Middlebury College’s Hillel student board made the decision last week after a yearlong consultation process with active participants in the campus organization, university administrators and Hillel International leadership, according to the student group’s co-presidents. The board also voted to disaffiliate from Hillel International, but were told by Middlebury’s administration that they lacked the authority to take that action, the co-presidents told the Middlebury campus newspaper.
The student group, renamed to Jewish Association of Middlebury, will continue to perform similar functions as Hillels do on hundreds of campuses around the world — holding events around Shabbat and Jewish holidays and other Jewish religious and social programming. The board says it will maintain an on-paper link with Hillel without adhering to its guidelines, and it will not receive any funding from the organization.
The response from Hillel International has been ... interesting:
Hillel International, which does not employ a rabbi or any professional staff at Middlebury, said in a statement that it was currently reviewing Hillel’s affiliation status with the college to confirm it will ensure that JAM “adheres to our mission and standards.”
“Hillel is committed to supporting all Jewish students — from all types of backgrounds and with a diversity of views and beliefs on a range of issues including Israel,” the statement in part read. “At the same time, we are a proudly Zionist organization, and do not provide a platform for programming that denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state within secure borders.
“All campus Hillels — even those that are just a student group without dedicated professional Hillel staff — are expected to operate in line with our mission, vision, values, and policies.”
[....]
At the university’s behest, the students then met virtually with Hillel International, whose representative reiterated that the board members must universally adopt Hillel International’s political views and values about Israel, according to the Campus. But the representative also conceded that it couldn’t stop the students from changing the organization’s name.
“We said we want to disaffiliate, and they said you can’t. And we said, well, we’re going to change the name anyway. And they said, we can’t stop you,” Jaffe said.
So to recap: the Middlebury Jewish students object to following the partnership guidelines. Hillel says campus chapters have to follow the partnership guidelines. So the students say they want to disaffiliate from Hillel. They're told they can't. So the students say they won't follow the partnership guidelines. And Hillel says ... they're reviewing the chapter's affiliation status?
Forgive me, but what exactly is Hillel endgame here? Disaffiliation? That's what the students wanted to begin with! It's just a farce at this point: "We're leaving" "You can't leave" "Well we're not following your rules" "Then we'll kick you out!"
I'm a general opponent of campus witch hunts targeting Hillel, which often does essential work as a center for Jewish life on campus. But it is a case that the national office of Hillel has a tendency to forget that it ultimately serves Jewish students, not the other way around, and this is yet another instance of Hillel resisting its badly needed dose of democracy. The reason why Hillel constantly steps in it when it comes to applying the partnership guidelines (among other issues) is that it lacks meaningful democratic accountability to its students. If the Jewish students of Middlebury involved in Hillel want to raise money for World Central Kitchen's relief efforts in Gaza (the incident which apparently set this whole train in motion), that's their prerogative, and it's outrageous that the national body thinks it should be entitled to intercede against it.
Finally, it would be easy to connect the Middlebury students' decision with broader campaigns aimed at boycotting or rejecting Hillel as a "Zionist" or "Israel-connected" institutions. However, while their problems with Hillel International are certainly related to that organization's narrowness on Israel and Zionism, it's important to stress that the Middlebury students are very much not framing their decision as a general rejection of "Israel" or "Zionism":
“Let us be clear: this decision is not a rebuke of Zionism, Zionist students, or the importance of Israel to many in the Jewish community,” a Dec. 2025 email to JAM membership read. “Rather, it reflects a desire to create the most welcoming and pluralistic space possible.”
This choice, in other words, was not made by a group of radical purists who couldn't countenance brushing up against anything associated with the "Zionist entity." Rather, it was forced by a national office made up of, well, radical purists who couldn't countenance brushing up against anything associated with support for Palestinians. The latter category includes many Jews who most certainly do not see Israel as a dirty word, but nonetheless find themselves personae non gratae in too many Jewish spaces.
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