Jewish Students on Campus

<p>My D has applied to Lawrence, Case Western, College of Wooster, Ill. Weslyan, Butler and Univ. of IA - honors program. She was accepted into the last 3 and is still waiting to hear on the first 3. I don't expect any of these schools to have a large Jewish population - I just don't want her to be the only kid who wants to take off for the High Holidays. She doesn't really care. We are not especially religious and right now only a few of her friends are Jewish. She is interested in music, possibly music therapy (that's why Wooster is on the list) although that could definitely change. She is not strong enough on any instrument (piano, flute and now guitar) to get accepted anywhere based on an audition and doesn't enjoy practicing very much. Still not sure why she even talks about being a music major but that's another story. She is also a runner and a vegetarian. </p>

<p>Are you better off at a huge school with 100 Jewish kids (Iowa) or a small school with a few that may be near a big city with a Jewish population (i.e. Cleveland) or should I just let her decide without considering this? Any insight into the 8 schools and their Jewish populations would be much appreciated. Thanks!</p>

<p>If you aren’t extremely religious, I wouldn’t even consider it. I’m in HS now, with about 5% of us are Jewish (I’m half Jewish, half Catholic…I know what you are thinking but it’s not important). So there are other jews, but to be honest, we are “the people aren’t in school for the high holidays”. Nobody cares, nobody treats us any differently. It’s not like the 1940s lol.</p>

<p>I went to a southern college in a small town and was one of just a few Jewish students. So, during holidays, people in the community really took care of us, as did the professors. It was a pretty cozy environment.</p>

<p>I think the question you need to ask is not about the quantity of Jewish students, but about the quality of Jewish programming on each campus.</p>

<p>In most situations, a large Jewish population translates to a strong Jewish presence in terms of programming, but this is not always the case. And there are always the schools with thriving Jewish groups, etc. with not many Jewish students. Really, I’d advise your daughter to just do her own research and see what she feels comfortable with.</p>

<p>I am not sure why you are even thinking about religion. You said that you are not particularily religious. Your daughter will attend services if thats what she wants to do. This thread reminds me of my husbands parents who never went to Jewish services but had an issue with my not being Jewish once the children were born. I can not believe that people still talk about this…I thought times have changed.</p>

<p>Do you think that your daughter will become less religious if she is not around others with your views? If that is the case than you and your daughter should think about her attending a religious school.</p>

<p>In our HS my D is often one of only 3 kids who take off for the Jewish holidays. I really wouldn’t worry too much about it. Honestly, in the “real” world, away from the east and west coast, us Jews are a small minority. How many of us work anyplace that acknowledges our holidays? As long as there are even a handful of other Jewish students for her to hang out with (if she even wants to), I don’t think it matters one way or another. I went to a big university with lots of other Jewish students. Oddly, I only had one Jewish friend the whole time I was there!
My D is a HS junior, when we are looking at schools I am interested to know if there is a Hillel. She could care less, so in our final analysis it will be a small factor. I think you should trust her on this aspect of the decision making process.</p>

<p>artfulmom: what your daughter needs to decide is if this is a religious issue or a cultural one? we are facing the same decisions (albeit a year later)…like you, we are not particularly religious, nor does my daughter have an abundance of Jewish friends…but we live in the NY/NJ area where it is not unusual to be Jewish…my daughter just doesn’t want to be “looked at” like an alien…percentages don’t matter much to her, but rather if the “drawing” area of the school she is looking at has been around people of all religions…</p>

<p>We are not talking about the schools that have 30% Jewish population even though they are in areas where the Jewish population may be <1%…we are talking about schools that have quite a small Jewish population but students come from areas where they have “never met a Jewish person”…</p>

<p>as an above poster mentioned, only your daughter can decide what works; a visit would probably solidify that, as well as spending some time in the surrounding area…</p>

<p>there are quite a few posters around CC who have/are/will be facing some of these same kind of decisions; not religious; cultural…hopefully they will chime in…</p>

<p>Go to Hillel.org and you will see exactly what the populations are at different schools. I encouraged my child to apply to schools with at least 10%. I figure that anything I can do to increase the odds was great. Especially coming from an area with a small Jewish population, I wanted her to have college friends who would be celebrating the same holidays she was!</p>

<p>

Not that much. Don’t believe for a moment that anti-Semitism is dead.</p>

<p>I think the key is finding a school where the population is open and accepting of all types of people from all types of backgrounds. That way no matter what is important to your daughter, she will be comfortable where she is. We looked for schools with a more liberal mindedness and a good deal of diversity.</p>

<p>Thank you for being concerned about this. We face a true crisis in continuity in this country, ironically because of the lack of current institutional anti-Semitism. Please encourage (no, require) your daughter to go on a Birthright trip! Please have a heart-to-heart talk with her about her responsibility in carrying on, from generation to generation, the survival of a people. This is obviously important to you or you would not have asked the question, but it is even more important to our community.</p>

