The Campaign for the Future of Jewish Life at Brandeis
Brandeis was founded as a bold experiment: a university rooted in Jewish values, committed to excellence, and open to all. Today, that original mission still calls to us. Students come to Hillel for many reasons: to express their Jewish pride, deepen their identities and learning, connect with Israel, and find a warm, welcoming home.
Through community and mentorship, they cultivate purpose, courage, and resilience — qualities they need to navigate our complex world. At the same time, they gain real-world experience: running organizations, managing budgets, facilitating dialogue, and organizing events for hundreds of peers. This lays a foundation for lifelong leadership capacity.
At Brandeis, Hillel is a hub of Jewish life. It is a formative space for students’ growth as 21st-century Jews and as leaders prepared to shape the future. A dedicated, modern destination for Jewish life in the center of campus will raise the visibility of Jewish expression and leadership. It will enhance the student experience. And it will affirm Brandeis’s role as a national model for Jewish flourishing in higher education.
Brandeis is itself an audacious act of Jewish hope. At a time when the Jewish community faces unprecedented challenges and opportunities, this campaign is our generation’s opportunity to invest in the next generation of thoughtful, capable Jewish leaders.
Our Campaign Goal is $25 Million
In an increasingly virtual world, students yearn for a warm, welcoming space on campus where they can connect with peers, immerse themselves in Jewish culture and community, and express their Jewish identities with pride. After 78 years, Hillel at Brandeis is building that home. Thanks to a transformational naming gift from Robert Kraft, together with the generosity of nine additional leadership donors, the Robert K. Kraft Family Center for Jewish Life and Leadership will open in fall 2028, the university’s 80th year.
The Kraft Center will position Hillel as a hub of innovation in Jewish leadership development. It will feature state-of-the-art meeting spaces, a beit midrash designed for collaborative learning, a kosher café, and flexible event spaces that can host conferences, convenings, and critical conversations about the future.
Raised to date: $21 million toward our $25 million goal
Groundbreaking: Thursday, November 5, 2026
Doors open: 2028
Where Jewish Life Belongs: At the Heart of Brandeis
“Brandeis Doesn’t Have a Hillel Building?!”
We hear that all the time.
Brandeis is one of the most welcoming campuses for Jewish students in the country. For decades, we accepted that our Jewish roots made a dedicated building unnecessary. But the campus was never designed to support today’s breadth of extracurricular Jewish life, and Hillel has fully outgrown its patchwork of spaces. Jewish life at Brandeis is getting a permanent home.
A Once-in-a-Generation Moment
In November 2025, Brandeis President Arthur Levine announced a bold initiative to transform liberal arts education at Brandeis, combining rigorous academics with experiential learning and competency-based credentials to develop graduates who lead with integrity.
Hillel has an essential role to play in that vision and is deeply aligned with it. The Robert K. Kraft Family Center for Jewish Life and Leadership will be a powerful draw for the next generation of Jewish students.
Hillel at Brandeis: Where Jewish Students Flourish
Hillel supports hundreds of students each week with programs ranging from Shabbat dinners and Israel education to civic action, music, wellness, feminist, and LGBTQ+ groups. With a deep commitment to tolerance, and a tradition of rabbinic mentorship, Hillel fosters an extraordinary Jewish community. The Kraft Center will give these programs a true home that matches and amplifies their energy and impact, while anchoring Jewish life at the heart of the campus.
A Center for Jewish Life and Leadership
The Jewish community faces an urgent need for lay and professional leaders equipped to navigate complexity, build inclusive communities, and address unprecedented challenges. Brandeis is uniquely positioned to develop these leaders.
Brandeis is already home to the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program, training the next generation of Jewish communal professionals at the graduate level. The Kraft Center will serve as a natural bridge between undergraduate and graduate Jewish leadership development, attracting Jewish students and nurturing talented professionals. It will better equip Brandeis to fulfill its role as a national convener where scholars, practitioners, students, and communal leaders gather to address the most pressing questions facing the Jewish people.
