lbaron@mail.sdsu.edu
A menorah in the wilderness. Sounds crazy, no? But at St. Lawrence University, you might say the Jewish presence has been like a menorah in the wilderness. In the l9th century, the candles had no one to kindle them. For the decades preceding World War
Two, they burned so dimly that they were imperceptible except for a few sparks which flared up and briefly caught the attention of the campus. The postwar period slowly brightened the glow as more Jewish students and faculty members came to learn and teach here. They remained isolated points of light until the l970s when flames from both joined to illuminate the emergence of a small, but viable Jewish community. Since embers still remain from that era, I will conclude with suggestions for how we can fan them into flames once again. .
You may ask, "Why didn't Jews attend St. Lawrence in the first place?" That I can tell you in one word: location, location! When St. Lawrence University was founded in 1856, Jews numbered approximately 100,000 out of a total American population of
23,000,000. By 1880 a wave of Jews from Germany and Poland raised the figure for
Jewish Americans to 250,000 out of a nation of 50,000,000. New York ranked first, housing over 80,000 Jews. An enormous influx of Jews estimated at over two million people fled Poland, Russia, and Romania to escape persecution and poverty beginning in
1881 and slowing down in l921 when Congress passed the first of several laws

2 establishing a quota system for immigrants and lowering the numbers of those who could be admitted.
1
By 1928 the American Jewish community consisted of over four million members and constituted 3.5 % of the country's population. Nearly half were concentrated in the
New York metropolitan area. Some 84 % of American Jews lived in cities that had
100,000 or more inhabitants. Conversely, few Jews moved to villages and rural areas.
2
In the North Country, Jews barely registered on the census until the 1930s when Canton,
Gouverneur, Malone, Massena, Potsdam, Ogdensburg, Saranac Lake, Plattsburgh,
Tupper Lake, and Watertown combined counted 1,500 Jewish inhabitants. Expanding the perimeter of recruiting to Albany, Amsterdam, Gloversville, Schenectady, Syracuse, and Utica reached another 24,000 Jews, a fraction of whom were of college age in any year.
3 Perusing yearbooks from the 1930s, I calculated that roughly 60 % of St.
Lawrence's graduates hailed from locations on or north of a line drawn across the state extending from Albany to Syracuse. Around 10% of the senior classes listed places in the
New York metropolitan area as their hometowns.
4
Geography conspired in an equally important way to limit Jewish enrollment at
St. Lawrence. As children of first-generation immigrants, Jewish students usually applied to cheaper public schools within commuting distance of their parents' homes and tenements where they resided to cut costs. For example, Jews comprised from 75 to 85 per cent of the study body at the City College of New York between 1908 and 1935. No wonder that a contemporary joke claimed that CCNY was an acronym for Circumcised
Citizens of New York.
5

3
If Jewish students opted to go to private institutions, they still stuck close to the
East Coast urban corridor stretching from Boston to Baltimore to be near enough to visit their families on weekends and holidays. This also provided them with vibrant Jewish subcultures to retreat back into after their classes on predominantly Gentile campuses.
When the proportion of Jewish students rose above 20 % at Harvard and 10 % at Yale in the early 1920s, the presidents of each school introduced new entrance standards and interviewing procedures designed to reduce Jewish enrollment to a less conspicuous level. Many private colleges and universities adopted similar policies either to avert being inundated with Jewish students or lower what they deemed as unacceptably high rates of Jewish matriculation.
6
No evidence indicates that St. Lawrence engaged in such discriminatory practices, but it never received a flood of Jewish applications either.
St. Lawrence's affiliation with a Universalist seminary may have deterred some
Jewish students from applying to the university. Although non-denominational, the annual Christmas vespers ceremony originated in 1919 and the weekly Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday religious services remained distinctly Christian, as did the symbolism of the University's seal and the Cross and Crown stained-glass window installed in
Gunnison Chapel in 1926.
7 An editorial published in the Hill News in 1951 observed,
"Our chapel has an altar on which rests a gold cross, symbolic of the Christian faith.
Couldn't this be removed when the building is used for other than religious purposes?"
8
Despite the ecumenical theology promoted by the seminary, its 1920 catalog informed students that while they could elect to learn Hebrew, they were not required to do so because it would consume too much time and was "of limited value to the parish minister."
9
Saturday classes were held until 1969. Having “saint” in its name may have

4 conveyed the erroneous impression that the University was a Catholic institution. Yet this would not necessarily have been an obstacle to attracting Jewish students if St. Lawrence were located in an urban area and recruited the local offspring of recent ethnic immigrants. By 1934, for example, 47% of the students registered at St. John's
University were Jewish!
10
Finally, studies of the winter migratory patterns of robins and Segals prove Jews don't like cold climates. After all, we're a Mediterranean people.
Indeed, the administration of St. Lawrence knew of the potential appeal of inexpensive higher education to the children of first-generation immigrants because it economically benefited from a partnership with this kind of institution, Brooklyn Law
School. This incongruous merger of preppy and schleppy in 1903 enabled the Brooklyn campus to confer law degrees authorized under St. Lawrence's state charter to educate attorneys as it briefly had done between 1869 and 1871. The arrangement initially expanded the regional reputation of St. Lawrence and eventually increased its revenues when Brooklyn Law School emerged as the largest law school in the United States with an enrollment of 3,312 students by 1928. The law school owed its growth to offering affordable courses that met in the evenings for the convenience of its heavily Italian and
Jewish student body.
11
Combining enrollment figures for Brooklyn Law School and St.
Lawrence has misled one scholar to report that one-third of St. Lawrence's enrollment was Jewish in the school year of l918-1919.
12
Brooklyn Law School's enrollment declined precipitously to 200 after the entry of the United States into World War Two. In
1943 St. Lawrence terminated its relationship with the law school for financial reasons.
13