<p>I know that anti-Sematism exists as does anti-christianity and racism. My inlaws called me every nasty word regarding my religion until they became ill and I took care of them. Their “Goyam daughter in-law” was very kind to both of them when they could not care for themselves. I endured years of their “kibbitzing” about being the “shikse” daughter in law. I never left my father in laws side when he was dying, and I laugh to this day when he said “You are such a mentsh” hours before he passed. Just once I would have loved to have heard either my mother in law or him say thankyou for being so kind…it never happened and they both insisted on making my religion forefront in even their last words.</p>

<p>I think that when searching for the Jewishness of a school one might consider how anti-Christian this comes across. You would not want your daughter walking around with her religion tagged on her shoulder. This type of thinking is archaic today. My husband and I have been married for many years and our children have been raised in my faith. Did that upset their grandparents…probably, but their son was not practicing his faith so one of us wanted to bring religion into their lives. I think they would have been happier with their grandchildren having no religion, rather than being raised with a Christian religion. This is the problem I have with the type of thinking that exists among any extreme thinking people.
When I said that people concerned with the religiousness of a school may want to seek out a religious school I said that because when you make that a priority before your child even attends you will only be disappointed that it does not meet your needs. That is why their are Christian schools and Yeshivas. Schools for people that only want to be around their own kind.</p>

<p>Being born or choosing to be Jewish involves a special responsibility for continuity. This is not anti-Christian or anti-anything. It is just a matter of cultural identity and connection to one’s history. I applaud this OP and the other posters who understand this and who instill this value in future generations. Please, OP, have this heart to heart talk with your daughter! Too many parents do not have this conversation and we lose the kids. The reason that I posted the Youtube video is to show what can happen (the decimation of a community) when identity is lost. We have lost enough communities; we do not need to lose more through apathy or complete assimilation.</p>

<p>levirm…You remind me of my in-laws.</p>

<p>momma-three, do you consider it “anti-white” if an African-American asks if he’ll be the only black person on campus, or wants to know if there’s an African-American student organization? Do you consider it “racist” if a white student asks if she’ll be comfortable at an HBC? Or is it only for Jews that you deem it “anti-Christian” to want to know if there are others that share your upbringing and culture. Your in-laws may have treated you badly; from what you stated, they did. But that is no reason to brand an entire culture (and yes, Judaism is more than a religion, it is a culture) as being anti-Christian because there is a concern for its survival.</p>

<p>We are also not religious, but I was concerned about the Jewish populations of schools that my daughter was considering.

  1. I didn’t want her to have to explain what Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur was when she asked to miss class.
  2. I wanted her to have the possibility of attending services on campus on those days.
  3. Matzoh in the cafeteria is a nice thing during Passover. Many non-religious Jews do give up bread during Passover as a cultural statement.
  4. If she wanted to attend services, it would be nice if there were the possibility of a minyan.
  5. It would be nice if she had at least a fighting chance of meeting someone who shared her heritage.</p>

<p>These things are all considered and go far beyond the issue of sending her to a yeshiva.</p>

<p>

Why not? Why would she have to hide her heritage? And by the way, both I and my daughter do wear our religion not on our shoulder but around our necks with mezzuzah and Star of David, just as Christians wear crosses as jewelry. Or are you suggesting that this is also “anti-Christian”?</p>

<p>Wearing it on the shoulder is a metaphor for making it such a point that there be others just like yourself. I would be surprised if any kids today (other than orthodox) asked a tour guide if there was the possibility of a minyan. The point to my post was that if being in a Jewish environment is that important to your child than why would you even look at schools that may not have a large Jewish population or be located in a region where Jewish people do not live. </p>

<p>You did understand my posts because it would be the same as a white student asking how many white people are attending the black university, or the Christian kid asking how how many Christians are attending the traditional Jewish university. Why would someone who wants to be around their own kind even look to a place that may not have their religion or culture represented. That does not make sense and a place that does not meet that persons criteria will never make them happy. That is all I was saying so don’t turn it into something it isn’t.</p>

<p>Different people want different things to achieve a reasonable comfort level. I think it’s perfectly OK to ask about it.</p>

<p>

I actually think that this was the OP’s original question - do the places listed have the religion/culture represented. Which is, I believe, a perfectly legitimate question.</p>

<p>“We have lost enough communities; we do not need to lose more through apathy or complete assimilation.” </p>

<p>How do you think that sounds to a non Jewish person? That was my point and you certainly can’t deny that it sounds anti-Christian. It is this very thinking that permeated the mind and hearts of my in-laws. Christians have been called anti-Semetic for many years but it is certainly true that Jewish people are anti-Christian. I only hope that my own children do not encounter this type of nonsence from the family of the person they fall in love with. It just drives me crazy, and yet it is always denied even as something disrepectful is being said. I see it all the time with members of my husbands family.</p>

<p>The last time we wore our religion on our shoulders it was a gold star so they could herd us into boxcars and exterminate us-- we as Jews owe it to those that died so that we can be proud of who we are and want our children to have the experience that every Christian child has-- to be the majority and feel understood and accepted in their school environment.</p>