American University and AU Hillel are more than halfway to a $7 million goal to facilitate a dedicated space for AU Hillel on campus, according to a May 21 announcement by AU President John Alger.
The new space, housed in Hughes Hall, a residential hall, will provide opportunities for Jewish student gatherings, educational programming and community building, according to the announcement.
“I think it’s a really exciting moment for our campus and our Jewish community,” Jason Benkendorf, AU Hillel’s executive director, told Washington Jewish Week.
“Jewish life on campus has grown in dramatic ways over the past decade or so. We’ve more than tripled student involvement and our staff and programming have grown, so it’s really time for us to have a home that can accommodate the scale of our current student engagement and programming.”
As the “center of Jewish life on campus,” AU Hillel currently serves a community of 1,600 — Jewish students make up about 20% of the university’s total student body, according to AU Hillel.
Gary Abramson, an alumnus and former chairman of the AU Board of Trustees, and his wife, Pennie, made the first major gift to set this project in motion. Former trustee David Trone and his wife, June, provided the naming gift for the space, which will be known as the Trone Family Center for Jewish Life, the announcement read.
These leadership gifts marked the launch of the Campaign for the Future of Jewish Life at AU.
The Trone Family Center for Jewish Life will provide meeting and activity space, a student lounge and office space for AU Hillel staff members. AU Hillel will continue to hold Shabbat and holiday prayer services at Kay Spiritual Life Center, where it has held events, initiatives and religious services since its inception in 1965.
“We have operated for our entire history out of the Kay Spiritual Life Center … and in many ways, it’s been a home for us,” said Benkendorf, who has led AU Hillel for the past 14 years. “But it’s not a Jewish space. It’s an interbelief space.”
He spoke to the challenges of sharing the Kay Spiritual Life Center with more than a dozen other faith groups on campus for daily activities with a growing portion of the student population.
“Today, we don’t have a space where students can gather for committee meetings, learning fellowships or all the different gatherings without interruption [and] noise from other communities,” Benkendorf said.
Then-President Sylvia Burwell first announced AU’s partnership with AU Hillel to create a “dedicated on-campus home” for the organization in November 2023.
Recognizing that interfaith connection is important as well, Benkendorf looks forward to the day when AU’s Jewish community has its own space, complete with Jewish books, Jewish art on the walls and Jewish music.
“There’s something special about having a Jewish space that you can turn to,” he said.
“This center allows us to have a physical home at AU, a place where our community can grow and thrive,” Julia Rothman, a rising senior at AU, wrote in a statement to Washington Jewish Week.
The Campaign for the Future of Jewish Life will go beyond AU Hillel’s dedicated space.
“We want to be clear that [the campaign] is about more than establishing our new physical center,” Benkendorf said. “We’re also working hard through this campaign to secure the resources that will allow our community to grow and flourish within our new center for generations to come.”
Those resources will fund Shabbat dinners for students, first-year student programming and support for AU’s Jewish community, he said. The community is excited for what the future holds.
“Some of my most meaningful and formative experiences at AU have been through Hillel,” Rothman said. “I know that the Trone Family Center for Jewish Life will allow future students to make these same connections to their community and to their Jewish identities.”
