Hillel Center finds new home

After three years of hoping and waiting, the students and staff of the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center finally know where their much-needed new building will be located.

“I don’t think we could ask for better,” said Rabbi Sue Shifron, executive director of the Hillel Center, on the projected new location at East Eighth Street and North Fess Avenue. 

The current building, 730 E. Third St., was built specifically for the Hillel Center in 1993 when the number of Jewish students at IU was at about 1,000, Shifron said. Now that number has risen to about 4,500, and it’s no wonder the Hillel Center is bursting at the seams.

“We just don’t have enough space in here,” Shifron said. “Now we sometimes have double or triple the number of students in the building that we can comfortably fit.”

The Hillel Center is the IU Jewish community’s “home away from home,” and provides an atmosphere where students can “express their Jewishness in many traditional and creative ways,” according to its Web site.

The center offers at least four kosher meals a week as well as Shabbat dinners every Friday, but the current dining room isn’t big enough for the number of people who come to eat.

“We don’t have enough rooms for our services,” Shifron said. “We can seat 120 people comfortably in our dining room, and we’ll have meals where we serve 300-400 and so we have to set up seating in all of our rooms.”

Carlie Weisbrod, engagement associate at the Hillel Center, said the extra space in the new building will provide boundaries for each room. 

“The chapel will be the chapel and hopefully the dining room will be the dining room,” she said. 

Weisbrod also said the new location will be ideal, because it is closer to the center of campus and to many of IU’s other cultural centers.

Shifron attributes the large increase in Jewish students at IU to the school’s growing reputation in large urban areas like New York and Los Angeles.

“As the numbers grow from those areas, naturally the number of Jewish students increases,” she said. “IU has such an excellent reputation for being such a great school that its beginning to attract more and more people.”

Sue Newcomer, the Hillel Center’s food coordinator, has worked with the Hillel Center for 15 years and has witnessed the surge in Jewish students. 

“I started out making one meal a week for 40 people,” she said. “Now we make anywhere from five to 10 meals a week.” 

Newcomer hopes the new building will provide not only more dining space but also a better kitchen layout.

“We have no counter space,” she said. “We need a walk-in freezer and food storage.”
Newcomer said while preparing the meals, she spends too much time going from the first to the second floor – because of an inadequate kitchen layout – and hopes the new building’s food preparation area will be easier to navigate.

The new building will also allow the center to offer full-time kosher dining, which isn’t currently available to students, Shifron said. 

Gena Kimble, the administrative assistant at Hillel Center, hopes to see the parking situation improve at the new location. 

“We hope to have more parking spots,” she said. “We currently have about six before it’s bumper to bumper.”

Kimble said the new building will allow students and staff to hold High Holy Day services – such as Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah – within the center itself, instead of having to look for larger external venues.

The planning for the new location is still in the beginning stages, but Shifron said she hopes to finalize a contract with the University within the next couple of months. From there, the Hillel Center will begin fundraising, and plans will start to materialize. Shifron said the students at the center are excited about the new location and will be involved in the planning. 

And while she’s excited too, Shifron said she will miss the current building.

“This is such a beautiful home, and I’m so grateful to everyone that has helped to make it happen,” she said. “I know the new one will be just as nice or nicer, but this is a wonderful building, and we’re so lucky to have it. I guess it’s bittersweet in that sense.”