After nearly 20 years, Northwestern’s Hillel Foundation will have a new face in the director’s chair.

Jonathan Wolf, an Evanston resident and member of Hillel’s Orthodox services, will take charge as interim director after Rabbi Michael Balinsky leaves in June to take a job in adult Jewish education in Northbrook.

Wolf has known Balinsky for two decades and said the departing director built an impressive program. He wants to continue Balinsky’s progress as well as put his own touches on it.

“Rabbi Balinsky’s going to be a tough act to follow,” Wolf said. “I have a strong background in this, but it’s still going to be an exciting challenge.”

He said he wants to help students participate in more local social activism.

Wolf went to elementary and high school in Evanston before studying Talmud and Rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

He served on the board of a New York City alliance of synagogues and schools that worked to find permanent housing.

Last year, his family returned to Evanston after he and his wife adopted a 9-year-old boy from Ethiopia. Wolf said he wanted his son to grow up in a Jewish community that incorporated a wide range of backgrounds with both traditional and liberal views. He turned to Hillel for that community.