This campaign is about far more than bricks and mortar. It’s about sustaining Brandeis’s place as a center of Jewish life, thought, and leadership now and for the future.
Where Identity and Leadership Take Shape
Our work spans every dimension of Jewish life and student development, including:
Jewish Life
Weekly Shabbat dinners and services
Holiday celebrations and communal meals across the Jewish calendar
Learning fellowships, chavrutot, and beit midrash programs
Jewish cultural events, music, and arts
Leadership
20+ active student-led committees, boards, and initiatives
Mentorship in public speaking, event planning, and facilitation
Hands-on experience with Jewish social entrepreneurship
High-impact internships and national Hillel leadership cohorts
Community
Retreats and immersive experiences that foster lasting friendships
Inclusive spaces for Jews of all backgrounds and denominations
Programs that build empathy, connection, and pluralism
Stewardship
Israel learning and engagement
Dialogue and diplomacy across difference
Training to navigate a world where antisemitism is on the rise
Skills for navigating complexity with Jewish confidence
Hillel nurtures the next generation of Jewish leaders, equipping them with the deep roots and broad perspective they need to thrive in Jewish life, communal work, business, technology, medicine, law, education, and public service.
Where?
The university has generously offered the former Kutz Hall — a three-floor, 28,000 square foot building built in 1959 — for transformation into a beautiful new home for Jewish student life. Positioned prominently near the campus’s main thoroughfare and adjacent to the North Quad residence halls, Kutz Hall is ideally located to serve as a hub for vibrant Jewish life. With the building already vacated, renovating it will be an environmentally responsible and cost-effective project. Bruner/Cott is the architect, and construction begins in November 2026.
Realizing our ambitious vision for the growth of Jewish life at Brandeis will require a significant investment of resources in both our physical infrastructure and the student experiences at the heart of Hillel’s mission.
The Campaign for the Future of Jewish Life at Brandeis is how we meet this moment: a permanent home for Jewish life, and the programs and people to fill it. Naming opportunities are available at many levels, from mezuzot and Torah scrolls to the beit midrash and the ground floor. Many spaces, including the café, the roof deck, and the executive director's office, are already spoken for. Available opportunities include:
Ground Floor
Beit Midrash
180-seat Multipurpose Room
Ground Floor Social Space
Kitchen and Demonstration Kitchen
Art and Music Space
Student Lounge
Meeting Rooms
Torah Scrolls
Sukkah
And more
To discuss a naming gift, contact Ruth Maffa or Rabbi Seth Winberg.
Sustaining the Future of Jewish Life at Brandeis
A building is just the beginning
Open all day means someone is there all day. A facility of this size makes room for far more Jewish life: more Shabbat tables, more learning, more music, more conversation. The most important investment we can make is in the students and professionals who bring the building to life. This endowment will sustain our programmatic initiatives and enable us to launch new leadership development programs, host regional convenings, and support students pursuing careers in Jewish communities.
Hillel professionals are called upon in increasingly diverse ways — as educators, mentors, coaches, and trusted guides. As the needs of students evolve, so must our capacity to meet them with excellence.
Opportunities include
Community Engagement Rabbi
Assistant Director
Jewish Education Fund
Israel Engagement Fund
Community Relations Fund
Shabbat Experience Fund
Student Creativity Fund
Our Campaign Cabinet
Harvey Beker P'99, P'04, P'15, G'25, G'30
Tamar Buchweitz '01
Amy Cohen '85
Joshua Donner P'25
Lee Dranikoff P'26
Abe Foxman G'22 z"l
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg
Sheri Gurock '99, P'25
Meyer Koplow '72, P'02, P'05
Marty Kupferberg '81, P'19
Ambassador Deborah E. Lipstadt MA'72, PhD'76, H'19
Joshua Pines '96
Sari Rapkin
Stephen R. Reiner '61
Professor Jonathan D. Sarna '75, MA'75, H'25
Jim Shane G'26
Barry Shrage
Sue Stolov Weiss
The campaign is also grateful to founding cabinet members David Harris P'05, H'22 and Professor Leonard Saxe P'14 for their early leadership.