Leaders of Northwestern’s Fiedler Hillel Center student groups approved a constitution for Hillel’s new organizational body, Kol, in a majority vote Tuesday, future Kol members said.
Last week, students planning Kol said the new body will improve communication and programming within Hillel and strengthen NU’s entire Jewish community. Hillel student leaders will elect an executive board by next week, and Kol will hold its first meeting the following week.
Kol will include 15 Hillel-affiliated groups, such as Hillel Cultural Life, the Jewish Women’s Coalition and Tzedek, a charity group.
After meetings with leaders of these groups, members of Kol’s planning committee revised some of their original designs for the group.
Under Kol’s newly-ratified constitution, leaders from each of the 15 groups will vote on behalf of their groups. Weekly Kol meetings will be open to all members of the Jewish community, even those not involved with Hillel.
“Ideally, we want to make sure we can keep all the presidents (of Hillel groups) in touch with each other,” said Jonathan Powell, a member of Kol’s committee. “But at the same time we want to keep as many people in touch as possible.”
Kol’s goal might be to strengthen the Jewish community as a whole, but some Hillel outsiders said the creation of the group could have the opposite effect.
Rabbi Dov Hillel Klein is director of NU’s Tannenbaum Chabad House, which holds Orthodox Jewish services but attempts to cater to all Jewish students at NU. Klein said he supports the strengthening of Hillel, but the name, Kol, and its mission statement are offensive.
“I’ve spent many, many hours talking to many students who are very upset about what’s going on,” Klein said.
According to its mission statement, Kol “seeks to … facilitate increased cooperation and discussion and encourage greater communication and participation throughout the diverse Jewish community at Northwestern University.”
“The sense of merger — of trying to be the entire voice of the Jewish community — is the undertone of their mission statement,” Klein said. “We have a diverse Jewish community here on campus, and no one can be the entire voice of the Jewish community.”
Rabbi Michael Mishkin, Hillel’s executive director, said the Kol’s name and mission statement are not meant to indicate Hillel is the NU Jewish community’s sole voice.
“But we are saying the new and improved Hillel will have an impact on the entire Jewish community,” Mishkin said.
Powell, a Kol planner, said Hillel will continue to collaborate with Chabad after the formation of Kol. The mission statement indicates that Hillel serves the “broad spectrum of interests” within the Jewish community.
“(The Kol) is not an all-encompassing voice of the Jewish community, but it is going to be the primary voice for the unified Hillel-affiliated groups,” Powell said.
The constitution also includes minor changes, including how groups apply for program funding, an impeachment process and a system for Hillel student leaders to vote on issues affecting the Jewish community, such as hate crimes.
