Hillel Shows Us Best Way to Waste 18 Minutes

Image by Hillel 90th

By Anne Cohen April 30, 2014

Happy 90th, Hillel!

The venerable organization may have started in 1923, but they’re saving the party to coincide with the end of the first school year, “more like a graduation anniversary.”

To kick-off the festivities in style, Hillel has launched a (surprisingly fun) website guaranteed to keep you from whatever immediate task you’re meant to be getting done. There’s a “How Jew Are You?” quiz — Golda Meir, Natalie Portman, Albert Einstein are all possibilities — a guess the beard game (Hillel himself should win a prize for his), and memes. Lots of memes.

The site also gives current and former students the chance to send in stories on how Hillel shaped their college experience, a series of e-cards to spread the birthday cheer (“Grumpy Katz” sends his love), and an impressive collection of archival photos sprinkled through a detailed timeline of the organization’s long history.

If you like what you see, you can even “slip a little cash in the birthday envelope,” (ie. donate), ultimately the point of this elaborate production. But hey, at least they make it fun.

Enjoy!

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

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