A Professional Love Affair, A Lifetime of Impact
It’s no surprise that Hillel has changed and evolved over the past 100 years. But one thing has always remained the same: Hillel’s dedication to supporting and enriching the lives of Jewish students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.
It’s that dedication that has motivated alumni like Larry Moses to spend a lifetime working to support Hillel International — first as a Hillel director, then as international director of Hillel, then as a member of the Board of Directors, and over recent years, as the senior philanthropic advisor to Leslie and Abigail Wexner.
“My relationship with Hillel has been one of love,” Larry said. “One that’s lasted a lifetime.”
Larry’s love affair with Hillel began when he was a student at Indiana University. Growing up in a traditional Jewish home in South Bend, Indiana, Larry’s Jewish identity was heavily influenced by his mother’s experience in the Holocaust. She was a survivor of a number of concentration and death camps, and lost most of her family in the camps.
“Our little Jewish community was very close-knit, and we were very close to the survivor community,” Larry said.
Like many students today, Larry experienced a “richly tumultuous” time during his college years. “It was the late 60s and early 70s,” he said. “And it was rife with student activism and protests: Vietnam, Kent State, Cambodia — that whole chapter of American history that really spilled into the college campus in a big way.” But a year abroad in Israel as an undergraduate was a turning point in Larry’s Jewish college experience. He became more involved with Hillel in his final year of school, developing a close relationship with Rabbi James Diamond (z”l), then the director of Indiana University Hillel.
When it came time to think about his post-graduation plans, Larry was all set to enroll in law school — until he got a phone call from Rabbi Diamond, who had just accepted the Hillel Director position at Washington University in St. Louis. “He told me that the Indiana University position was now open,” Larry said. “And it was very late in the game, and they couldn’t find a proper Hillel director. So he asked me if I would consider putting off law school for a year and become the interim director at Indiana University.”
It was a surprising opportunity. At that point in Hillel’s history, the organization was primarily led by rabbis. In order for someone who was not a rabbi to become a full Hillel director, they needed a graduate degree in Jewish studies and in social work/social administration. But after a year in the interim position, Larry knew it was the right path for him to take.
“Having that taste of Hillel work at that very young age was something that connected so many pieces of my life — my whole biographical narrative, the home that I had grown up in, my mother’s experience in the Shoah, and my year in Israel. It just really all kind of came together,” Larry said. “I knew I didn’t want to go to law school. I wanted to work for Hillel.”
And that’s exactly what he did. After graduate school, Larry became the director of Hillel at San Francisco State University. He spent five years in that position before accepting a job as executive director the Bureau of Jewish Education for the San Francisco Bay Area, a large Jewish educational organization that had 19 affiliated Jewish schools. He later took on the role of international director at Hillel, and eventually came back to serve on the Hillel International Board of Directors, becoming chair of Hillel’s Governance Committee, and co-chair of the Hillel U Advisory Board.
“The love affair just never waned,” Larry said. “Even though I haven’t worked for Hillel for a long time, I invariably keep coming back.”
During his time with Hillel — as an employee, a lay leader, and a supporter — Larry has seen the organization grow and change in myriad ways. He witnessed Hillel’s transition from an organization sponsored by B’nai B’rith International to an independent nonprofit, and saw the change from rabbinic leadership (when practically all Hillel directors were rabbis) to professional communal leadership, as well as the shift in Hillel’s funding model to include primary support, in many cases from Jewish Federations and individual donors, and its expansion to colleges and universities in more countries around the world.
“Looking back at Hillel’s history, I think there is no organization in American Jewish HISTORY that does pluralism quite like Hillel,” Larry said. “Hillel has done it all under one roof for so long now — Jewish spiritual and religious life, Jewish intellectual life, social outlets, cultural life, Jewish arts, and more. There’s not an element of Jewish expression that Hillel doesn’t open its arms to and welcome. It’s a magnificent achievement. In many ways, Hillel invented American Jewish pluralism and remains unparalleled in its practice.”
Whether professionally or as a lay leader, Larry has shepherded a number of Hillel International initiatives and programs over the years, but an area where he is most proud is his impact in Hillel’s expansion of its support of emerging professionals.
“The work of Hillel itself demands such a wide range of skills and knowledge,” he said. “It’s not just the Jewish learning, organizational learning, that sort of intellectuality — there’s also the whole arena of understanding adult development and young adult development. There’s just so many angles that a Hillel professional needs to master on some level to be effective.” He says it was especially exciting to provide these professionals with support and training to help them grow.
Hillel has been a central part of Larry’s life, and he doesn’t see that changing any time soon. One thing he’s greatly enjoyed over the years is connecting with other Hillel supporters — something he sees as critical to Hillel’s success.
“Hillel International is particularly good at gathering donors and putting donors together around the same table,” he said. “This is actually a great service to the larger Jewish community and to the Jewish world as well, because when Jewish donors sit around that table and talk about how they can be better stewards of Hillel, they’re talking about other things in Jewish life and connecting in other ways as well.”
Larry also said that supporting Hillel can truly change lives – both for college students, and for donors themselves. “I would tell [donors] that supporting Hillel will truly enhance their lives and elevate their sense of connection to Jewish life and to the Jewish future,” he said.
But for Larry, actions speak louder than words. “What I would really do with such a person, rather than talk a lot, is take that person to a campus and have them visit a Hillel for a couple of hours. Have them talk with some students, attend a program, go to a Shabbat dinner. Because the work really speaks for itself.”
“Sometimes, donors worry about whether they’re supporting the right organization, or if they’re really doing something that will make a difference,” Larry went on. “But I’ve never had that with Hillel. To me, Hillel is a direct contribution to the future of Jewish life, period. No complexities or stops along the way.”
Read our Humans of Hillel stories to learn more about the students, professionals, and Hillel community members whose lives have been impacted by Hillel.