Jonah S. Berger â21, a former Associate News editor, is an Economics concentrator in Cabot House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.
For nearly 30 years, a grandiose 19,500 square-foot building in the center of campus has served as a hub for Jewish life at Harvard.
With three large prayer spaces, a beautiful circular courtyard, a Kosher dining hall that serves cultural staples each Friday night, and a plethora of full-time staff members, Harvard Hillel offers Jewish students the full range of religious activities, services, and possibilities for connecting with their faith, culture, and each other.
Most importantly, though, Hillel provides a refuge for hundreds of Jewish undergraduates, a place they know they can fall back on in times of need. In October 2018, after an anti-Semitic massacre at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Hillelâs building was just that: a space for healing, comfort, and, most of all, safety, aided by an around-the-clock Harvard University Police Department patrol car stationed outside the front entrance.