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.”