5
Issur Danielovitch/Isadore Demsky, better known as Kirk Douglas, is arguably St.
Lawrence's most famous alumnus. Raised in a poor Jewish immigrant family in
Amsterdam, New York, he followed an Italian friend to St. Lawrence in 1935 and gained admission and a college loan after a hastily arranged interview with Dean Edwin Hulett.
Though athletic, handsome, and intelligent, he was not rushed by the fraternities whose national charters banned pledging Jews. Instead, Douglas left his imprint on the campus as an actor, champion wrestler, Kixioc inductee, and the first independent, let alone
Jewish, president of the Thelomathesian Society in 1938.
14
In 1939 he unexpectedly resigned from his office as regional chairman of the National Student Federation of
America which he claimed had undermined plans for St. Lawrence to host its annual
Northeast meeting. Angry criticism was leveled at him for his governance of Thelmo and his abandonment of the NSFA conference. In retrospect it is difficult to discern whether these polemics stemmed from latent anti-Semitism or valid grievances. Ad hominem attacks targeted Demsky's romantic flings, not his religion.
15
In 1958 Douglas received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater.
16
He has since generously endowed a drama prize and scholarships for minority students.
17
Another Jewish Laurentian from the l930s merits remembrance. Martin F.
Rockmore graduated with a B.A. in Economics from St. Lawrence in 1938. The following fall, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and rose quickly in the ranks to become commanding officer of Company E, 2nd Battalion of the 1st Marine Division in
1942. He led his troops onto the beaches of Guadalcanal and the first American victory over the Japanese at the Battle of Tenaru. Steadily promoted throughout his military career, he retired as a Brigadier General in 1964. In 1962 he and several compatriots

6 founded the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation to furnish financial aid to children of
Marines pursuing a higher education. Since its inception, the foundation has awarded over 17,000 scholarships amounting to nearly $24,000,000. His widow ascribes his generosity to his appreciation of the scholarship St. Lawrence had granted him.
18
The most accomplished Jewish faculty member of the prewar years was Herbert
Aaron Bloch. With a book already in hand, he chaired the Department of Social Studies from 1935 until 1946 and subsequently headed the new Department of Sociology and
Anthropology until 1954.
19
Bloch achieved fame as an expert on crime and teenage gangs. He authored six books, three of which were published by Random House.
20
He does not appear to have identified himself as a Jew while at St. Lawrence, but this was not unusual for Jewish faculty members teaching in small college towns in these years.
21
Beginning in 1950, Professor Bloch and Dean Romoda organized the annual Moran
Institute on Delinquency and Crime for local attorneys, judges, and officials.
22
Bloch finished his distinguished career as a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College.
23
World II depleted student enrollment at St. Lawrence, but then boosted it with military personnel. In 1942 the University converted its Civilian Pilot Training Program into one for Army and Navy pilots. By 1943 the Navy designated St. Lawrence as the center of its V-12 Program to educate cadets in subjects related to their duties, like mathematics.
24
Some 1,500 sailors passed through this program during the remainder of the war. Harold Krivins was one of six Jews assigned to a V-12 class of 350 men. He remembers being turned down by his commander for a leave on Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur, but expresses gratitude toward Dean Harold Speight, the future acting president of St. Lawrence in 1944 and 1945, for helping him adjust to campus life.
25

7
The influx of returning soldiers whose higher education was funded by the GI Bill of 1944 radically altered the composition of the student body at St. Lawrence in the immediate postwar years. In 1945 St. Lawrence's enrollment stood at 430 students. Only
80 of these were males. Within three years, the figure had burgeoned to 1,400, almost half of whom were veterans. Federal money purchased surplus military barracks and subsidized their transformation into a dormitory complex dubbed "Vetsville"
26
Approximately 550,000 Jewish men served in the military during World War
Two. The GI Bill made higher education more affordable for them. Recommendations by President Truman's Commission on Higher Education and New York's passage in
1948 of a bill outlawing bias in the admissions procedures of non-sectarian schools facilitated the acceptance of Jewish applicants.
27
As early as 1946, Jewish attendance at colleges and universities in the Mid-Atlantic region, excluding the city of New York, increased by 20% over the rates for the 1930s. Jews constituted nearly 9 % of the student enrollment at small liberal arts colleges like St. Lawrence.
28
Jewish enrollment at St. Lawrence climbed, though not as steeply as at its regional counterparts. Fresh out of the Navy, Jerry Horwitz '51 never graduated from high school, but convinced St. Lawrence to admit him on the basis of an interview. One factor in his favor was that his brother Harold was a Laurentian. Cognizant that some fraternities still excluded Jews, Jerry did not feel ostracized and helped found the
Photography Club and Student Union. Along with Jewish classmates Zelda Obler and
Harold Rossoff, he represented the fledgling state of Israel in mock UN sessions organized by the International Relations Club.
29 His younger brothers Sam and Leon subsequently attended St. Lawrence. Sam joined Phi Sigma Kappa, which along with

