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DIANA SAVIT: I did not think, very much,
about what would Jewish life be like, there.
ARIEL FUTTER: I really wanted a strong Jewish community,
but not something so big that I would get lost in it.
SHILPA NADIMPALLI KOBREN: When I came to Princeton,
I was not Jewish.
BENJY GERUT: I had the option of choosing which Rosh Hashanah
service I wanted to go to.
SHIRA COHEN: I knew that being Jewish --
and being Jewish at Princeton, and beyond --
was incredibly important to me before I got here.
I just didn't know what that meant.
LEN BERMAN: And I remember, when I was applying there,
when I'd go there -- and, I think, plenty of people
have his experience -- it's like, what nice Jewish boy would
go to Princeton University?
There was still a difference between people's perceptions
of the University, and the reality of what
it was like to be Jewish there.
DAVID LANGER: My grandfather, Marcus Lester Aaron,
Class of 1920, wrote, during his time
at Princeton from 1916 to 1920.
JULIA LANGER: "For the last six or eight weeks
a few of my friends have been meeting here
in my room regularly every Friday evening for service."
DAVID LANGER: "I think I can say, without the slightest
exaggeration, that there can be no more broad-minded institution
of higher learning, or any other kind of learning, anywhere,
than Princeton.
JULIA LANGER: In one of the letters from November
of his freshman year, he talks about hanging up his banner
for the first time -- his class banner, in 1920,
and it's hung in my dorm room every year.
It's a nice reminder of one of the reasons
why I wanted to come to Princeton is tradition.
ARIEL FUTTER: My grandfather's first cousin came to Princeton
in the early '50s, after surviving the Holocaust,
when hiding in a monastery.
And then came over to Paterson, New Jersey,
and decided to apply to Princeton,
and persisted after being told that Jews don't really
get in there.
And then he came here in the early '50s.
JAMES GREILSHEIMER: The objective
of 100%, which I believe started in the 1940s,
after World War II, was to prevent a situation where
some members of a class would not be selected for any club,
and would therefore not have a full social life at Princeton.
MARK BIDERMAN: Every club had to interview everybody --
once or twice, I think, was the rule at that point.
And then they'd slowly cut people.
JAMES GREILSHEIMER: I was a member of the sophomore Bicker
Committee.
And I saw that, the people who were not getting bids,
that a large number of the people in trouble, were Jews.
MARK BIDERMAN: You know, and I only
got a bid from one of them, which was, at the time,
considered in the lower tier.
JAMES GREILSHEIMER: And I thought that something
should be done about it.
And I went public with it.
These clubs were really a very important,
an integral, part of Princeton.
And, therefore, it was part of Princeton as an institution,
and that discrimination should not be allowed.
And I said to President Goheen, this is just wrong,
it cannot be tolerated, it sends out the wrong message about
Princeton, everywhere.
And something should be done.
And you're the person to do it.
I mean, almost, I'm reliving some of that conversation.
I mean, done in a very respectful way,
but there was no missing my meaning.
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ARIEL FUTTER: For me, thinking about what the Orthodox
Jewish community looks like was really important,
and what daily services were going to look like,
and how large those were going to be.
DIANA SAVIT: My first year, before Stevenson Hall
opened with the kosher facility, the kosher dining option
was to eat at Yavneh House, off campus.
ARIEL FUTTER: In the orthodox community, we call it Yavneh.
And it's been around for over 50 years, at this point.
TOBY ROBISON: Of the early years of Yavneh,
were on Olden Street.
But they had moved closer to us and 46 Wiggins.
Then they had this kosher house, and it was very nice.
It wasn't exactly University rules.
There was one cook who provided all three meals.
And if you came to morning services,
you were invited to stay to breakfast.
DIANA SAVIT: It was a very small group,
largely graduate students.
And I felt I was really being removed from my peers,
and I wasn't forming a community with other students on campus,
Jewish and non-Jewish.
Because, mostly, you form a community with the people
you eat with, and live with.
ELAINE ROBISON: If you had a kosher eating house on campus,
supported by the University, that
would be a magnet for undergraduates.
TOBY ROBISON: But then, the University put a lot of money
into setting up a kosher dining hall at 83 Prospect.
And in return, they demanded that the Jewish community
come up with 40-meal contracts.
DIANA SAVIT: When Stevenson Hall opened with a kosher facility,
it was one of only three universities
in the country where you could eat kosher
in a university-sponsored facility,
the other two being the Yeshiva University and Brandeis.
So, of course, it immediately became very attractive
to more observant people.
KEITH KRIVITZKY: Stevenson Hall was
a place where tons of people came,
who weren't a part of the Jewish community.
And it was a warm, welcoming place.
TOBY ROBISON: So it made an enormous difference to come,
to the students who, otherwise, would
have been happy to be eat their TV dinners that were kosher.
BENJY GERUT: There's a quiet comfort
when you have certain pieces of life that are in place,
especially as a Jewish person, if it comes to kosher food,
when it comes to religious events -- prayer, things
like that.
When those things are there, you can really live.
ARIEL FUTTER: So an eruv is an enclosure.
It's, in many ways, like a fence or a doorway.
And what the University has been amazing to do,
is to, in many respects, create that enclosure,
so we can feel part of it, and contribute and benefit
from Princeton as a whole.
BENJY GERUT: Princeton has an eruv.
That's really beautiful.
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WILLIAM G. BOWEN: It just seemed to me
that the University would be a much richer, better learning
environment, if it had a variety of people
from different backgrounds, different points of view,
interacting easily and comfortably with each other.
And that has not always been true in Princeton's history.
In our proper effort to celebrate
the successes of Jewish students at Princeton,
over many, many years, we should recognize that it's not always
been an easy path.
I mean, there were Jewish quotas that I
was very well aware of when I came here
as a graduate student.
So there was not a very nice history.
And so, it seemed to me, important to do something
about that.
I became particularly aware of this problem,
at the undergraduate level, as a result of teaching.
As I talked with Jewish students,
I became aware that they really did not feel, in all respects,
comfortable at Princeton.
They felt isolated and really not at home, fully.
ARIEL FUTTER: When my dad tells a story
that students put together a proposal saying,
let's create a space for Jewish services
on campus, that might be a little bit for bigger
than what they had a Murray-Dodge, at the time.
So they put together a proposal for a Hillel center
in Chancellor Green, and presented it
to President Bowen.
And President Bowen, at the time,
said that he liked the idea, but that wasn't where
they were going.
But felt that there was an obligation
that Princeton had to foster Jewish life,
and had a historical obligation.
LEN BERMAN: So I woke up one morning,
and went to get The Daily Prince sitting outside my door.
And I remember seeing the headline --
Shapiro named president, or something like that.
And I just stared at it, almost in disbelief,
that they picked a Jewish guy to be
president of this University.
HAROLD T. SHAPIRO: A new kind of tiger is arriving,
and I wasn't quite sure what they meant.
From the Jewish community's point of view,
yeah, they were very excited that I was appointed president.
They were also very worried.
Why are they worried?
They're worried that I might fail.
Right?
And how would this reflect on them?
Once my appointment was announced,
it was very clear that many Jewish alumni, in particular,
wrote me letters saying, how important this was to them,
they never thought this would happen,
that they didn't imagine that Princeton,
in the fullness of history, would ever get to this point.
So, for example, I think the person
who actually, eventually, provided the money
for the Center for Jewish Life, this was the reason he did it.
He didn't do it for any other reason.
He just said to me, if Princeton can change that much,
then I can support them.
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DARCIE DUBOIS: The community, here in the CJL, is very tight.
And it just feels very comfortable, and very much
like home.
RABBI DARCIE CRYSTAL: I was among the class that
was the first to benefit from the Center for Jewish Life,
for our entire four years on campus.
TOBY ROBISON: When CJL was built,
it was the first University building
you would see as you drove up Washington Road, toward campus.
SHILPA NADIMPALLI KOBREN: The CJL
had a really big role in making Princeton feel like home to me.
Now, I've undergone a conservative conversion --
two years ago, now -- with everyone singing together,
and people who were there to celebrate me.
That's a really when it really hit me,
that this is the moment.
This is what means a lot to me.
MAYA WAHRMAN: We don't all have to agree
or practice our Judaism the same way.
But there's a place for all of them.
MASHA SHPOLBERG: I didn't know that there
was such a lively community, with so
many different Jewish backgrounds represented.
So that was a great thing to discover, upon arrival.
And it actually changed my perception of Princeton.
SHILPA NADIMPALLI KOBREN: Every Friday night,
after Shabbat dinner, everybody would get together --
either at the Chabad House, or Hillel,
or somebody's house on campus, or off campus --
and just have discussions about like,
what are the ethics of this, and how do you feel about this.
In that sense, it felt like, community is a big part
of a lot of religions.
But for me, for Judaism, that was Judaism.
BENJY GERUT: Neither Chabad, nor the CJL,
or the Jewish community, generally,
would be where it is without the University's efforts thus far.
But my hope would be, that the University continues
to want to integrate, as much as possible,
these things -- in a way that allows
them to completely flourish.
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KEITH KRIVITZKY: I really want to acknowledge Jim Diamond --
Rabbi Jim Diamond.
His passing was a tremendous loss for the Jewish community,
and for the University community.
He was an amazing thinker, a mensch -- someone who's just
a great person, all around.
RABBI DARCIE CRYSTAL: Rabbi Diamond was somebody that I looked up to.
I always saw him as a mentor.
And, I think, he really encouraged me
in terms of my own leadership, and in terms
of pursuing a career in the rabbinate after Princeton.
MAYA WAHRMAN: There are so many rich opportunities
for learning about Jewish texts, about Jewish history,
and just getting a much richer picture, of not only what
Judaism is, but how I would want it
to interact with my own life.
MARK BIDERMAN: I think the University's commitment
to the program has been fantastic.
And I think the involvement of the faculty,
and now the younger generation of faculty --
which is so impressive -- was started by a corps of faculty,
now many of whom have retired.
And there's a whole new cadre, which is just terrific,
to see it grow.
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CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: I had an amazing discovery
when I was helping my son with a family history project.
Found out that my mother, who had
kept this secret throughout her life, was Jewish,
and that I was Jewish.
And that's been a very meaningful discovery for me,
in my life.
And it certainly has affected my relationship to Jewish life
at Princeton.
In my first year as president, the students
invited me to participate in their all-night talk
show, which was called the All-Nighter with David Drew.
And they had found out about my recent discovery
that I was Jewish.
And so they asked me whether or not I had been bar mitzvahed.
And of course, I hadn't.
And then they bar mitzvahed me on stage,
in a wild, three-minute celebration,
that took all the main elements of a Long Island bar mitzvah,
and brought them on to a Princeton stage,
and condensed them.
At the end of it, they were hoisting me up in a chair.
They were having fun.
I was kind of having fun.
Their parents were very worried, in the front row,
that they were about to drop the president
of the University on the stage.
But it was one of the most memorable experiences
that I've had as a Princeton president.
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CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER: It's wonderful to be
able to celebrate 100 years of Jewish life,
and recognize all that's happened in the past.
We are recognizing that we have a lot of traditions that we
have celebrated for a long time, at Princeton, and newer
traditions, and ways of thinking about the institution, that
are equally meaningful, and add to the Princeton
that we are today, and the Princeton that we
want to be in the future.
I think this conference is a special opportunity
to make that happen.
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