‘Bursting at the seams’: Hillel plans to expand on FAU campus, gets record $2.5 million donation

Lois K. Solomon, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
·3 min read

Some want to find Jewish friends. Others, away from their families, yearn to celebrate the holidays. Still others just want to charge their phones and get a bite to eat.

Whatever the reason, college students are packing into Hillel of Broward and Palm Beach’s events in its Florida Atlantic University building in Boca Raton, crowding the 3,100-square-foot site on the central campus breezeway.

Leaders of Hillel, which provides a Jewish gathering place for college students, have decided it’s time to expand, and they say a record-setting $2.5 million donation, the highest ever given to this Hillel, is the first step in the campaign.

Organizers want to raise $10 million to enlarge the building to 5,500 square feet and increase programming not only at FAU but at Hillel’s other South Florida campuses — at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Lynn University in Boca Raton, Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth Beach and Broward College, which has campuses throughout the county.

At NSU, Hillel rents a room. At Lynn, Palm Beach State and Broward College, Hillel has no set site for Jewish students. But the organization wants to develop more programs at these schools, keeping FAU and NSU as the destination gathering places for all the campuses.

“The real impetus is not having enough space,” executive director Adam Kolett said. “We are bursting at the seams. Shabbat dinners that used to attract 40 to 50 students now have 100.”

FAU student Jack Steinman agreed about Shabbat dinner crowding.

“It’s lively and warm, but it’s also shoulder to shoulder, with people tripping over each other’s food,” said Steinman, 20, a junior from New York. “By having more space, we could have a lot more people.”

The new building would include a security vestibule at the entrance and a large outdoor seating area to help accommodate large dinner crowds.

Hillel is an international organization that offers programs, dinners, religious services, scholarships, social events and support to Jewish students on 850 campuses.

At FAU, Hillel estimates about 7% of the population is Jewish, or about 1,750 students. That puts the school in the top 40 of American public universities for Jewish population, according to Hillel International.

Recent news events, including the Oct. 7 attack in Israel and growing antisemitism in the United States, have helped push Jewish students into organized religious and cultural events, Kolett said.

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“Oct. 7 was difficult and confusing for students,” he said. “Since then, the second front to this horrible war has been fought on campus and social media, the two locations our students spend most of their time. The result has been that many new students have come to find value in our Hillel community, for support, guidance, and trying to help each other make sense of an otherwise senseless situation.”

The organization has raised about $3 million for the new campaign so far, with $2.5 million coming from Debra Newman Bernstein, a Boca Raton philanthropist. The previous largest donation to the local Hillel was $100,000, Kolett said.

Student Erin Hoffman agrees that a large building is essential to accommodating the growing number of students who seek solace and companionship at FAU and nearby campuses.

“I’ve made the majority of my friends through Hillel,” said Hoffman, 21, a junior from Boca Raton. “I’ve seen such a rise in attendance at services, not only on Shabbat but also Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashana and Hanukkah. For so many students, our homes aren’t here, so it’s an opportunity to celebrate and mingle.”

Kolett hopes the project will be completed by the fall of 2025. For more information, go to Hillelcenter.org.