8
Sigma Pi started to pledge Jewish members by 1948. He eventually married his childhood sweetheart Zelda Obler.
30 Bernard Sperling '50 forged a connection with
Ogdensburg's synagogue by inviting classmate Leonard Warren '51 to Kol Nidre services. The University did not grant absences for religious holidays, but observant students circumvented this policy by obtaining medical excuses. The most visible sign of a Jewish presence at SLU occurred when Arnie Rosenberg '52 became manager of the men's ice hockey team.
31
I surmise but cannot prove that Jewish enrollment at SLU slowly increased during the 1950s. Rosalie Epstein Moriah '53 perceived herself "as one of handful of Jewish students, all secular and unaffiliated." Inspired by a lecture on the Hebrew contribution to civilization by Professor William Felch of the Philosophy Department, she sought to learn more about her religious heritage and visited Israel after graduating from St.
Lawrence. While studying in France in 1955, she met Salomon Moryou, a historian of the First Temple in Jerusalem. She married him and embraced his Orthodox lifestyle.
They immigrated to Israel where she sensed she "had come home to an extended family."
The couple changed their last name to Moriah in honor of the site of the ancient Jewish
Temples.
32
To be sure, Rosalie's geographical and religious pilgrimage is unique. By the end of the ’50s, however, Jewish students at SLU seem more ethnically or religiously conscious. Janet Lefkowitz Schotz '63 prepared a seder with friends at a private home in
Canton, traveled annually with them to Ogdensburg to observe the High Holy Days and gathered them together between Yom Kippur services at the home of one of Mike Kitay

9
'62’s relatives. She believes there was little overt discrimination at St. Lawrence because
Jews "were such a tiny minority on campus no one could be bothered." 33
Ironically, rising Jewish enrollment sustained the group activities Lefkowitz
Schotz describes. In a 1963 survey, B'nai B'rith tallied 87 Jewish students at SLU, representing 6.4 % of its student body. This proportion was roughly equivalent to Jewish enrollment at comparable liberal arts colleges in rural settings like Colby, Middlebury, and Bates, but lower than that at those located in urban areas, like Union, Hobart and
William Smith, and Rusell Sage.
34
As a consequence of the rapid social mobility and suburbanization of their families in the 1950s and ’60s, Jewish applicants to colleges were more likely to attend high schools where St. Lawrence recruited and more open to go to private schools which formerly may have seemed too exclusive and expensive.
35
Michael Richman '67 still appreciates that Varre Cummins, the University's chaplain from 1964 to 1981, arranged for Jewish students to worship at the synagogue in
Ogdensburg and participate in seders at the homes of local Jewish families.
36
While
Carole Ashkinaze '66 does not recall any University outreach to Jewish students, she felt comfortable as a Jew attending interdenominational services on campus. Being Jewish did not prevent her from pledging Pi Beta Phi sorority and becoming a leader of several student organizations. After graduating from St. Lawrence, she earned a national reputation as a journalist who covered educational, gender, and racial issues. Moreover, she served for many years on St. Lawrence's Alumni Council and Board of Trustees.
37
Other notable Jewish alumni from the ’60s are Barbara Goldberg '64, who currently chairs the Art History Department at SUNY-Binghamton; Peter Rutkoff '64, who holds the Robert Olden Professorship of American Studies at Kenyon College; Dr. Stewart

10
Lonky '67, who directed the St. Lawrence Sports Network and announced SLU's hockey games during his sophomore and junior years; and Michael Wolfe '65, who headed the
ROTC program as a senior.
38
With more Jewish Larries, the inevitable crisis over dietary needs arose. Chuck
Aigen '68 reminisces that "the biggest problem for the Jewish students from the New
York city area was finding a Chinese restaurant," but he adds,"If we wanted to attend a seder, we could just go the one at the Unitarian Church." 39
The contemporaneous growth in Catholic enrollment ultimately pressured the chaplain's office to diversify religious programming on campus. In 1968 Catholic students petitioned the Religious Activities Committee to offer weekly Sunday masses in
Gunnison Chapel. Although the committee approved the request, the motion needed to be ratified by the President and Board of Trustees. Replying to the Catholic students,
Varre Cummins pointed out that "the real issue is the question of whether or not the sacramental observances of particular denominations" could be permitted at a school which historically "has been consistently non-denominational Protestant."
40
In its argument for the change, the Religious Activities Committee cited precedents such as conducting denominational weddings and featuring lecturers and clergy from a variety of religious backgrounds as guest speakers and preachers at Gunnison Chapel.
41
The resolution passed with the proviso that the Catholic student group submit an annual request to hold masses in the chapel. In 1971 Bob Schwartz appealed to Faculty Council to dispense with this formality and Varre Cummins endorsed the proposal.
42
Perhaps emulating the assertiveness of his Catholic classmates, Allen Berkelhammer '73 volunteered in the same year to organize a seder and furnished Food Services with his

11 mother's recipes to cater the meal in a dormitory dining hall. The campus seder continues to be held every year.
43
During my campus interview at St. Lawrence, I asked Bob Schwartz if he had encountered any anti-Semitism. He retorted, “No, they're just learning about Catholics."
Ethnic Catholics and Jews had faced discrimination in being hired as faculty members at small private colleges until the 1960s.
44
As the St. Lawrence student body ballooned to over 2,000 in the early 1970s, the faculty and staff correspondingly grew. Ethnic names like Goldberg, Guarasci, Saltrelli, and Schwartz started to appear in the campus directory.
Al Schwartz confirms that by 1971 "the place already had begun to change for the better.”
45
In their correspondence with me, Jewish students mention that one of the ways they coped with their sense of being outsiders at St. Lawrence was by developing strong relationships with Jewish faculty members like Bob Schwartz and recognizably ethnic professors like Rick Guarasci.
46
For some Jewish students, being part of a tiny minority heightened their sense of obligation to observe Jewish holidays on campus and act as spokespersons for their religion. Rabbi Susan Talve '75 certainly belongs in this category. As you'll hear later in her eloquent statement, she already possessed a strong Jewish identity before arriving at
St. Lawrence, but her faith was enhanced by going on archaeological digs in Israel with
Professor Dan O'Connor, organizing the Jewish Student Organization to engage in study and worship on campus, and spending her junior year learning Hebrew on a kibbutz in
Israel. Although the Department of Religion lacked a Judaica specialist, she enjoyed articulating a Jewish perspective in its classes.
47 Polly Feigenbaum '79 admits she
"became more of an activist because of the lack of acceptance and opportunities for the

