Services
Hillel is not a membership organization. Any interested student may participate in their activities, usually free of charge. Most activities are free of charge and other fees may be waived because of need. Hillel's strategy, as redefined in 2006, explicitly set a goal to "inspire every Jewish student to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life." To be effective, Hillel activities vary from campus to campus, with an emphasis on responding to the needs of participating students. To reach a larger audience, campus Hillel foundations struggle to create a pluralistic, inclusive environment that still remains distinctively Jewish. To do so, the national foundation organizes trips to Israel, places service fellows at the campus foundations, creates a guide to Jewish student life, and leads advocacy work on Jewish and Israeli issues, as well as providing some financial support to its campus foundations.
Hillel is also dedicated to social activism, fundraising and philanthropy for charitable causes. These activities are usually led on the local campus level, but many campuses participate in alternative spring break trips dedicated to service, a Yom Kippur Fast Action Campaign, and the Oxfam Fair Trade Coffee Campaign, as well as more traditional local service projects at soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and Jewish community organizations.
Read more about this topic: Hillel: The Foundation For Jewish Campus Life
Famous quotes containing the word services:
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all along—but men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its toll—on women, on men, and on our children.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and homely services rendered for love’s sake have in them a poetry that is immortal.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
“I see this evident, that we willingly accord to piety only the services that flatter our passions.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)