New Hillel directors bring passion for community to TU

By Rebecca Kirkman on September 21, 2022

This fall, Towson University Hillel celebrates several new beginnings—in addition to opening its new 2,500-square-foot programming space in the Towson Commons, it also welcomes new leadership: executive director Rabbi Alex Salzberg ’11 and assistant director Jamie Aaron.

For Salzberg, who earned his master’s degree in Jewish education from the Baltimore Hebrew Institute at Towson University and then spent six years as a pulpit rabbi at Pelham Jewish Center in New York, leading TU Hillel brings together the most meaningful aspects of his prior work: teaching and relationship-building. It’s also a chance to return home to Baltimore.

“I'm excited about having relationships with the students and engaging with them as they're figuring out what it means for them to be Jewish adults,” Salzberg says. “Specifically, helping them along on that journey, helping to launch them into what comes next for them after college, and connecting them to all that exists in the greater Baltimore community.”

For Aaron, who is a third-generation Jewish educator, the role offers the opportunity to give back to young adults the support that she found personally pivotal to her own experience as a student at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. 

“The Hillel staff, when I was an undergrad, were an integral part of my journey to becoming an adult,” Aaron says. “And so being that person for a student is really exciting, from the silly things we talk about, to the serious discussions that we will be guiding and supporting them through. It is really impactful.”

We talked with Salzberg and Aaron about their passion and vision for Hillel.

Why are you passionate about this work?

Salzberg: Last year I was teaching middle school, and these were kids were getting a sense of who they want to be and how they want to exist. Now I've just sort of moved that five years later, and [we are working with] young adults who are putting those ideas that they had in middle school into action, but still thinking it through, reevaluating and learning. Being there to help them with that is incredibly meaningful. This is also an opportunity to help make sure that the Jewish aspect of our students’ lives remains relevant now and into the future.

Aaron: My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor, so the future of the Jewish people was really important to our family growing up. It's a huge piece of why I studied Jewish history and why I'm involved in this work, in addition to the fact that those people in my life [who worked in Jewish education] were very important to me. 

What role does Hillel play in the TU community, and why is it important?

Aaron: We're woven into the fabric of the experience of our students. There are students who come into our space [in Newell Hall] on campus every day and eat their meals and hang out and do homework—someone took a nap there the other day. We're also woven into people's experiences in less obvious ways, but we are always there. There are students we see every day and there are students we met once, and they'll still say, I go to Hillel.

Salzberg: Within the TU institution our place is also very important. We represent a significant portion of the student body, so having relationships with university leadership is an important part of the work that we do.

What are your goals or vision for TU Hillel?

Salzberg: One of the things that we're trying to do is build connections beyond the campus grounds that will exist while they're students here and will hopefully connect them to communities, opportunities and careers for the rest of their lives. Towson Hillel is an agency of The Associated, which means that we are supported by the organized Baltimore Jewish community. One of the major ways that we can connect people to the rest of Jewish Baltimore is through The Associated and their networks.

Aaron: We are putting that into practice. For our High Holidays and Jewish fall holidays this year, we will be at a different synagogue in the greater Baltimore area each day. We’re really excited to be working with community partners to build that vision. 

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What message do you want to share with the TU community?

Salzberg: Students who are involved in Hillel are incredibly diverse on every metric—where they're from, what they look like, what their background is, the way that they live their Judaism. Hillel is a space for all kinds of Jewish, and it's true here. We have people who aren't Jewish or are only peripherally connected to the Jewish community who come and participate. It's exciting to me to have that diversity and I want the wider TU community to know that. This is a space where that type of exploration is not only accepted, but actively encouraged.