Role Overview
As the IACT and Community-Building Associate at Harvard Hillel, you will be on the front lines of building deep and creative relationships with Harvard’s Jewish undergraduates - and inspiring them to build a community of meaning with and for one another. Your work will be fast-paced and varied, including everything from hundreds of coffee-dates, to planning yoga study breaks and concerts, and designing and leading Birthright trips. You’ll work with colleagues who are dreaming big and moving fast to create Jewish life as compelling as anything on Harvard’s campus - and mentoring the next generation of Jewish leaders.
Harvard Hillel sees Israel - the land, the people, and the state - as a pillar of Jewish identity, creativity, and complexity; alongside Shabbat, Torah study, and hesed. We are aware of, and respectful of, our student body’s vast diversity of experience, thought, and feeling related to Israel as reality and idea - and aim to both educate and empower, knowing that at times there will be an irreducible tension between these two values.
This is an incredible first opportunity in the Jewish world, which will open the door to all kinds of Jewish communal work after a successful tenure at Harvard.
What You’ll Do
Engagement
- Build personal relationships with 225 students
- Maintain and enter records of events and engagements for measurement data
- Work collaboratively with our Jewish Agency Israel Fellow and your student-facing colleagues to bring Israel programming to Hillel and Harvard University
- Advise first-year outreach chair and social action chair on the student board.
- Staff major events, from Shabbat dinners to bagel brunches, throughout the year
Birthright & Beyond trips to Israel
Harvard Hillel runs one-two Birthright trips annually, each followed by our signature extension program, Beyond, "stay for several more days and go deeper," which offers a deep dive into important social and political issues including Israel’s security, ethnic diversity, religious pluralism, regional relations, and territorial disputes, including hearing voices from beyond the Green Line. You will be the primary staff member responsible for every aspect of these trips:
- Manage Birthright Israel program including all recruitment, interviews, pre-trip orientations, and improving the trip experience
- Coordinate with our Birthright tour operator
- Design a compelling and educationally rigorous itinerary for two seven-day Beyond tours, and coordinate with our Beyond tour operator to deliver these
- Manage the post trip engagement by sustaining the goal of 100% participating and developing experiences and opportunities for Birthright Israel alumni
- Oversee the IACT Birthright Budget
Who You Are
Any candidate for this position must be organized, animated by the potential and urgency of Jewish life, and deeply concerned with the welfare and flourishing of others. The most important experience we are looking for is the ability to be a Jewish leader, organize people and projects, and the ability to inspire commitment and action.
Additionally, we are looking for:
- Bachelor's degree required
- High empathy and emotional intelligence
- Comfort in managing teams as well as working independently and collaboratively
- An embrace of the unpredictable, often improv-type nature of this work, including the capacity to absorb, learn from, and move past disappointments
- Strong written and verbal skills, effective at communicating with a variety of stakeholders including students, parents, alumnae/i, and university partners
- A commitment to pluralism and comfort with your Jewish identity so you may act as a role model and mentor for emerging Jewish adults
- Owning your unique Jewish knowledge and experiences and inspiring others on their Jewish journeys
What You’ll Receive
- A salary of $60,000-$75,000, depending on experience and qualifications
- A network of students, parents, and university partners who will inspire you, and become life-long professional resources and partners
- Opportunities for professional development, coaching, and Jewish study
- Colleagues and support from across the Hillel movement
- Travel opportunities, both domestically and internationally
- A comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, Tax Deferred Retirement Plan, Life, AD&D, and Long Term Disability insurances, Flexible Spending Plan, generous vacation/sick time, and parental leave.
About Harvard Hillel
Harvard Hillel is the Jewish center of the world’s greatest university. Home to 500 Jewish undergraduates and 1,800 Jewish graduate students, Harvard Hillel’s mission is to train a generation of Jewish students to lead a divided Jewish community in an uncertain future - by helping mentoring them as they create an inspiring, life-shaping community of meaning with and for one another during their years as students.
Harvard Hillel is affiliated with Hillel International. Hillel International enriches the lives of Jewish students so they may enrich the Jewish people and the world, and envisions a world where every student is inspired to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning and Israel.
About Hillel International
In 1923, Rabbi Benjamin Frankel started Hillel with humble means, a noble mission and a breathtaking vision: to convey Jewish civilization to a new generation. Today, Hillel International continues to enrich the lives of Jewish students and is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world at nearly 1,000 colleges and universities across North America and around the world. As Hillel evolves as an organization, the mission remains steadfast: to create lasting connections with every Jewish student that foster an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning, and Israel and train them to become the next Jewish leaders.
Hillel is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an accepting and inclusive environment for all.