LOOSE ENDS: Celebrating Jewish life at Princeton University

By Pam Hersh
   The Hebrew word seder meaning ‘order’ became an oxymoronic description of my disorderly Passover seder 2016. The service featured six overwhelmed parents, 10 overwhelming kids ages, 9 months to 9 years, one overwhelmed grandparent (yours truly), orderly readings and prayers for two minutes, chaos entering through the door left open for the Prophet Elijah, and four questions that boiled down to one — why on this night are we doing this?
   Even though any semblance of religiosity exited through the open door, I surveyed the scene with joy and knew that the value of the holiday for me was the community; coming together with family and friends under happy circumstances. The only negative of the evening was that I never got a chance to read from my special Princeton University Supplement to the Haggadah — a Jewish text that sets forth the order (or in my case the disorder) of the Passover seder.
   I acquired my Haggadah supplement the week before Passover (April 14-16), at an extraordinary Princeton University event — a celebration of community that moved me on a less personal but more profound level than my Passover seder.
   About 900 Princeton University alumni and guests attended the conference: “L’Chaim! To Life: Celebrating 100 Years of Jewish Life at Princeton.”
   The three-day event was a giant family get-together — with no family arguments — to celebrate the past and reflect upon the future. Highlights included:
   • A conversation with President Christopher L. Eisgruber
   • A discussion with Princeton University Presidents Emeriti William G. Bowen, professor of economics and public affairs emeritus, and Harold T. Shapiro, professor of economics and public affairs
   • Closing remarks by Mark Wilf, a member of the Class of 1984 and owner and president of the Minnesota Vikings football team
   • Panel discussions and lectures featuring Princeton faculty, alumni, graduate students and undergraduate students on topics and issues such as Judaic studies at Princeton; the student experience at Princeton; Israeli-American relations; American journalism; tracing Jewish genealogy; Jewish life on campus; service, admission and financial aid; the U.S economy; Jewish experiences on campus; philosophy of religion and modern Jewish thought; the 2016 presidential election; Jews in the world of entrepreneurship; and Jewish alumni in comedy and writing.
   Center for Jewish Life Executive Director and Jewish Chaplain Julie Roth noted that 100 years ago was when the first Shabbat Friday night dinners began on campus. She drew information from “In the Tiger’s Lair: The Development of Jewish Student Life at Princeton University, 1915-1972,” a thesis by Abby Klionsky class of 2014.
   The first known Jewish student enrolled in Princeton in 1859. In the latter half of the 19th century, only a handful of Jewish students attended the college. In 1947, Professor Albert Einstein attended the Shabbat Service that sparked the creation of Princeton Hillel, according to Rabbi Roth who has been at Princeton University for 11 years.
   As a Princeton University employee (1989 to 2006) who served on the Board of the Center for Jewish Life for a period of time, I was in a good position to observe the growth of a vibrant Jewish community on campus. Harold Shapiro — the university’s first Jewish president, serving from 1988 to 2001 — succeeded President Bill Bowen, whose insight and vision led to the Center for Jewish Life building on Washington Road. Christopher Eisgruber, the current president, discovered in 2008 (while helping his son with a school assignment) that his German mother, who raised her children as Catholic, was born to a Jewish family in Berlin in 1932.
   ”When planning the L’Chaim Conference celebrating 100 years of Jewish life at Princeton, we envisioned hundreds of Jewish alumni studying Torah together in preparation for the holiday of Passover,” said Rabbi Roth. “We created this Princeton University Haggadah Supplement… comprising quotes and comments from many of Princeton’s finest scholars and alumni, addressing the topic of freedom, a central theme of the Passover story.”
   The Haggadah Supplement includes comments from: Michael Walzer, professor emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study; Albert Einstein; Jonathan Sarna, professor, American Jewish History, Brandeis University; Elena Kagan, associate justice of Supreme Court; Jill Dolan, dean of the College Princeton University; and many others.
   President Eisgruber said the following:
   ”By seeing ourselves as if we had been forced to flee Egypt or Germany or the many other homes that Jews left behind we recognize our own vulnerability and with it the dignity of others. We gain new appreciation for our blessings, and we reinvigorate our will to help those in need. Our shared history gives us fresh inspiration to heal the world we inhabit today.”
   That’s a statement to inspire compassionate order in society’s disorder — and one that I promise to read next year — in the first two minutes of my family seder.