12
Jews who came to St. Lawrence." When I initiated bringing student rabbis to conduct
High Holy Day services in the Hale Chapel, whose intimacy and marvelous multi-faith mosaic were perfect for our needs, Polly solicited her temple in Glens Falls to donate prayer books for our usage.
48
Similarly, Scott Liebman '80 decided to apply for rabbinical school. He ended up pursuing another career, but married an Orthodox woman and remains an observant Jew.
49
I too would not have become so deeply involved in Jewish matters on campus had it not been for the way the environment at St. Lawrence compelled me to introduce
Jewish Studies courses and advise Jewish students. I must confess to being spiritually challenged. I specialized in modern German Jewish history because I found it so intellectually fascinating, not out of a personal quest for identity. St. Lawrence hired me in 1985 as a visiting professor to teach Bob Carlisle's courses on Western Civilization and l9th and 20th Century Europe. That fall semester the department expected me to offer a German history survey. I developed a course on Modern Jewish History for the spring semester only after the Jewish Student Organization had approached me to serve as its faculty sponsor. Much to my surprise, the course attracted a large enrollment.
When St. Lawrence appointed me to a permanent position to fill a slot left vacant by a junior faculty member who failed to receive tenure, I had to create a new repertoire of courses because Carlisle was returning. My second year I introduced The History of the
Holocaust into the curriculum. Since it was rare in those days for this topic to be taught at colleges with low Jewish enrollments, I wrote about the experience and the article was published in Shoah , the first American journal devoted to Holocaust Studies.
50
Meanwhile, I found myself venturing into activities I never dreamed of doing.

13
The chaplain's office sponsored a student rabbi to officiate at one of the High Holy Day services; for the other one, I enlisted drivers to ferry students to Congregation Beth El in
Potsdam. My wife Bonnie and I mass-produced blintzes for the break-fast meal following Yom Kippur. This paved the way for chopping, mixing and frying latkes for the first night of Chanukah. The aroma of hot oil, grated potatoes, and diced onions wafting into the halls of Noble Center made converts out of the most inconspicuous
Jewish faculty members and students. On the second night of Passover, Bonnie and I hosted a seder for Jewish faculty and JSO activists. Observing the tradition of inviting a stranger, we welcomed foreign students to these gatherings. I'll never forget when Awad
Monsour, a Palestinian student, joined us one year. After the meal, he recited the lyrics of a popular Palestinian song reminding us that the homecoming of Jews to modern Israel had turned many of its Arab inhabitants into refugees.
51
Before I canonize myself as Saint Lawrence, I assure you I cannot claim sole credit for the success of such events. A cohort of 15 to 20 Jewish students participated in these activities and various faculty and staff members--some permanent, other temporary-
-contributed to the festivities either by cooking or merely by their presence. Let me thank those whose names I remember in lieu of those whose names I have forgotten. Among the most committed students were Andy Bartell, Cathy Seidner, Polly Feigenbaum,
Marcia Goodman, Larry Frank, Scott Liebman, Michele Kramer, Robin Monsky, Ken
Polk, Dan Posener, and Julie Raindorf. Faculty and staff participants in Jewish events were Micki and David Collella, Fran Deutsch, Alan Draper, Moshe Feder, Liz Kahn, Joe
Kling, Brad Klein, Carol Levin, Joan Larson, Rob Lavenda, Ruth Meyerowitz, Michael

14
Rappaport, Ellen Rocco, Stan Romanstein, Jackie Sauter, Marc Triebwasser, and Marlie
Wiener.
Ted Linn played a crucial role as an advocate for Jewish students throughout his chaplaincy from 1981 to 2000. In 1982 we informed the administration about a sharp decline in Jewish enrollments. According to statistics we had compiled, the University's claim that Jews constituted 5 % of the student body was erroneous. A liberal estimate calculated by doubling the number of Jewish religious preference cards yielded only about 50 Jewish students out of a total enrollment of 2,000. Since 85 % of SLU students hailed from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, or Pennsylvania, states encompassing 30% of the American Jewish population, we contended that St. Lawrence recruitment habitually had focused on high schools where Jews were underrepresented.
52
In response to our concerns, the Admissions Office sent me in 1984 to meet guidance counselors at five New Jersey high schools in predominantly Jewish areas.
53
That same year the Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid recommended that steps be taken to diversify the pool of potential students by targeting high schools usually not visited by
SLU recruiters, removing the crosses from the University's logo, and not scheduling major events on Jewish holidays.
54 The Faculty Council overwhelmingly approved these motions within a package of proposals whose primary aim was to attract students from racial minorities and low-income families to St. Lawrence.
55
A 1985 report commissioned by the University encouraged more urban recruitment, but dismissed concentrating on student diversity per se as "not practical.”
56
Parker Marden of the Sociology Department intervened in this matter after I drew his attention to an article by Professor Louis Newman about Carleton College's efforts to

