Jewish Americans or American Jews?

By Alana Chill
Cornell University

Cornell University has two Hillel logos, used for different types of events. One logo is said to give off the impression that "we are students at Cornell University who are Jewish," while the other is said to promote the image that "we are Jews who are a part of the Cornell University community."

Throughout my first year at Cornell, I accumulated dozens of "quartercards" advertising for Hillel events, multiple t-shirts from programs such as Jewish Speedating and a Shabbat dinner for 1000 people and viewed many posters for Hillel activities, as I maneuvered my way around the vast and infamously hilly Cornell campus. Each of these items invariably contained one of the two Hillel logos, obviously promoting Jewish life on campus, yet posing the age old question of, are Jews "Jewish Americans" or "American Jews," or in this case "Jewish Cornellians" or "Cornellian Jews".

This question has plagued American Jews for many years, from when the first immigrants arrived from the "old country," until today, when across the United States, many Jews have shelved their Jewish identity, with the exception of a bowl of matzah ball soup on Pesah or perhaps a day of forced detention in shul on Yom Kippur. College students lie at the heart of this issue; for possibly the first time in our lives, we are given the choice of how to answer the question.

There is most definitely a discernable pattern in how the question is answered. It seems as though day schools, Jewish summer camps, Israel programs etc. are doing their job; their participants keep these Jewish experiences with them. USY'ers, Ramahniks and Schechter alums discuss their experiences of "Wheels," "Seminar" and possibly, "that time at davening when…" over Shabbat dinner, all the while sprinkling the conversation with complaints about classes, upcoming fraternity parties, and the latest hockey scores. These students, the ones sitting in the Kosher dining hall week after week, will almost definitely identify as American Jews; their Jewish identity is an ingrained part of them, carried with them both on and off campus.

However, it is apparent that on many college campuses, the Jews around the Shabbat dinner table account for only a very small percentage of the Jews on campus. If this is the case, how do these other "less observant" Jews identify? Is it possible for a Jew who thinks about Judaism only once or twice a year to identify as an American Jew? Personally, I don't know the answer to these questions, but I do believe that it is important for those of us who unquestionably consider ourselves American Jews as opposed to Jewish Americans, to encourage our "networks" of Jewish connections to embrace Judaism, take pride in being a Jew, and carry this pride with them as Americans.

Alana recently finished her freshman year at Cornell University. She is currently a Human Development major, but given her indecisiveness, may change her mind multiple times over the next few years. She will be spending yet another summer at Camp Ramah in Nyack, where yes, the kids do go home and the staff sleeps over.

[Posted 06/15/07]