish Congregation.

An Oberlin chapter of the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation replaced the Oberlin Jewish Congregation in 1962.^[1] B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation’s founding concept was to create a structure for permanent, pluralistic Jewish life on college campuses in the face of a growing population of American Jewish college students. ^[2]Part of this work consisted of funding Jewish professionals to provide support for pluralistic Jewish communities on college campuses. In the case of Oberlin Hillel, the establishment of a Hillel chapter on Oberlin’s campus resulted in increased resources and programming for Jewish students, accessible on both a regional and national level. In 1974, Cleveland Hillel, a regional foundation of B’nai B’rith Hillel (now Hillel International), funded a position at Oberlin called the Advisor to Jewish Students. This position was later renamed the Jewish Chaplain and then the Director of Jewish Life. Through this position, Oberlin Hillel as a student group had access to full-time professional(s)—for the vast majority of the position's history, a full-time rabbi—to support religious, cultural, and educational programming. Through this support, Oberlin Hillel became an umbrella organization for a variety of Jewish student groups and was intertwined with Kosher Co-op (later, Kosher Halal Co-op) at various points in its history.

Kosher Co-op was founded in the 1970s and joined OSCA in 1987. It evolved to become the Kosher Halal Co-op (KHC) in around the 1990s and had a typical membership of just under 40 students. The Muslim Student Advisorship recommended that the Muslim students be given equal advisory powers to its Jewish students in 2002. In 2013, KHC and OSCA discontinued their affiliation, but Kosher Halal Co-op continued to serve Oberlin's students until the 2020 pandemic. It was disbanded in 2021 but returned as a winter term project in 2024.

Other facets of Jewish life are present on Oberlin's campus even where not represented in this collection. 1. “Hillel Replaces OJC; Smilack Directs Group,” Oberlin Review, September 25, 1962, https://cdm15963.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15963coll9/id/13114/rec/37 2. See the primary source documents on Hillel International’s website about their history, including a reprinted section of the National Jewish Monthly (June 1973), https://www.hillel.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/national-jewish-monthly-1973.pdf.

Note written by Elliot Diaz; updated by Emily Rebmann with information compiled by Abby Rickin-Marks.