15 overcome low Jewish enrollments.
57
Before inviting Newman to St. Lawrence, Marden called a fellow sociologist and then Vice President of Development at Carleton, Dan
Sullivan. From his conversation with Sullivan, he learned that Carleton aspired to garner a national reputation for academic excellence and believed that one key to accomplishing this was improving its image with potential Jewish students.
58
Following Newman’s visit, Marden penned a memo on the drop in Jewish enrollment in 1985. He estimated that less than 2 % of St. Lawrence's students were Jewish and worried that this robbed St.
Lawrence of diversity and ignored a group that perceived higher education as the road to social mobility. This stimulated more discussion on the subject and generated a proposal from Linn and me in 1986 to establish an annual Jewish Studies lectureship, hire a
Judaica specialist in the Religious Studies Department, and create an endowment to purchase a Jewish film collection and subsidize Jewish cultural events.
59
When I accepted the directorship of the Jewish Studies Program at San Diego
State in 1988, I worried that the momentum behind the Jewish Studies initiative would be lost. Fortunately, Richard Freund, who arrived at St. Lawrence in 1987 as a sabbatical replacement for Dan O’Connor, not only continued what we had begun, but accelerated its pace. Freund offered a variety of courses on Jewish topics and served as the rabbi for
Congregation Beth El, forging a stronger faculty link to the synagogue than previously existed.
Richard is what we call in Yiddish a tummler , someone who stirs things up and incites others to action. In September of 1988, he organized a three day Shabbaton at
Canaras Conference Center for 50 Jewish students from colleges throughout Northern and Central New York. In addition to religious services, break-out sessions fostered

16 discussions of issues Jewish students confronted on their campuses, like interfaith dating,
Israel, and sustaining their religious identity. The last day featured a conference on
Jewish-Christian relations which was open to the North Country community
60
Freund energized the Jewish student group on campus and reconstituted it as the Jewish Student
Union under the leadership of Michele Kramer and Ken Polk. Polk worked in the
Admissions Office after graduating and subsequently has served on the Alumni
Association’s Executive Council.
61
By the time Richard left St. Lawrence in 1989, several of the goals Linn and I had proposed were fulfilled. Religious Studies made the position in Judaism permanent and hired Michael Greenwald to fill it. Freund’s close relationship with his deceased mentor
Seymour Siegel from the Jewish Theological Seminary led Siegel’s mother Jeanette Polin to donate her son’s papers to the University’s special collections and establish an endowment to fund an annual Jewish Studies lecture to memorialize him and purchase
Jewish films and books for the library.
62
Internationally acclaimed scholars have delivered the Siegel Lecture since 1990, until I broke that streak last year.
63
During the Nineties, the future of Jewish life at SLU looked brighter. Beth El tried to create programs for Jewish students from Clarkson, Potsdam State, and St.
Lawrence.
64
A joint letter signed by Michael Greenwald, Steven Horwitz, and Led Linn welcomed Jewish students at the start of each fall semester by inviting them to socialize with each other at a bagel brunch, attend High Holy Day services on campus, and bring their mothers and fathers to a bagel brunch on Family Weekend.
65
On top of the annual
High Holy Day Services, Chanukah Party, Siegel Lecture, and seder, Michael Greenwald conducted a memorial service for Itzhak Rabin and a Friday night service in the Faculty

17
Dining Room following Rabin’s assassination in November of 1995. Around the same time, Thelmo approved JSU’s application to be a recognized student organization.
Furthermore, JSU voted to strengthen its connections to Beth El.
66
While student attendance at Beth El has never been high, many Jewish faculty members have joined the congregation and sent their children there for Sunday school and bar or bat-mitzvah preparation.
67
In the late Nineties, two Jewish residential coordinators, Jan Lewitas and
Robin Lehrberger, mobilized the JSU to become more active on campus.
68
The new millennium has witnessed a paradoxical development: the more faculty and the chaplain have promoted Jewish events, the less Jewish students have participated in them. Though Jewish enrollment has hovered around 50, the JSU has disbanded and so few students have attended High Holy Day services that the Committee on Spiritual and Religious Life has recommended against continuing the practice of bringing a student rabbi to campus and for allocating the money saved for other Jewish programming.
69
Returning from a Birthright Israel tour in her sophomore year, Leah Frankel ’06 tried in vain to revive the JSU. She then attempted to form a pro-Israel group on campus by sending an e-mail to the class list-serves. Her suggestion triggered an outpouring of email denunciations and a vitriolic attack by Hill News editorialist Brian Lind ’04. Lind had received financial support from St. Lawrence to intern at the Rafah refugee camp in
Gaza under the auspices of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group dedicated to resisting the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Reporter Ben
Schwartz of the Watertown Daily Times picked up the story and entered the fray by dashing off an editorial questioning whether the ISM was the sort of organization with which St. Lawrence should be associated. From there, the story gained national publicity

18 on the pro-Israel Honest Reporting.com Web site. On campus, Chaplain Kathleen
Buckley mediated the dispute between Frankel and Lind.
70 That civil discourse quickly disintegrates when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at issue is no surprise. What disillusioned Frankel was the lack of support from her classmates.
71
Every cloud has a silver lining. In the North Country, however, its color is more likely to be snow-white than silver. To be proactive and make Jewish students more comfortable at St. Lawrence, Chaplain Buckley instituted a Jewish student mentors program in the fall of 2004. Ten Jewish faculty members were each assigned two incoming Jewish students to invite to Jewish activities and counsel during their first year.
72
She also supplemented the Jewish campus events calendar with a Tu’ B’Shevat seder and Purim Megillah reading.
73
The Committee on Spiritual and Religious Life is currently considering the feasibility of applying for a part-time Hillel advisor to coordinate Jewish programming on campus and advise Jewish students.
74
While researching my talk, I realized that St. Lawrence’s problem of attracting more Jewish students and eliciting greater participation in Jewish events has a much broader context. Throughout the country, colleges and universities have noticed sharp declines in Jewish enrollment.
75 At the same time, the competition to recruit this smaller pool of students has intensified as schools seek to diversify their student body or boost their academic reputation.
76
The rate of Jewish student involvement in Jewish activities has dropped nationally to 54%.
77
The reasons for these phenomena are manifold. In this regard, the American
Jewish Identity Survey of 2001 confirmed the following trends that Jewish demographers have been tracking over the last decade: a 3.5 % decrease in the total number of

