July 22, 2004

OU’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus Appoints Rabbi Ilan Haber as National Director

The Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (JLIC), a college campus Orthodox outreach program sponsored by the Orthodox Union in collaboration with Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life and Torah MiTzion - Religious Zionist Kollels, has appointed Rabbi Ilan Haber as its National Director.

Rabbi Haber first worked for JLIC at Yale University, along with his wife, Aviva Leah, from 2000 to 2002. Since 2002 he has been working as the Director of Accreditation at Hillel. But now he’s excited to get back to work for JLIC. “After spending two wonderful years as a JLIC educator and seeing how much the program means to Orthodox students, I am committed to helping strengthen and expand the program,” said Rabbi Haber.

Rabbi Haber’s responsibilities as National Director will include providing management, recruiting new educators – husband and wife teams living on all of JLIC’s campuses - and developing resources for growth.

JLIC was first initiated by Founding Director Rabbi Menachem Schrader in 2000 and aims toward providing support and guidance for Orthodox college students, while at the same time providing outreach to unaffiliated Jews on campus. “The JLIC program provides a network of outposts for Orthodox students to find safe haven – almost an oasis – in an environment that has the potential to wear down even the most Orthodox young men and women,” said Rabbi Moshe D. Krupka, OU Executive Director of Programming. Referring to secular campuses as “at times a grueling desert” in terms of potential threats to observance of Jewish law, Rabbi Krupka says that JLIC enables Orthodox students to “have full engagement with the secular world – but with the standards in which they were raised and in which they were educated before going to college.”

Hillel, a non-denominational campus organization, works in cooperation with JLIC, with each supplementing the other’s efforts. According to Rabbi Schrader, JLIC is “embedded in Orthodoxy and committed to the college campus and to Zionism. The mission includes the creation and development of a warm Torah framework for observant Jews that encourages observance, challenges intellect with Torah study, and at the same time encourages and enhances involvement in the wider university environment.”

For more information, call Rabbi Haber at 202-449-5481 or email him at IHaber@hillel.org.

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