Mississippi has
always been known for its conservative Christian views, but is enough being
done for Jewish students who attend this Bible belt University?
The University
of Mississippi has worked hard to leave its past controversies of racial diversity
behind them and move in a positive direction. That being said, the university
has also taken steps in to increase religious diversity throughout the campus.
In order to try
and enhance religious diversity into the student body of Ole Miss, the school decided
three years ago to add a Hillel House foundation to the campus. The Hillel
House is also in association with the school’s Jewish organization, the
University of Mississippi Jewish Community.
The main focus
of the Hillel House is to enrich the lives of Jewish students as well as give
them a chance to celebrate their Jewish identity. Although the main goal of the
foundation may be to provide enrichment to the lives of Jewish students, the
main focus of the Hillel House at the University of Mississippi is to recruit
Jewish students to join.
The University
of Mississippi’s president of the Hillel House, Rachel Knitzer, is mainly
trying to get as many Jewish students to join the Hillel House as possible.
“Right now we
are focusing mainly on finding Jewish students to join,” Knitzer said.
“The main way
that the Hillel House and the UMJC are making strives to get more Jewish students
to join the organizations is arranging ways for students to celebrate the
Jewish holidays together,” said UMJC director Wendy Goldberg.
Both
organizations recently had a Seder for the Jewish holiday of Passover, as well
as arranged car pools for students to attend synagogue for the Jewish high holy
days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
The reason the
students arrange car pools in order to attend synagogue for the high holy days
is because the closest synagogue, Temple B’nai Israel, in Tupelo, Miss is over
an hour away from Ole Miss.
As of 2005 there
are only 13 synagogues in Mississippi. Of
those 13 congregations, only two of them, Jackson’s Beth Israel and
Hattiesburg’s B’nai Israel have a full time rabbi, according to the Jewish virtual library.
Although there
is a Jewish community at Ole Miss, one challenge that a Jewish student may face
while attending the university is not having the luxury of having a large
Jewish community to lean on.
“It’s like being
a lone soldier. No one expects you to be Jewish down here,” said Jewish student
Corbin Holtzman.
Holtzman also
feels that Ole Miss is not the most fitting place for a truly practicing person
of the Jewish faith.
“There are steps
the school can take, but a truly religious Jewish person probably wouldn’t come
down here. There’s no sense of Jewish religion,” he said.
Jewish students at Ole Miss may want to join
the UMJC and Hillel House to get that sense of religious connection with
practicing Jewish people, but at the same time, some Jewish students may be
hesitant to join because the Jewish community is so small.
“A lot of the
Jewish students may not want to stick out,” Knitzer said.
With Mississippi
having such a small Jewish population in general, there can be many
misconceptions and misinterpretations about Jewish people.
“It can be a
challenge being a minority, because of that, there are misconceptions about
Jewish people down here,” Goldberg said.
The Jewish
community at Ole Miss may not be huge, but it’s still here.
“To find the
Jewish community here it’s a lot different, you need to be more active and just
look a little harder,” Knitzer said.
If Jewish
students want to get involved with other students of their faith, although it
may not be a large community, there’s still is a Jewish community at the
University of Mississippi. Sometimes, you just have to dig a little deeper to
find what you’re looking for.
Rachel Knitzer, the president of the Hillel House explaining the Jewish community at Ole Miss, and what it's like being Jewish at the school
This is Rachel's necklace that says "Ahava," meaning love in hebrew.
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