19
Americans who identify themselves as Jewish; Jewish geographic dispersion away from
Northeast urban centers to Southern and Western states where affiliation rates are lower; a steep rise in intermarriage rates with only a third of the children in mixed families being raised as Jews; Jewish couples delaying parenthood and having fewer children; more
Jews choosing to remain single; and finally, the growing secularization of those who still consider themselves Jews. On a more positive note, Jewish assimilation and intermarriage have increased the total portion of people living in a household where one member is Jewish to approximately 4 % of the American population
78
Undoubtedly, most of these trends, like the Sunbelt migration, the dwindling pool of self-identified
Jews, and the fierce competition to recruit them will make it more difficult for St.
Lawrence to attract Jewish students. Others may actually improve its chances with children from mixed marriages or households with one Jewish member.
What steps can St. Lawrence take to make itself more appealing to Jewish students? As an outsider, let me make some friendly suggestions. Whether Jewish students matriculate here or not, the St. Lawrence curriculum would be educationally enriched by developing more Jewish Studies courses by current faculty members who already have expertise in the field. For example, Peter Bailey taught a special topics course on American Jewish humor in the past. Courses on American Jewish Literature or
American Jewish film would be equally enticing to students. Given the responsibility of the University to foster open debate, a course on the history of Zionism and Israel might enhance the civility of campus discussions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A course on the convivencia among Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Moorish Spain in particular, or the historical relationships among the Abrahamic faiths in general, would illuminate

20 not only the roots of contemporary tensions but also the commonalities that should be nurtured. A survey recently completed by the Committee for Spiritual and Religious Life indicates that among the 32 colleges with which St. Lawrence compares itself, it ranks last in the number of Jewish Studies courses it offers.
79
Nevertheless, there already are sufficient courses to meet the criteria for a minor or concentration.
One costless measure to reach Jewish students would be to resume sending Hillel an overview of Jewish enrollment and activities on campus. Hillel carries an on-line
Guide to Jewish Life on Campus on its website. If my evaluation of the progress St.
Lawrence has made in Jewish programming is correct, then why not disseminate this information via the Hillel guide? All of your competitors do.
80
There is also the Hillel
Faculty list-serve, which is a forum for Jewish faculty to correspond about the status of various Jewish issues on their campuses. I can attest that reading this on a regular basis would demonstrate that the problems at St. Lawrence are not limited to the campus and would provide ideas for programming that has been effective elsewhere.
The idea of employing a part-time Hillel advisor is a promising one. Another arrangement might be top approach Hillel to locate a single chapter to service Canton
College, Clarkson, St. Lawrence, and Potsdam State. Individual Jewish enrollments at any one of the schools probably would not justify the financial investment, but their combined Jewish enrollments might make it economically feasible.
The Jewish Identity Survey of 2001 reveals that more Jews define themselves in cultural and ethnic terms than in religious ones. Many of the former Jewish Laurentians who have e-mailed about their experience at SLU admit they chose St. Lawrence to escape the Jewish environment in which they grew up. While I applaud the increase in

21 the number of Jewish religious observances on campus, I suspect that concerts, films, and lectures on a wider array of Jewish topics may be more appealing to Jewish students and their Gentile peers.
What St. Lawrence’s past can teach us is that a meaningful Jewish life on campus requires curricular reform, faculty or staff involvement, motivated students, alumni support, administrative leadership, Admissions Office activism, and ties with a local synagogue to flourish. It will take a lot of work to find the right combination that allows each of these elements to be simultaneously autonomous and mutually reinforcing.
When I left St. Lawrence, Ted Linn organized a surprise party for me. The
Jewish students presented me with a farewell gift, the rarely seen, but frequently worn,
St. Lawrence University yarmulke. If you look closely, you will see it originally was a
St. Lawrence baseball cap. They cut off the brim and sewed the bottom to transform it into something Jewish. Like the baseball cap, St. Lawrence contains the raw materials to weave together into a viable Jewish community. It altered the Sesquicentennial logo to eliminate the crosses and symbolize inclusiveness. Can it now stitch together a campus coat of many colors?
Endnotes
1 Population statistics are from Jacob Rader Marcus, To Count a People: American Jewish Population
Data , 1585-1984 (Lanham: MD, 1990).
2 Maurice L. Karpf, "Jewish Community Organizations in the United States," American Jewish Year Book
5698 , Vol. 39, ed. Harry Schneiderman (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1937), 50; Lee J.
Levinger, A History of the Jews in the United States (Cincinnati: Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, 3rd Revised Edition 1944), 375-380.
3 Marcus, 139-163; Also see Lee Shai Weissbach, Jewish Life in Small-Town America (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2005), 343-344.
4 The Gridiron of 1934 (Canton, NY: St. Lawrence University, 1934), 37-70; The Gridiron of 1935
(Canton, NY: St. Lawrence University, 1935), 26-63.

