History of the ASU Hillel Jewish Student Association (1970-2000)
by Sheldon Hanft

Club Origins The Appalachian Students Club began in the early 1970's (71 or 72) when the Hanft family came to Boone in the fall of 1969 and invited all of the Jewish families and students on campus to join them. Initially 3 students and one faculty family joined them. This continued for a number of years and the number of students grew to nearly a dozen. In the mid 1970's (74/75) Rabbi David Kraus (from Hickory & Charlotte & now living in Greensboro) of the Circuit Riding Rabbi Project sponsored by I. D. Blumenthal visited our campus and he helped Dr. Hanft start the Boone Jewish Community. Soon after the creation of the Boone Jewish Community (BJC) efforts were made to formally create a Jewish Students club on campus, which informally took the name of the "ASU Hillel Club." A model club constitution was obtained from the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, modified and filed with the ASU Student Government Association. In 1978 or 79 the club was officially recognized and given a rental postal box and all of the privileges due them.

The Early Years of the Club In the early years of the club, the membership remained between one and two dozen students. Activities were mainly social, educational and civic. We had bagel and lox parties to attract new students, joined the BJC on occasion to celebrate major holiday and had speakers as well as volunteered to aid in campus and community activities to help the Hunger Coalition, the Watauga Youth Network. We also educated the campus with Shoah activities ranging from candle lighting ritual to dramatic readings of the writings of Holocaust survivors.

Boone Jewish Community Support and Activities From the early 1980's onward the BJC subsidized the activities of the club from paying rent on the mailbox to reimbursing the club for all of its party and other expenses. The club led the campaign to end the practice of allowing ministers to have special meeting rooms in the residency halls and to open the United Campus Ministry to Jews. Since the early 1980's to 2002, Dr. Hanft has been our liaison to the organization and the Club has had a 1/2 page display in the pamphlet it sends to all in-coming freshmen. This is also paid for by the BJC. Since the 1970's club members have been attending High Holiday service of the BJC in the Reform tradition as their guests and they provide transportation for students as a free service. One of the projects of the club which began in the late 1980's was to collect canned foods equivalent to the food not eaten when fasting during Yom Kippur and donating it to the Hunger Coalition. This has been expanded to also include BJC members.

1990s For 2 or 3 years in the early 1990's Danny Jacobson (Department of Communication) served as advisor to the Club, after which Dr. Hanft resumed these responsibilities. For 2 years in the 1990's ASU's Division of Student Affairs subsidized campus-wide Seders, held in the Broyhill Inn, conducted by club officers and attended by over three dozen non-Jewish students. The Club has also created displays in the cases in the Student Union to educate Christians about the major Jewish holidays. During this period Dr. Hanft got the ASU Registrar to provide a list of student e-mail addresses for those students who designated Jewish on the religious preference cards filed at Registration. This was maintained by Dr. Hanft and is the main avenue for communications within the ASU Jewish Community, which has grown to include 50-60 Jewish Students. Occasionally the Jewish student body included Israeli students, the first of whom were Chagit and David Mor and the most recent are the Cohen brothers who are members of ASU's Tennis team.

Hillel Affiliation In the mid 1990's the Club formally changed it name to the Appalachian Jewish Students Club after we were unable to gather the financial resources to create a Hillel foundation. Throughout the 1980's & 90's we tried, unsuccessfully to affiliate with the national Hillel, but we now have a formal affiliation through Hillel's Soref Initiative. We have also maintained an association with the state-wide organization. We have sponsored ski weekends and attended their spring "beach weekend" at the College of Charleston and several of our students have attended an assortment of their retreats and workshops.

Web Site In 1998 Dr. Sarah Greenwald (mathematics) began maintaining the Club web page as part of the ASU website and eventually became one of the co-advisors to the club, taking over when I retired.