[Chat] BJT article on the new Hillel house

[WeinsteinM at aol.com]

Here's a nice article in this week's Jewish Times about the "recent addition 
to this distinguished, storied North Baltimore neighborhood" -- Charles 
Village, that is!   And the rabbi lives next door in Oakenshawe.   
-Matthew

http://www.jewishtimes.com/scripts/edition.pl?stay=1&SubSectionID=48&ID=2311

House Warming: The Smokler Center for Jewish Life opens at Johns Hopkins 
University
MAY 07, 2004   
Karen Buckelew / Kirsten Beckerman
 
 Dr. Irving Smokler, a 1964 graduate of Johns Hopkins University, was 
horrified. His son Daniel, in the process of searching for colleges, had just told 
him that his precious alma mater just wouldn't make the cut.


 "He told me Jewish student life was so poor at Hopkins he wouldn't even 
consider it," recalled Dr. Smokler recently of the conversation. "That was 
shocking to me. I called the Hillel people in Baltimore and said, 'We have to do 
something.'"

 That was seven years ago. The result is the university's new Hillel 
building, a 16,000-square-foot brick edifice situated on North Charles Street in the 
heart of Hopkins' Charles Village campus.

 The new Smokler Center for Jewish Life: Harry and Jeanette Weinberg 
Building, which opened in April, is far more than just bricks and mortar. Its design, 
down to the structure and placement of its walls, the contour of its rooms, 
the color of the paint and the size of the furniture, is configured to suit 
every need of Hopkins students and the entire community. And, supporters say, it 
could be just the catalyst for a renaissance in Jewish life at the university.

 "I think there's a certain truth to Kevin Costner in 'Field of Dreams' 
saying, 'If you build it, they will come,'" said Jeffrey H. Scherr, president of 
the board of directors for Hillel of Greater Baltimore. "We want to engage kids 
in dialogue, learning, teaching, being with other kids of similar interests. 
It's a wonderful building, a wonderful place to be."

 Hopkins Hillel has become a haven for Jewish students at the university's 
Baltimore City campus. In an Ivy League atmosphere of pressure, stress and hard 
work for students — who often are a long way from home — Hillel is a place 
where Jews can meet, relax and just be together.

 The Smokler Center lobby is a bright place — floor-to-ceiling windows face 
the Baltimore Museum of Art's lush, tree-filled front lawn just across North 
Charles Street. A donor wall, soon to bear the names of the building's many 
funders, adorns the entryway. "Let your house be open wide," read its golden 
letters.

 The building's most distinctive feature dominates even the lobby — a curved 
wall that snakes through the center of each floor, reaching the back of the 
long, narrow structure.

 
 On each level, a metal sculpture hangs on this contoured wall, each one 
representing a Hebrew word that exemplifies the "theme" of each floor. In the 
lobby, the theme of which is the Center for Engagement, the wall says, "Shalom."

 As Rabbi Joseph M. Menashe showed visitors around the Smokler Center in 
mid-April, it was evident he was still in awe of the new building. Its spacious 
offices, abundance of lounge space for studying or just hanging out, its sunlit 
terrace and scenic views of beautiful North Charles Street are a far cry from 
Hillel's former offices.

 "There was no destination, no place for Jewish students to call home," he 
said. "We want to ensure this is not going to be just 'that Jewish building 
across the street.' We want to ensure this facility becomes part of the rhythm and 
fabric of Jewish life."

 It was about seven years ago that Hopkins Hillel began working on the idea 
of creating its own building, said Terry M. Rubenstein, who chaired the 
committee to develop a strategic plan for the organization at that time.

 "We met for almost a year and developed this plan," she explained. "We 
essentially said, if we build it, they will come."

 But it was not until Drs. Irving and Carol Smokler of Ann Arbor, Mich., 
donated the building in 1999 that the plan really took shape.

 "The Jewish life was in great need of something," Dr. Smokler said of his 
inspiration. "I said, 'This university is losing good students because of a 
deficit in Jewish life. What do we have to do?' I kept pushing and pushing and 
pushing and pushing until it happened. I only take credit for the idea and the 
beginning of it. The only message to take away from this is if you have an idea 
and believe strongly enough in it, you have to push it through."



 A substantial gift, which Dr. Smokler would not disclose, was the impetus 
for a $15 million capital campaign, which got another boost in 2002 with money 
from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. Construction began in November 
of 2002, after the original building had been demolished.

 The new facility, designed by lead architect Cass Gottlieb of Kann & 
Associates Inc., and built by Owings Mills-based Kroll Construction, blends smoothly 
with the surrounding buildings. Were it not for the newness of its bricks — 
and the contractors' trucks parked out front — it would be nearly impossible to 
tell the building is a recent addition to this distinguished, storied North 
Baltimore neighborhood.

 As an addition to Hopkins, it may just be invaluable.

 Only one other school in Maryland — the University of Maryland, College Park 
— has its own Hillel building, said Mr. Scherr. "Most equivalent schools, of 
similar size and academic quality," have their own buildings, he added.

 "I think it just further enhances ... student life," said Hopkins Dean of 
Student Life Susan K. Boswell. "It's just one more thing that's here, another 
piece of student life that will be attractive. This is going to be something 
that attracts students that aren't Jewish as well. That's one of the particularly 
neat things about this community — it is so culturally diverse. There is a 
lot of cultural sharing that happens."