22
5 Sherry Gorelick, City College and the Jewish Poor: Education in New York, 1880-1924 (New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1981).
6 Jerome Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and
Princeton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 13-135; Dan A. Oren, Joining the Club: A History of Jews at
Yale (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 17-95; Marcia Graham Synnott, "Anti-Semitism and
American Universities: Did Quotas Follow the Jews?," in Anti-Semitism in American History , ed. David A.
Gerber (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 233-271;
7 Louis H. Pink and Rutherford E. Delmage, Candle in the Wilderness: A Centennial History of St.
Lawrence University, 1856-1956 (New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1957), 22-62; Edward J. Blankman and Thurlow O. Cannon, The Scarlet and the Brown: A History of St. Lawrence University, 1856-1981
(Canton, NY: St. Lawrence University, 1987), 60-61.
8 "A Place to Worship," Hill News, October 3, 1951.
9 "Hebrew," St. Lawrence University and School of Theology Catalog (Canton: St. Lawrence University,
1920), 109.
10 Synott, 242. Similarly, Jews constituted 23% of Fordlam's enrollment in 1918.
11 Pink and Delmage, 237-244.
12 Marcia Graham Synnott, The Half-Opened Door: Discrimination and Admissions at Harvard, Yale, and
Princeton, 1900-1970 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979), 16.
13 Pink and Delmage, 242-243; Blankman and Cannon, 31; Jeffrey B. Morris, "Chapter Two," Brooklyn
Law School: The First Hundred Years , <http://www.brooklaw.edu/about/history/chapters/chapter_2.php>,
22 October, 2006.
14 Kirk Douglas, The Ragman's Son: An Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 55-76.
For more on fraternity discrimination and the Jewish response to it, see Alfred McClung Lee, Fraternities
Without Brotherhood: A Study of Prejudice on the American Campus (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955) and
Marianne Rachel Sanua, Going Greek: Jewish College Fraternities in the United States, 1895-1945
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003).
15 See articles about Demsky's Thelmo presidency and resignation from the NSFA in the Hill News,
January 18, 1939, February 8, 1939, March 15, 1939.
16 Daniel F. Sullivan, "Introduction of Kirk Douglas," St. Lawrence University ,
<http://www.stlaw.edu/president/douglas.htm>, 22. October, 2006.
17 Macreena Doyle, "Zest for Life: Kirk Douglas '39 Visits St. Lawrence," St. Lawrence University
Magazine (Winter 2000), 26.
18 Ruth Rockmore, "Letter to Lawrence Baron," "Biographical sketch of Brigadier General Martin F.
Rockmore, USMCR," June 2, 2006; Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation 2004-2005 Academic Yearbook
(Princeton, NJ: Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, Inc., 2005).
19 Pink and Delmage, 137.
20 See Herbert A. Bloch and Frank T. Flynn, Delinquency: The Juvenile Offender in America Today (New
York: Random House, 1956); Herbert A. Bloch and Gilbert Geis, Man, Crime and Society: The Forms of
Criminal Behavior (New York: Random House, 1962); Herbert A. Bloch and Melvin Prince, Social Crisis and Deviance:Theoretical Foundations (New York: Random House, 1967).

23
21 Leonard Warren '51, "E-mail to Lawrence Baron," May 28, 2005; Weissbach, 115.
22 Blankman and Cannon, 64.
23 Pink and Delmage, 137.
24 Ibid , 138-139.
25 Harold Krivins, "Letter to Lawrence Baron, Novemerber, 19, 2005; Blankman, Canon, and Burdick, 125.
26 Blankman, Canon, and Burdick, 36-42.
27 American Jews in World War II , ed. I. Kaufman, Vol.1 (New York: Dial Press, 1947); Deborah Dash
Moore, GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2004); Leonard
Dinnerstein, Anti-Semitism in America (New York: Oxford University Press,1994), 158-159; Synott, The
Half Opened Door , 201-202.
28 Robert Shosteck, Two Hundred Thousand Jewish Collegians: Report of the Decennial Census of Jewish
College Students for 1946 (Washington, D.C.: B'nai B'rith Vocational Service, 1946), 16, 30.
29 Jerry Horwitz, "E-mail to Leah Frankel," June 10, 2005.
30 Sam Horwitz, "E-mail to Lawrence Baron," June 9, 2005
31 Interview of Leonard Warren by Lawrence Baron, May 25, 2005; Leonard Warren, "E-mails to
Lawrence Baron," May 28, 2005 and June 9, 2005.
32 Rosalie Epstein Moriah, "E-mail to Lawrence Baron, February 23, 2006; Lisa M. Cania, "Rosalie Epstein
Moriah, '53: From Canton to Jerusalem," St. Lawrence University Magazine (Winter 1989.
33 Janet Lefkowitz Schotz, "E-Mail to Leah Frankel," June 10, 2005. In this e-mail, Lefkowitz Schotz remembers the names of 13 other classmates.
34 College Guide for Jewish Youth , ed. S. Norman Feingold and Alfred Jospe (Washington, D.C: B'nai
B'rith Vocational Service, 1963), 40-63.
35 Stephen Steinberg, The Academic Melting Pot: Catholics and Jews in American Higher Education (New
York: McGraw Hill, 1974), 102-104. Indeed, the national average percentage of Jewish students at liberal arts colleges at St. Lawrence was an identical 6.4 %.
36 Michael Richman, "E-mail to Lawrence Baron," June 5, 2005. Stewart Lonky, 'E-mail to Leah Frankel, "
June 9, 2005; "Blankman, Cannon, and Burdick, 61, 227.
37 Carole Ashkinaze, "E-mail to Lawrence Baron," May 26, 2005; Interview of Carole Ashkinaze by by
Janet Paulk, April 26 and 27, 2001, Georgia Women's Movement Oral History Project, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University.
38 Peter Rutkoff, "E-mail to Lawrence Baron," February 26, 2006; Stewart Lonky, "E-mail to Leah
Frankel," June 9, 2005; Micahel Wolfe, "E-mail to Leah Frankel," June 10, 2005.
39 Chuck Aigen, "E-mail to Lawrence Baron," January 8, 2006.
40 Varre A. Cummins, "Letter to Christopher P. Baker," May 23, 1968, St. Lawrence University Archives
(hereafter SLUA).

