Hillel finds home at former fraternity site

The University’s Jewish community will soon have a new home away from home as Rutgers Hillel moves to its new site on Bishop Place in New Brunswick.
The first step toward the relocation of Rutgers Hillel began with the start of demolition of a former fraternity house at 2 Bishop Place on Friday. The new 37,000 square-foot, four-story building will replace the current facility located at 93 College Ave.
University President Richard L. McCormick, along with Hillel executives and student supporters, attended the demolition ceremony Friday morning to take part in the historic transformation for the center for Jewish life on campus.
Size, accessibility and visibility on campus were important factors in selecting the new location, but students’ comfort was paramount, said Rutgers Hillel Executive Director Andrew Getraer.
“[Students] wanted a building which was homey,” Getraer said. “The current facility that we have, that’s what people like most about it.”
The principal motive for the latest move was the lack of space in the College Avenue location, Getraer said.
“Any program we do with more than 75 students doesn’t fit in our building,” he said. “And we literally have events multiple times a week that are larger than that. We’re already turning students away, which, obviously, is not what we want to be doing.”
The organization’s Friday night Shabbat dinner draws in an average of 250 students weekly, but because Hillel cannot accommodate that many people, the organization must rent space for the event, usually in Brower Commons, Getraer said. But the space is only large enough to seat 200 people.
He said the new building would be about the size of a student center but less institutional.
The new facility — which should be completed by 2011 — will house a 400-seat dining hall on its top floor, which will be used for Hillel events but will also be available to the entire University community, Getraer said.
It will also feature prayer spaces, lounge and meeting areas, a kosher café and a multipurpose room to be used for big Hillel events, like the Hanukkah Ball and the Israel Culture Festival, he said. The building, like the one at the College Avenue location, will be open seven days a week.
In total, the project will cost $15 million, which will come from private donors from New Jersey’s Jewish community, including parents and University alumni, Getraer said. Ten million dollars will cover the cost of construction, and the remaining funds will be put toward the purchase of the property and an endowment for facility maintenance.
Planning for the move began five to six years ago, and Rutgers Hillel purchased the new location two years ago from the Fiji alumni association, Getraer said. Danco General Contracting, Inc., a construction company in Morganville, N.J., will supervise the process.
Hilary Neher, student board president of Rutgers Hillel, looks forward to the expansion because the new location, which is visible from Route 18, would help draw in more students.
“We hope that by having more space we’ll be able to run more diverse programs, bringing in new Jewish students and helping to better make use of the current Jewish population that’s already involved with Hillel,” said Neher, a School of Arts and Sciences senior.
School of Social Work first-year student Jordana Ornstein said the expansion would help Hillel implement more programs and encourage more Jewish students to get involved.
“There are tons of Jews on campus who aren’t involved in Hillel,” Ornstein said. “We hope that with a bigger space, more people will be curious to come in and see what’s going on here, and we hope that we can create programs that cater to them as well.”
Ornstein, who became involved with Hillel during the latter half of her undergraduate career, said her most memorable experience with the organization was arranging the greek Shabbat, a dinner held earlier this year that brought students from fraternities and sororities throughout the University together.
“Hillel isn’t just stuff that happens inside the building,” she said. “It’s for Jewish students all over campus.”
Rutgers Hillel, which is part of Hillel International, a network of independent Jewish campus organizations, was founded in 1943, Getraer said. The student-run organization offers services to more than 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students at the University and hosts religious, social and community service events, as well as programs on Israel.
This is not the first move for the organization, which has been situated at a number of locations since 1943. For nearly 30 years after its establishment, Hillel was located at a series of apartments and rented spaces above stores along George Street, Getraer said.
In 1971, the organization was at a facility behind Douglass campus, which was later sold to the University when Hillel moved to its current location.
A view of the Raritan River and Johnson Park are additional benefits of the new location, Getraer said.
He hopes the building will create a meeting place the Jewish community across Middlesex County and throughout the state.
“I think this will serve Jewish students, Rutgers students and, hopefully, the much broader community,” Getraer said.

1 comments

Hypothetical

Wed Nov 11 2009 02:48

One thing jumps out about this article...Danco General Contracting, Inc., when are we going to do an article about Danco and its cozy relationship with the town councils, and its nearly superhuman ability in quickly obtaining contracts and permits for construction throughout the city big or small...Danco folks, Danco.... Write that down its important.

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