Billing system requires more study before being changed

Thursday, June 11, 1998

Billing system requires more study before being changed

CONSTRUCTION: After construction, Hillel building will boast
kosher meals, computers, library facility

By Michael Weiner

Daily Bruin Staff

The Hillel Jewish Student Center is scheduled to break ground on
its new building next fall, hoping to provide a new center for
Jewish life in Los Angeles.

The building, which will be named for slain Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, has been in the works for several years. It
is scheduled to open in the fall of 2000.

According to UCLA Hillel Director Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller,
the new building will reflect the needs of the broad cross-section
of both the UCLA Jewish community and Jews in Los Angeles as a
whole.

"The community sees this as an opportunity," Seidler-Feller
said. "I conceive of the building becoming a center for Jewish life
on the Westside."

The new building will cost $8.5 million. So far, Hillel has
raised $6 million. The new building will be on Hilgard, the current
location of the YWCA.

The new Hillel building will include a kosher meal plan
specifically aimed towards Orthodox students. Seidler-Feller said
that many of California’s best Orthodox students do not attend UCLA
because there is no kosher meal program. He hopes that the new
Hillel will rectify this problem.

The new building will also include a coffee house, computers, a
recreation room and a Judaica library.

"The idea would be that students own the space and use it for
educational and social purposes," Seidler-Feller said.

Hillel is not the only religious entity at UCLA that is moving.
The University Catholic Center will move from its current home on
Hilgard to a new building currently being constructed on
Gayley.

The center is now a converted sorority house.

"This place is just not adequate," said Father Ted Vierra. "It’s
not big enough, and it was not designed for our purposes."

Pledges for Hillel’s construction have come from people such as
Edgar Bronfman, Sr., Hillel’s national chair; film studio head Lew
Wasserman; and director Steven Spielberg. Each of them pledged $1
million to help construct the new building.

When Bronfman became the national Hillel chair six years ago, he
decided to visit several campuses to see the program in action,
according to Seidler-Feller.

"He made a commitment that he would visit a few campuses, and
one of the first campuses he visited was UCLA," Seidler-Feller
said.

This, according to the rabbi, is when the drive to give UCLA a
new Hillel building began.

Seidler-Feller recalls a donor dinner at UCLA Hillel in which
Bronfman stood up and said, "We’ve got to get (Seidler-Feller) a
new building."

Hillel currently resides in the University Religious Center on
the corner of Hilgard and Le Conte.

Seidler-Feller said that the building is too small and too far
away from campus to meet the needs of UCLA’s Jewish students,
faculty and staff.

Another important event in the drive to construct a new Hillel
building came a few years ago when Seidler-Feller returned to his
office to find an urgent message from then-Chancellor Charles
Young.

When the rabbi and the chancellor had a meeting, Young
immediately asked, "Would you like your own building?"

Wasserman, who is one of UCLA’s biggest donors, approached Young
and explained that he and Bronfman were ready to give $1 million
each to build a new Hillel.

"There was a sense that this project should be one of
significance," Seidler-Feller said.

Laurie Levinson, chair of the UCLA Hillel advisory council, said
that the new building will become a benchmark in the Los Angeles
Jewish community.

"The building will service not just students and faculty at
UCLA, but the entire Los Angeles community," Levinson said.