Specialty School Jewish Life Associate
Metro Chicago Hillel
Role Overview
Make your mark on Jewish student life by joining Metro Chicago Hillel (MCH) as a Jewish Life Associate serving our specialty schools: Columbia College, SAIC, Roosevelt University, and IIT! We’re looking for a dynamic, self-starting, and creative Jewish Life Associate to inspire MCH students to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning, and Israel. MCH draws together a profoundly diverse array of students to build an incredible Jewish community. You will mentor student leaders, work collaboratively with our staff to plan awesome events, and build relationships with university partners to make campus a more welcoming space for Jewish students. You should have strong interpersonal skills and an entrepreneurial approach. A successful Jewish Life Associate is fun, highly motivated, and articulate. If you’re a natural community organizer who thrives in a fast-paced environment, this is your chance to join our outstanding, multi-campus staff, committed to building a welcoming, joyous and vibrant community that values Jewish learning and fosters relationships across Chicago.
What You’ll Do
- Strategically engage and maintain meaningful relationships with a wide variety of students, including responding to student needs and concerns, supporting leadership development and coaching students in on-campus coalition-building with other student organizations
- Develop new programming and opportunities for students guided by their feedback and responding to their needs and interests
- Work as Hillel’s representative on campus to strengthen Jewish life and Hillel’s visibility, including by collaborating with administrators, staff and faculty
- Maintain social media accounts for campus Hillels, develop a personal-professional Instagram presence to connect with students, and closely monitor social media activity related to antisemitism and campus community
- Collaborate with other Hillel staff to help shape and develop the mission of Metro Chicago Hillel
- Recruit for and promote immersive trips for students, including Taglit-Birthright Israel
- Partner with colleagues to help students explore their relationship to Israel and to coach students in responding to anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents on campus, so that they may advocate for a safer, more positive experience for Jewish students
On a Day to Day Basis You Will
- Coordinate catering and logistics for an upcoming Shabbat dinner on campus
- Grab coffee to catch up with a student who’s back on campus after studying abroad
- Meet with students and an MCH colleague to plan a shuk-themed tabling for Yom Ha’atzmaut
- Strategize with the MCH team to determine our response to an antisemitic social media post from a student organization
- Analyze student engagement data from this year and the previous one to create a list of known students to contact and encourage to sign up for a student seder
- Respond to emails from prospective students and their families about what life is like on campus
What You’ve Accomplished
- Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution
- Past experience traveling or studying in Israel
- Experience working effectively both independently and collaboratively
- Proven success managing multiple projects simultaneously
What You’ll Bring to the Job
- Passion for Jewish community, Judaism and Israel, and an excitement for future trips to Israel and for the opportunity to continue developing your own relationship to Judaism
- Knowledge of Jewish community, culture, heritage, and traditions
- An entrepreneurial spirit, willingness to take risks and the self-awareness to learn from efforts that don’t work out as planned
- A dynamic personality, outstanding interpersonal skills, excellent communication skills, and a sense of playfulness
- Initiative and organizational skills
- Strong written and verbal skills, effective at communicating with a variety of stakeholders including students, parents, alumnae/i, and university partners
What You’ll Receive
The salary for this role is $45,000-46,000. Metro Chicago Hillel is part of the Hillels of Illinois, a department of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Chicago (JUF). As an employee of JUF, your comprehensive benefits package includes:
- Up to 20 days paid time off (starting with 15), up to 11 sick days (starting with 7), 8 paid federal holidays and up to 13 paid Jewish holidays
- 6 weeks paid parental leave
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- 401(k) match
- Additional health and wellness benefits, financial benefits, and tuition reimbursement.
This job also includes great professional development, mentoring, skill building opportunities and continued learning opportunities as part of the global Hillel movement. Additionally, this position provides:
- Flexible work hours
- Travel regionally and to Israel
- Enough coffee or tea to caffeinate a village
- Fabulous Hillel swag
About Metro Chicago Hillel
Metro Chicago Hillel is creating a cohesive vibrant Jewish community across Chicago campuses and throughout the city. We serve about 1,500 students at DePaul University, Loyola University Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, The University of Illinois at Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Roosevelt University, School of the Art Institute, Oakton Community College, and Lake Forest College. MCH includes Base Chicago, a dynamic, innovative program run by pluralistic rabbis and their partners that create welcoming communities for students and post-college young adults in Andersonville, Lincoln Park, Logan Square, and the West Loop.
Chicago is a vibrant, exciting city of distinct neighborhoods, each with its own character and style. With an estimated 44,000 Jewish young adults, all it takes to make friends outside of work is going out into the city, and with great restaurants, arts, music, and sports, there’s plenty to do whether you walk, take public transit, or drive. Come find your place in the Windy City!
Metro Chicago 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 more than 550 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.
