Category: Miniseries

By the late 1980s, most Ivy League schools were a fifth or a quarter Jewish—and the University of Pennsylvania was more Jewish than most. For starters, unlike several other Ivies, Penn was never a Christian divinity school. It’s located in the heart of a big city that has had a large Jewish population going back to colonial times. Plus, it offered a plethora of professional schools, which, as we’ve learned in this series, appealed to students seeking social mobility in the early and mid-20th century. In the 1980s, where this episode picks up, Penn was a place where Jews felt truly comfortable. 

In this episode of Gatecrashers, we explore Jewish Greek life. Jewish sororities like Alpha Epsilon Pi and Sigma Delta Tau were founded in the early 20th century by Jewish women who were excluded from the Greek system and wanted to create their own sense of sisterhood and social structure. But in the late 1980s, that sense of solidarity seems to have faded. The national headquarters of Sigma Delta Tau stepped in to make some unusual adjustments to the Penn chapter, which had been facing a membership decline. They put the entire chapter on probation following a suspicious underage drinking charge, and brought in a social club called Alpha Zeta to fill the chapter’s ranks and leadership positions. 

What does it mean to be a representative of Jewish womanhood, particularly in the 1980s, when stereotypes of Jewish women permeated American culture? What do the actions of SDT’s national leadership tell us about Jews’ place in the Ivy League, and in the wider culture, at that time? And when a minority reaches the point of feeling truly comfortable, is in-fighting inevitable? 

Episode 7 of Gatecrashers features historian Shira Kohn on the rise and role of Jewish sororities, Judith Silverman Hodara on Penn’s Jewish history, and several SDT and Penn alumni on the events of 1987.

In the fall of 1970, a group of Jewish Cornell students did something radical. Energized by a Freedom Seder on campus led by Arthur Waskow and the countercultural movement sweeping a country, they created a Jewish communal house. The Cornell Havurah was an “an anti-establishment establishment,” completely independent with no deans, resident advisors, or national organizations overseeing it. 

The havurah was a residential component of the Jewish counterculture, a larger movement that included Jewish feminism and a Jewish anti-war movement. Translating literally to “fellowship,” the havurah was outside the synagogue structure, a place where Jews would come together for prayer, classes, meals, hiking, folk-singing, and more. 

At this time of great turmoil in the country, and in the Jewish world, Jewish students at Cornell responded by seeking shelter from the storm ... together. To live intentionally—and communally—as Jews was a brave and original act in 1970. It was a statement of ethnic and religious pride, made by a group of college students who wanted to live their Judaism every day. As the rotating cast of residents proved over the years to come, a Jewish house can be a space where Jews of all kinds, of all political persuasions and sexual orientations, and of every shade of religious observance, could find themselves and find joy with others.

Episode 6 of Gatecrashers features Arthur Waskow, and a host of residents and regulars of the various iterations of the Cornell Havurah including Carl Viniar, Naomi Guttman-Bass, Reena Sigman Friedman, Judy Feierstein, Howard Adelman, Naomi Levy, Susan Lehmann, Richard Lehmann, Shari Edelstein, Bruce Temkin, Joe Avni-Singer, Alan Edelman, and Erica Edelman.

While today most American universities offer all sorts of dining accommodations, the on-campus dining scene in the 1950s was far less welcoming for students with specific dietary needs. For students who observed the Jewish dietary laws known as kashrut, and therefore didn’t mix milk with meat or eat pork or shellfish (among other restrictions), their options for elite colleges were narrowed even further, often to schools in big cities where kosher meat and other offerings could more easily be procured. 

So when a kosher-keeping high school senior from New York City wanted to attend Brown in the late 1950s, he was directed to an observant Jewish home near campus in Providence, RI, where Miriam Smith cooked kosher meals for him and, soon, an increasing number of observant Brown and Pembroke students. 

Episode 5 of Gatecrashers features reflections from Meryl Smith Raskin (Pembroke ‘66), Herschel Smith (Brown ‘62), Richard Hirsch (Brown ‘63), and others about Mrs. Smith’s kitchen and the fight to get the campus to provide—and subsidize—kosher meals. Scholars Rachel Gordan of the University of Florida and Zev Eleff of Gratz College offer a broader look at mid-century American Jewish life and the growth of America’s kosher food industry in the post-war period.

It’s accepted as gospel—or at least reliable urban legend—that at nearly every Ivy League school in the mid-20th century, there were limits on the number of Jews admitted each year. The Jewish population, it was said, was capped at 10 percent of the student body. But was that true?

Episode 4 of Gatecrashers investigates the real story of Jewish quotas, examining the practice at Yale University. You’ll hear reflections from Sen. Joe Lieberman (Yale ‘64), Benjamin Zucker (Yale ‘58), and Tim Oppenheimer (Yale ‘67, and father of Gatecrashers host Mark Oppenheimer). You’ll also hear from former Yale admissions director Henry “Sam” Chauncey, who shares what he was told when he started his job in 1957, and Dan Oren, author of Joining the Club: A History of Jews at Yale. 

How did Jewish quotas start at Yale, and how did they finally end? Listen and find out: