Hillel at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Hillel at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (also known as The Cohen Center for Jewish Life or Illini Hillel) is the first Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life in the world. It was established in Champaign, IL in 1923. Today the organization serves around 3,500 Jewish students and their peers at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Parkland College.

Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life was founded at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1923. In 1921, a small group of college students at the University of Illinois came together under the wing of a local rabbinic student named Benjamin Frankel. The 24-year-old, who was interning at Temple Sinai in Champaign, described his Jewish peers as being in a state of "intellectual flux.”

As the children of recent Jewish immigrants, many were struggling to strike a balance between being American and being Jewish. Mrs. Hattie Kauffman, a prominent woman in the local Jewish community, encouraged Benjamin Frankel to reside in Champaign-Urbana as Sinai’s part-time rabbi. He accepted this part-time pulpit and a small stipend to remain in the area.

Frankel worked closely with the university's Jewish student population of approximately 300 students to strengthen their dual identities. Frankel proceeded to organize the foundation with no financial support at first, beside his modest salary he received from Sinai. When he was ordained in 1923, the group began meeting more formally – in a rented room above a barbershop on the south side of the 600 block of East Green Street in Champaign. Rabbi Frankel and his students were ready to expand but they needed resources… and a name. Frankel reached out to the local B'nai B'rith for support and campus leaders started to pay attention. In 1924, Frankel attended the national B'nai B'rith convention to appeal support for Hillel. Edward Chauncey Baldwin, a non-Jewish professor of English at the university, famously challenged Chicago Jewish leader Rabbi Louis Mann, asking: “Don’t you think the time has come when a Jewish student might educate his mind without losing his soul?”

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