24
41 "Supporting Statement of the Policy Recommendation of the Religious Activities Committee," undated,
SLUA.
42 Varre Cummins, "Letter to President Piskor," April 5, 1971, SLUA.
43 Varre Cummins, "Letter to Jack Taylor," March 9, 1971, SLUA.
44 Steinberg, 102-104.
45 Alan Schwartz, "E-mail to Lawrence Baron," May 27, 2005.
46 Steve Hirschfeld, "E-mail to Lawrence Baron," December 15, 2005; Scott Shabot, "E-mail to Lawrence
Baron, November 8, 2005; Polly Feigenbaum, "E-mail to Lawrence Baron," September 20, 2005.
47 Susan Talve, "Standing at the Opening of the Tent," Siegel Memorial Lecture, St. Lawrence University,
October 30, 2006.
48 Polly Feigenbaum, "E-mail to Lawrence Baron," September 20, 2005.
49 I have remained in contact with Scott since he graduated.
50 Lawrence Baron, "Teaching the Holocaust to Non-Jews," Shoah , 2:2 (Spring 1981). Reprinted in The
Jewish Digest (July 1981).
51 Lawrence Baron, "Sharing Pesach With a Palestinian," Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility , March
18, 1988.
52 Lawrence Baron and Theodor Linn, "Memo on Student Recruitment," August 31, 1982, SLUA.
53 "Secondary School Trip Itinerary for Lawrence Baron," January 24-26, 1984, SLUA.
54 Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid, "Report and Recommendations," Spring 1984, SLUA.
55 "Minutes for Faculty Council Meeting, " November 8, 1984, SLUA.
56 “The Krukowski Report,” Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid,” May 21, 1985, SLUA.
57 Louis Newman, Sh'ma , November 16, 1984.
58 Parker Marden, "Letter to Laurie Baron and Ted Linn," January 17, 1985, SLUA..
59 Ted Linn and Laurie Baron, “Concept for Endowment Fund: Letter to Dick Stephenson,” October 3,
1986, SLUA..
60 Richard Freund, “Proposal for Shabbaton and Judaic Studies Conference,” and “Jewish University
Shabbaton and Conference,” Sept.16-18, 1988. Richard Freund provided these documents.
61 Ken Polk, “E-mail to Lawrence Baron,” October 23, 2005; “Meet our Alumni: Ken Polk ’91,” St.
Lawrence University, http://web.stlawu.edu/world/alumni/polk.html
, accessed Sept. 5, 2005.
62 Richard Freund, “Judaic Studies Endowment at St. Lawrence University” and “Seymour Siegel
Collection and Archives Dedication Ceremony., 1989. Richard Freud documents.
63 “The Rabbi Dr. Seymour Siegel Memorial Lecture Series, 1990-2004,” SLUA.

25
64 Donald Rosenthal, “Letter to Jewish Students at Potsdam College, St. Lawrence University, and Clarkson
University, September 26, 1990.
65 Michael Greenwald, Steven Horwitz, and Ted Linn, “Letter to Mollie Miller,” August 27, 1991, SLUA.
66 JSU Newsletter , November 1995, SLUA.
67 Alan Draper, “E-mail to Lawrence Baron,” May 14, 2005; Donald Rosenthal, “E-mail to Lawrence
Baron,” August 25, 2005; Phone Interview with Steven Horwitz, October 29, 2006.
68 Interview with Steve Horwitz, October 29, 2006.
69 Interview with Joan Larsen, October 29, 2006; Interview with Steven Horwitz, October, 29, 2006.
70 Joan Larsen, “Jewish Events at St. Lawrence University 2004-2005.”
71 Leah I. Frankel, “A Menorah in the Wilderness: The History of Jews and Jewish Life at St. Lawrence
University, Senior Thesis, English 450 W, St. Lawrence University, May 2006, 29-33; Leah Frankel,
“Response to Column,” Hill News , February 27, 2004; “A SLU of Lies,” HonestReporting.com March 5,
2004.
72 Kathleen Buckley, “Jewish Mentors,” September 8, 2004.
73 Joan Larsen, “Jewish Events at St. Lawrence University 2004-2005.”
74 Interview with Joan Larsen, October 29, 2006.
75 Rebecca Spence, “College Student Survey Reports a Sharp Decline in Jewish Enrollments,” Forward ,
May 7, 1999.
76 Julie Wiener, “Seeking Diversity or Academic Status, Colleges Court Jews,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency ,
May 9, 2002.
77 Shira Schnitzer, “Where have all the young Jews gone? Collee students uninvolved, dropping out of
Jewish community life,” The Jewish Advocate , January 28, 1999, 1.
78 Egon Mayer, Barry Kosmin, and Ariela Keysar, American Jewish Identity Survey 2001 (New York: The
Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 2001); Highlights of the CJF Federations 1990
National Jewish Population Survey (New York: Council of Jewish Federations, 1991), 13-26.
79 Interview with Joan Larsen, October 29, 2006.
80 Hillel’s Guide to Jewish Life on Campus , <http://www.hillel.org/HillelApps/JLOC/Search.aspx.