Jewish Learning Initiative turns 10
By Michael Orbach
Issue of December 4, 2009/ 17 Kislev 5770
To go or not to go is no longer the question.
“75 percent of the graduating population of the Modern Orthodox day-schools are not going to YU or Touro,” asserted Rabbi Ilan Haber, director of the Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus. “The issue is not should or shouldn’t they go to secular university — they are going. The issue for us is how to help them make educated decisions to choose a college environment amenable to their growth and how to best serve their needs once they’re in the college environment.”
The Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus was founded in 2000. Rabbi Menachem Schrader, then a rebbe at Yeshivat Torat Yosef-Hamivtar in Efrat, realized that yeshivas in Israel were helping students in Israel but students in secular universities back in America had only a limited support system.
“It became clear that we were taking students from campuses all over the world, teaching them Torah and then sending them back after a year or two and there was a deep sense I had that we were sending them back to nothing,” said Rabbi Schrader, who is now the director for Nishmat. “Why shouldn’t we try to create a reference of Torah Studies for them to go back to?”
In response, Rabbi Schrader came up an idea that he hoped would allow students to continue their Jewish studies. A partnership between the Orthodox Union and the Hillel campus organization placed Orthodox couples on college campuses to supplement Hillel programming.
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