College living: The Orthodox way

With resident students walking up flights of stairs amidst sounds of ancient Jewish songs, sights of students lighting candles, and smells of traditional Jewish food, on any given Friday night, the lower eight floors of Hamilton College House resemble a turn-of-the-century Lower East Side Jewish neighborhood.

And although Hamilton's newly renovated facilities render this vertical neighborhood significantly more modern than its New York predecessors, this small enclave of campus -- with its high concentration of Orthodox Jewish students -- makes up what is familiarly known among the community as Penn's own "Jewish ghetto."

Although frequently seen as a product of student self-segregation or administrative prejudice, the creation of this compact community is actually just one of the University's many attempts to accommodate its growing Orthodox Jewish population.

Because of Penn's flexibility and understanding, "you can absolutely keep any religious rules and regulations that you want to on Penn's campus," according to Orthodox Community at Penn Scholar in Residence and College senior David Shyovitz.

As home to approximately 300 Orthodox students, Penn boasts one of the largest Orthodox communities on a secular college campus. As a result, Penn is one of only seven U.S. colleges selected by the national Orthodox Union for its Jewish Learning Initiative, a program which helps Orthodox students maintain their observance and continue their study of Jewish texts.

To cater to this large population, in recent years the University itself has made a number of changes designed to help accommodate these students.

"The Orthodox students here are very lucky," Shyovitz says. "It is much easier to observe all of the religious rules at Penn than on most other college campuses because they accommodate us really well."

Penn's principal accommodations for Orthodox students are in the areas of housing, security and dining. For housing, Orthodox students are given priority for the lower floors of Hamilton because religious rules prevent them from using elevators on their Sabbath.

Penn also maintains a special "Sabbath List" -- a list of Orthodox students that is kept in every college house and building on Saturdays so that students can have full access to Penn's campus without violating the religious rules which prohibit them from using PennCards on their Sabbath.

"With things like the Sabbath List and housing priority, the University has shown that it is dedicated to accommodating Orthodox students," says OCP Co-Chairwoman and College junior Rebecca Moses. "Their willingness to work with us and help us out is a big part of the reason why Penn has such a large, vibrant Orthodox community."

Another significant accommodation provided to Orthodox students pertains to the issue of kosher food, which can be extremely problematic in secular campus dining halls, due to the strict kosher rules regarding food preparation. Penn has both expanded the hours and options of kosher dining with the newly opened Steinhardt Hall and has added more locations on campus where Orthodox students can purchase kosher food.

"The new dining hall at Hillel makes it pretty easy to keep kosher on campus," College sophomore Meira Levinson says. "They also now sell packaged kosher food at other, more centrally located places on campus, like Houston Hall, which makes it a lot easier to find food during the day."

In the classroom, Penn's Policy on Secular and Religious Holidays enables Orthodox students to fully observe the numerous Jewish holidays. Students find most professors to be understanding with regard to absences or exam rescheduling, and some are even willing to modify assignments if they conflict with students' religious tenets.

"Last semester, I was in a drawing class where we had nude models for one of my assignments," Levinson says. "This presented a religious problem for me, and I was surprised at how helpful the professor was in helping me come up with replacement assignments so I wouldn't have to break any religious rules."

However, despite the University's accommodations, Penn's Orthodox community is still presented with a series of ideological and theological challenges inherent in the fact that Penn is a secular institution where the majority of students are not Jewish and most of those who are do not adhere to the same religious rules and regulations with which Orthodox students grew up.

As a result, some students who were raised strictly Orthodox undergo a decline in religiosity or observance at Penn.

"Living on any college campus presents a lot of philosophical challenges and social pressures for Orthodox Jews," Moses says, adding that "this is the first time that people are away from home, and the social pressures to be like everyone else do affect some people and make them drop their religious standards."

However, Moses noted that Penn's accommodations do, albeit indirectly, help to combat this trend by helping Orthodox students foster a strong sense of community.

"Penn is great because by making it easy to live together and eat together, it's easier for us to establish a strong sense of community and address these challenges without compromising our religious identities or our part in Penn's secular community," Moses says.

"Penn makes it almost too easy to be Jewish," Moses jokes. "But in all honesty, I think Penn is the best secular college campus in the [United States] for Orthodox students."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.