In defense of jewish fraternities Fraternity Men Intermarry Less George S. Toll While the Reform movement is struggling to reach out to unaffiliated people, it is losing many For thirty-one years I was Executive Director of of our own young people. Jewish fraternity men . I took this job originally do not join cults. They do not assimilate in the because I believed in the value of the Jewish same proportion as men who join gentile frater- fraternity as a tool for our survival. And so it was nities. They are not as apt to intermarry. for many years. Jewish fraternity men dated Jewish girls, Jewish sorority women and in- One of our problems is that as the gentile frater- dependents. Intermarriage was rare. Jewish nities opened up, so were we forced to do the fraternities were supportive of Hillel and other same. The result is that wherever we did open up Jewish campus organizations. (and we were under great pressure from the universities to do so) the chapters immediately Then along came the Anti-Defamation League stopped their Jewish activities, their support of and the American Jewish Committee. They saw Hillel, their observance of the Sabbath, Hanukah, • the restrictive practices of the fraternity system as and the High Holidays. Those which had Passover' evil, and so they set out, with a budget of Seders stopped them. After all, the reasoning $100,000, to change the system. They either did went, with the admission of non-Jews we are now not envision the long-term consequences of their non-sectarian, so we have no right to support acts, or did not care. Several of our leaders met Jewish causes or observe Jewish holy days. In a with them to ask them to drop this activity, but number of chapters the number of gentiles grew their response was that since the programs of the so rapidly that they became in the majority or Jewish fraternities had little Jewish content, they almost totally gentile, and then decided they were had no reason to be protected. One man told me not anxious to admit Jews, or at best a few. All that he himself was a past president of Sigma in all, the action of ADL and AJC has wiped out Alpha Mu, and that he resented being kept out of in large measure what I consider to be one of the a country club, but that if they could force Jewish best tools we had on campus for Jewish survival. men to be taken by the gentile fraternities, this The fraternity system will survive, but instead of would lead to the admission of Jews in the most being used to help us survive, it now has become restrictive country clubs. an avenue of assimilation. ADL and AJC succeeded. Jewish men and women are being taken by the non-Jewish groups in ever- Hillel Reaches A Small Number increasing numbers. Many of the old-line Jewish It may be too late, but I still believe we need the nationals, Phi Epsilon Pi, and Jewish college fraternity if we are to keep our others, collapsed or merged. And today the col- young men and women in our ranks. I have been lege campus is the place where we of the Jewish disappointed in the lack of support from the rab- community have the greatest assimilation. Do you binate on this issue. There are some fifty-five expect a Jewish boy initiated into , rabbis in A E Pi, Reform and Conservative. Only wearing the Crusader's Cross as a badge, pledging two or three even make an annual contribution himself to help redeem the Holy Sepulchre, to to the fraternity so that we can continue our pro- come out of college a committed Jew? Do you ex- gram. And we have done a real job. pect him to restrict his dating to Jewish girls? Hillel attracts only 5 to 10% of Jewish students, those who are already committed. We need the GEORGE S. TOLL lives in University City, MO. fraternity to help us keep the borderline cases. •

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