New Jewish facility will provide greater cultural services, awareness

Monday, November 2, 1998

New Jewish facility will provide greater cultural services,
awareness

HILLEL: Guest speakers, address center’s value to community,
university

By Lawrence Ferchaw

Daily Bruin Staff

David Tobin, a second-year chemical engineering student, left
the current home of Hillel at UCLA, Sunday, with a Torah in his
arms leading a procession of students and community members as they
made the trip to the future home of the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center
for Jewish Life.

The procession left the current home of Hillel at Hilgard and Le
Conte and snaked its way through South Campus before exiting the
campus and arriving at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new
three-story, $6 million structure scheduled to open in the fall of
2000.

The new center will replace the current space Hillel rents in
the University Religious Conference and will house a library, a
chapel, a computer center, classrooms, a cafe and a Kosher
kitchen.

"The center attempts to provide a place where Jewish students
can call their own," said Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, director of
UCLA Hillel.

Seidler-Feller was one of the speakers at the groundbreaking
ceremony. Other speakers included Chancellor Albert Carnesale;
Laurie Levenson, chair of UCLA Hillel Campus Council;
philanthropist Lew Wasserman’s grandson, Casey; City council member
Mike Feuer and UCLA law Professor Carole Goldberg.

"This new building will belong to all of us," Goldberg said.

The construction cost is compensated by donations to Hillel as
well as money from the national organization and the Jewish
Federation. Wasserman, film director Steven Spielberg and Seagram
company chairman Edgar Bronfman each donated $1 million to the
building.

Through other avenues, the fund raising effort is two-thirds of
the way towards its goal, announced Janice Kaminer-Reznik, co-chair
of the capital campaign.

"People assume everything comes easy to UCLA Hillel,"
Kaminer-Reznik said. "That’s not true."

Hillel at UCLA has been around for more than 65 years, but has
never had its own facility. The new facility will allow Hillel to
serve the Jewish population on campus better, the speakers
said.

"It’s the extension of Jewish studies at UCLA," Carnesale said.
"It represents the cultural center, primarily for Jewish students,
but also for faculty and staff."

The building is named after the slain Israeli prime minister who
was assassinated three years ago Sunday, according to the Jewish
calendar.

"Yitzhak Rabin’s vision did not die with him," Seidler-Feller
said. He said that he spoke with Rabin’s widow, Leah, earlier that
day and she passed along her good wishes.

In addition to Rabin, Carnesale also spoke of Rabbi Hillel,
after whom the Hillel organization is named. He quoted one of
Hillel’s sayings that one should not "withdraw from the community."
The chancellor then said the new center will "enhance the efforts"
of Hillel.

Students are the biggest benefactors, Casey Wasserman said to
the group assembled at the dirt site just across the street from
the Faculty Center, near the corner of Hilgard and Westholme.

"The new building will enable Hillel to reach out to more
students than before," Wasserman said. Earlier this year, his
grandfather donated $10 million to UCLA.

The students present at the groundbreaking, though outnumbered
by community supporters, were happy and looked forward to the
completion of the center.

"It’s exciting that all students, faculty and Hillel community
members can come together to celebrate the beginning of the new
house for the campus," said Elena Lempel, president of the Jewish
Student Union.

The presence of so many community members at Hillel events is
customary, with the focus of the center being not just on students
but the whole community, according to Lempel. She also said the new
location, which is much closer to the center of campus, will
increase student activity at the center.

The overall goal of Hillel is to increase Jewish interaction,
and Seidler-Feller said he is hopeful the new center will help.

"We hope to generate a renaissance of Jewish life at UCLA,"
Seidler-Feller said.BAHMAN FARAHDEL/Daily Bruin

David Tobin, a second-year chemical engineering student, carries
the Torah at the groundbreaking of the new Hillel building.

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