 Said Hopkins sophomore Saul Garlick, 20, of the new building: "I think it is 
unbelievable. I think it is so perfectly designed for our purposes."

 Hillel's purpose, for the most part, is simply to give Jewish students an 
opportunity to be Jewish, whatever that may mean to each individual.


 "We want to have kids understand and appreciate Judaism and to feel 
comfortable with its traditions — for Jewish kids to find the right kind of Judaism 
for them," said Mr. Scherr. "When they go away to college, they're looking for 
places to feel comfortable and feel familiar. And they're at an impressionable 
age. We feel we have an obligation to help them understand what their culture 
and heritage is."

 That was difficult to do, said Ms. Rubenstein, with no place for the Jewish 
students to go.

 "The Hopkins campus has never really had a strong sense of identity for its 
Jewish students," she said. "There has never really been any place other than 
the 'K' [the school's kosher dining hall], and it was sort of buried in a 
basement somewhere."

 Not to mention, said both Ms. Rubenstein and Rabbi Menashe, that the kosher 
dining facility attracts only those students who keep kosher.

 "There wasn't a place that was welcoming for everybody that was Jewish," Ms. 
Rubenstein said. "There needed to be a place where everyone was welcome, a 
place where people could meet and hang out — not just have a place to eat."

 "Kids who aren't as observant [as those who keep kosher] have inquiring 
minds," Mr. Scherr agreed. "They want to know where else to get [Jewish education] 
besides the classroom."

 And prospective students like Daniel Smokler, who are looking for a strong 
Jewish life to complement strong academics, have been overlooking the Hopkins 
program because of its comparably weak Hillel.

 "It's a recruitment issue," said Ms. Rubenstein. "Hopkins was missing out on 
kids they should have."

 Mr. Garlick, a Denver native, remembered that, while looking at colleges 
several years ago, he nearly crossed Hopkins off his list when he found out 
Hillel was without a home of its own.

 "As a prospective student, I wasn't impressed that Hillel didn't have a 
building," he said. "I wanted it to happen."


 But his experience visiting Hillel upon his first trip to campus was enough 
to outweigh those concerns.

 "When you arrive in a new place, it's so good to know that if you go into 
the Jewish community, you always find a friend right off the bat," said Mr. 
Garlick, an international relations major. He recalled that his first stop on 
campus on that first visit was to the Hillel offices to find someone to show him 
around.

 "Hillel welcomed me," he said of that first experience. "I became connected 
with the community here from the outset."

 Now, Hillel is hoping to attract more students like Mr. Garlick, Jewish or 
not, to its new building just off campus.

 "I think there's so many things you can do in the building," said Mr. 
Scherr. "Students can be having meetings, planning community events. They can be 
studying upstairs in the library, they can be having a seminar or showing a movie 
in the multi-purpose room. And, of course, it helps to have a kitchen. 
Students will come there to gather and eat."

 The Smokler Center, with three above-ground floors and a dining hall in the 
basement, certainly was designed for just about anything. Trendy contemporary 
furnishings adorn lounges on each floor, all of them complete with views of 
the Baltimore Museum of Art's wooded property. Offices for Hillel staff are 
plentiful and complete with the newest technology. The building also features a 
large office for students to plan Hopkins Hillel events and other activities.


 A library features books on Judaism as well as study space; one lounge is 
complete with a large, flat-screen television set. The entire building is set up 
for wireless access to the Internet, so students can study or work just about 
anywhere.

 A Beit Midrash is on hand for services, and its cupboards and wiring are 
specially designed so it can double as a movie screening room, dance floor or 
lecture hall. Conference rooms for meetings or classes also grace each floor.

 And, of course, in the basement is the food, that ever-present tenet of 
Jewish life. Two commercial kitchens, one for meat, one for dairy, both are Star-K 
certified. The adjoining dining room, a spacious, mustard-yellow room, will 
be the site of Shabbat dinners each week.

 Students were an integral part of the building's design, with committees 
formed to make decisions and recommendations. The ping-pong and foosball tables 
in the dining room, said Rabbi Menashe, were their idea.

 "You don't have to be a Torah scholar to have a seat at our table," 
explained the rabbi.

 With its magentas and purples, teals and yellows, reds and greens, the 
building is a bright, vibrant, cheerful place — even in mid-April, when stacked 
boxes filled offices and workmen hauled their tools noisily through hallways 
still pungent from fresh paint.

 The Smokler Center's grand opening Sunday, May 2, was its official unveiling 
to the public, including Dr. Smokler himself, until then acquainted with this 
fruit of his labor only through photographs. But the building already had 
been in use for several weeks by Hillel staff and eager students, including Mr. 
Garlick.

 "The second day it was open, I went in and started studying," he said. "I 
think it is unbelievable. It's going to be a big deal for the school."

 Before the grand opening, Dr. Smokler said he was eager to see the center 
that bears his name.

 "Wouldn't you be?" he said when asked it he was excited to visit the 
building. "There are few things that people can say, 'But for me, this wouldn't have 
happened.' I feel very good about it. But I really want the message to be that 
other people should do the same thing. If you have a dream, you have to go 
and do it."




To read more, pick up a copy of the Jewish Times at one of our newsstand 
locations.

To purchase a subscription or send a gift subscription, fill out our  on-line 
form.




       
Copyright ©2003 the Baltimore Jewish Times

  
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