Gen Z needs support, says campus professional and former Pittsburgher Rabbi Debbie Pine
"How do we work together to empower this generation to keep the American Jewish community vibrant and fulfilling?"
In nearly 20 years of working with college students, former Pittsburgher Rabbi Debbie Pine has noticed a fundamental shift in Jewish engagement on campus.
“Certainly when I was in college in the ’80s, Hillel was about who showed up, who walked through our doors,” she said. “Now, we are much more focused on how do we reach the 3,000 Jewish students at Tulane, most of whom will not walk through our door, but who we have to go out and reach.”
Hillel’s responsibility to find and involve students isn’t the only change on campus, said Pine — it’s the students themselves.
Her insights stem from decades of Jewish communal work. After serving as an assistant rabbi at Rodef Shalom Congregation between 1992 and 1999, Pine became executive director of Tulane Hillel and later Hopkins Hillel. She is entering her fifth year as campus support director at Hillel International, where she partners with Hillel directors to “build their boards and serve the students the best that they can,” she said.
Pine’s portfolio includes George Washington University, Harvard University, Indiana University, four campuses in Baltimore and the entire state of Florida.
The odd amalgam, she said, is partly due to “geographic” realities; but more importantly, traveling between these campuses has generated major takeaways.
“Those Florida campuses are really important,” she said. “There are 25,000 Jewish students in the state of Florida — more Jewish students than in the state of New York. We used to think — we still think — that University of Maryland and Rutgers have the highest concentration of Jewish students, but actually University of Florida and Central Florida have over 6,000 Jewish students.”
The totality of Jewish students on campus is a critical marker of American Jewish life, Pine explained.
Whereas 62% of U.S. Jews responding to a survey told Pew Research Center they “held or attended a seder last year,” and 46% said they fasted on all or part of Yom Kippur, “85% of American Jews attend a four-year college,” Pine said. “The one uniting factor of the American Jewish community is actually not going to a seder or lighting the menorah, it’s actually going to college.”
Pine said the Jewish community needs to embrace the role of higher education while recognizing the realities of campus life.
“We’ve seen a rise in antisemitism over the past few years, and a real challenge has been to address that. We don’t shy away from it. We work with incredible partners, like the ADL and our Jewish Federations,” she said. “We do everything we can to empower students to respond within our campus climate and inspire our students to create a meaningful life, which they really do.”
Those interested in seeing a vibrant and expanding Jewish community must awaken to students’ needs, said the campus professional.
Generation Z — comprised of those born between 1997 and 2012 — is the first group of students on campus to grow up “with a cellphone, and not remember a time without the internet,” Pine said.
Those students also have been affected by the pandemic and other challenges.
Twenty-seven percent — a figure “significantly” surpassing any other generation — of Gen Zers told the American Psychological Association their mental health is “fair or poor.”
Factors contributing to generational depression and anxiety, include school shootings, student debt, unemployment, a deluge of negative news, fear of missing out and “shame in falling short of a social media-worthy standard,” according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Pine said conversations with campus directors have indicated numerous difficulties Gen Zers face.
“We at Hillel are obviously not trained mental health professionals, but we’re doing everything we can to equip our Hillels to respond to these challenges that students are bringing to us,” she said.
If the larger Jewish community wishes to see a robust and thriving Jewish future, Pine said, then it cannot shirk its responsibility to today’s college students.
“Our challenge collectively is to think about how do we continue to partner — to not only inspire our students to want to be Jewish on campus in the many diverse, exciting and interesting ways they do — but how do we work together to empower this generation to keep the American Jewish community vibrant and fulfilling after they step off of our campuses and enter our synagogues and JCCs and Federations.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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