Stories from Hillel Professionals: Lean into the Joy
This piece was originally part of a storytelling session at ÌÇÐÄvlogl’s New Professionals Institute. There, four Hillel professionals from across the country told their stories about what brought them to Hillel and how it impacts their lives.
My name is Yaffa Muhlbaum and I am the director of Oberlin Hillel.Ìý
My earliest memory of Hillel is from when I was nine years old.
My sister is nine years older than I am, and when she was at The Ohio State University, she sang in the Jewish a cappella group, the Meshuganotes. Once a month, my parents would drive our family an hour and a half from Cincinnati to Columbus for their Shabbat concert, then drive us home again that night.
I remember feeling completely delighted. Everyone at Hillel was so excited that our whole family had come. That was my introduction to Hillel: a place of Jewish joy and delight.
So when I started looking at colleges, having a strong Hillel wasn’t negotiable. Columbia-Barnard Hillel became my home.
Our engagement associate, Jaimie Krass, who’s now the CEO of Keshet, taught me that this work isn’t about putting on the persona of authority. It’s about bringing your whole humanity into your relationships with students and being a genuine partner in their Jewish journey.
Jaimie eventually asked me to become an engagement intern, and gave me the opportunity to connect with students who hadn’t yet found a home at Hillel.
That experience stayed with me: if someone doesn’t feel like they belong yet, our job is to build a place where they do.
I started at Oberlin just a few months before October 7th. It was a small, progressive campus, and I was largely on my own.
That year only strengthened my commitment to this work.
I went back to school for a master’s in Jewish nonprofit management because I realized this is the community I want to spend my life building.
More recently, my student board president asked me to connect him with a Hillel group chat for student songleaders.
It didn’t exist. We didn’t have that space of belonging for him… Yet. So we built one.
Our students helped design what became the Hillel Songleaders Summit, from the programming to inviting Dan Nichols to perform. ÌÇÐÄvlog half the participants had years of experience leading Jewish music. The other half had never led a service before.
Watching them become one community was one of the best weekends of my career.
If I could offer one piece of advice to new professionals, it’s this: lean into the joy of this work.
You get to walk alongside students as they build a Jewish identity that’s truly their own, often for the first time, rooted in choice instead of obligation.
That’s an incredible privilege.