Stanford University

Explore Hillel at Stanford

Hillel at Stanford is the Jewish home for 550 Jewish undergraduate and 1100 Jewish graduate students, and a center to share the wisdom and beauty of Jewish life with the university community as a whole. We strive to get to know every student. The relationship with students is the backbone of everything we do, and last year we formed a relationship with the vast majority of Jewish undergrads. Whether it is taking them out for coffee, connecting them with new friends, or inviting them to big social events, our goal is to discover each student's passions and interests so they can explore them in a Jewish context. Students receive grants and partner with staff mentors to put on new Jewish initiatives with the Jewish Incubator Fellowship. We connect them with a variety of Jewish clubs, including the Jewish Student Association, Challah for Hunger, AEPi, Jewish Queers, Stanford Israel Association, J Street U, TAMID, Jewish Freshmen and Jewish Sophomores, and more. We explore with students what it means to be part of a global Jewish people. "Jewish Peoplehood" is the idea that we are connected through time and space to other Jews who live around the world and Jewish communities throughout our history. Last year, we brought busloads of students on heavily subsidized trips to Israel, Poland, and Argentina to learn about Jewish history and contemporary Jewish communities there. To foster deeper learning, we offer several fellowships designed to explore Jewish Peoplehood, Israel and Zionism, and the Moos Fellowship, which explores Jewish intersectional identities. For each of these we bring together students with distinguished speakers and master teachers for intimate conversations throughout the year. We also explore our collective and individual responsibilities for social action and tikkun olam. Students engage with a magnificent Jewish textual wisdom tradition and the Jewish calendar. Shabbat, holidays, and festive meals are special times for students. They can expect delicious kosher food (along with weekday lunch and dinner Stanford kosher dining options!), thoughtful ritual to make sense of a sometimes-overwhelming culture at Stanford, warm community, and opportunities to plan these experiences for their peers. There is no one way to be Jewish at Stanford and we strive to provide experiences for Jews of every background, denomination, and family story. Students also engage in Jewish text study with the Jewish Learning Fellowship, a revolving door of distinguished visiting teachers, and dozens of courses each year offered by the Taube Center for Jewish Studies on Jewish history, culture, languages, sociology, and more. Hillel is also one of only a handful around the globe deeply investing in graduate student and post-doc Jewish life with a robust calendar of events for grad students and a special program for Israeli grads and post-docs, many of whom come to Stanford with family and young kids.