For years Jewish groups on campus have tried a wide variety of programs to create a sense of community among all Jewish students. Yet few schools have successfully reached more than five or ten percent of the Jewish students on their campus. From holiday dinners to Holocaust commemorations, study groups to Seinfeld nights, Jewish students leaders continue to struggle in their attempts to reach beyond their core group of active Jews.
So to many it comes as a surprise that the project most successful in the past two years at engaging high percentages of Jewish students has been a fundraising campaign, an area of programming often characterized by minimal participation among students who are strapped for cash or uninterested in giving.
In February 1997, a small group of students at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Hillel met with their Hillel director to discuss a new approach to creating community. Their solution? A fundraising campaign that combined a contemporary campus phenomenon‹the United Jewish Appeal's annual campus fundraising drive‹with a biblical mandate on creating community. The Half-Shekel Campaign was born with a simple goal: to reach out to each member of the Jewish community on campus‹students, faculty, staff, and local residents‹and create a single humanitarian group.
For years the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) has helped students to run campus campaigns that raise money for the Jewish philanthropy. The University of Michigan had run moderately successful UJA campaigns in previous years, utilizing traditional fundraising techniques like bagel sales and Super Sunday phon-a-thons. UJA resettles, integrates, and sustains thousands of new immigrants fleeing for safety, provides housing for the elderly, emergency counseling and shelter for abused women and children, along with many other humanitarian causes.
Despite the inherent merit of the cause, it was the biblical origins of the Half Shekel Campaign that provided the heart and soul of the program. In Parsha Ki Tisa in the book of Shemot (Exodus), Hashem spoke to Moses, saying, "When you take a census of the children of Israel according to their numbers, every man shall give Hashem an atonement for his soul when counting them. . . This shall they give‹everyone who passes through their census‹a half shekel of the sacred shekel. . . as a portion to Hashem."
Commentary by the great Jewish scholar Rambam explains further. When a census of the Israelite men was taken, each man was required to contribute one half shekel. The coins were counted and the total indicated how many people had been numbered. This process raised several questions. One, why weren't they counted by head, and two, why was each required to donate a coin instead? The rabbis have said that the method of counting by means of coins signifies the fact that every single person numbered has his own individual worth (in half-shekel campaign terms-"Everyone Counts"). If this is the case, why did they only donate a half-shekel rather than a whole one to represent one whole self?
No individual is complete when standing alone. When you associate with other Jews and go out of your way to learn from others, help others, and do for others, then you are a true member of the Jewish people. To remain isolated and away from others, one stands alone and lacks character. (Rambam, Perek 4, Hichot Teshuva Halacha 1)
After examining the sources, the core group of students joined by Hillel Executive Director Michael Brooks developed a way to bring this ancient halacha into the contemporary lives of college students. Instead of running a campaign that focused simply on raising money, which can be done by getting large contributions from a small number of students, the Half Shekel campaign would attempt to build community by taking small contributions from a much larger number of people.
In order to spread awareness about the campaign, the student organizers made circular pins, each displaying the half-shekel symbol, (half yellow, half blue) and began to wear them around campus. Curious students who asked about the symbol would be treated to a brief summary of the campaign. Students who wanted to join the campaign would be asked to donate at least one dollar (the modern equivalent to a half-shekel) to UJA and to wear a half-shekel pin. The campaign was on its way.
Simultaneously, posters were displayed all over campus with the slogan "Who Cares?" to peak student interest. Membership was on the rise and the goal of the campaign was becoming a reality. Pins began to appear everywhere as students wore them on backpacks, hats, and clothing. Jewish students began to comment that simply by seeing so many students wearing the pins helped to make them feel united as a Jewish community on campus.
Soon a second set of poster were hung around campus with the message "Because Everyone Counts." This slogan incorporated both the personal focus of the campaign and the overall goals of the UJA.
In its first application, which concluded at the end of the spring semester, a total of 1100 people had donated $6000 to the campaign, by far the highest level of participation the school's Hillel had seen. The year before the first Half-Shekel Campaign, 110 people contributed $1000 through a campaign that utilized traditional fundraising techniques. A secondary goal was now within reach: engaging and involving previously unaffiliated Jewish students. According to University of Michigan senior and the UJA Half-Shekel Campaign Student Coordinator, Stefan Malter, "The campaign is more than fundraising, it is a membership drive."
Encouraged by their successful first-year run, students on the Half-Shekel Campaign's committee were excited to repeat the project with a few changes to make it a more professional and a more finished campaign. "We want to make it a more palatable product," Malter said, "because on a college campus there are so many other things to do."
In order for the campaign to appeal to all students and actually bring the University of Michigan Jewish community together, a portion of the donations would be used to sponsor campus-wide events. These activities have ranged from the traditional Friday night dinners to community service projects to Jewish singles night at a local bar. Last year they also hosted a Purim party and Passover seders at Hillel.
Despite the campaign's success, issues have arisen. Some students feel that the Half-Shekel Campaign implies that students needed to participate in the campaign to show that they were Jewish. There was also a controversy about the half-shekel pins, which a few students likened to when Jews were forced to wear yellow arm bands in Nazi Germany.
The organizers disagreed. "No one is forced to wear a button," asserted Malter. "It is your decision and it represents a sense of pride."
The University of Michigan is in the process of proving its campaign to national UJA, who have been very supportive so far. The national UJA focuses more on the donations than does University of Michigan's Half-Shekel Campaign, whose main emphasis is on creating unity and involvement among Jews. For University of Michigan sophomore Jamie Katz, they have succeeded. "Seeing people around campus wearing pins, really made me feel a sense of unity within the Jewish community. With such a large number of Jewish students at the University of Michigan, the Half-Shekel Campaign is a great way to bring people together."
On the national level the Half-Shekel Campaign is becoming contagious. In Chicago during Halloween weekend last semester, thirteen schools attended a conference to receive instruction on how to implement the campaign on their respective campuses. University of Michigan students, heavily involved with the campaign, led the training. The 13 campuses included Boston University, Broward/Palm Beach and Miami Hillel, CUNY-Brooklyn College, CUNY-Queens College, Hofstra University, Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, SUNY at Stony Brook, University of Arizona, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Texas at Austin.
As the spring semester gets underway, twelve schools have plans to implement the Half-Shekel Campaign on their campus. Will other schools be able to duplicate Michigan's success? It's too soon to tell, but this student initiative may well end up revolutionizing the way Jewish campus fundraising is approached for years to come.
Beth Shyken is an undergraduate at the University of Michigan.