Role Overview
The core responsibility of the Director of Community Engagement at Harvard Hillel is to activate and organize Harvard’s Jewish alumni community to protect, enrich, and expand Jewish life at Harvard. The Director of Community Engagement will allow Harvard Hillel to fill the current leadership vacuum within Harvard’s Jewish community - bridging the gap between the tremendous concern and dedication of our alumni, and the very real needs of Jewish students and Jewish life in the present and near-term. A successful tenure will focus in its early years on the very real problems revealed throughout the university on and after 10/7, from there expanding to create partnerships with individuals and programs throughout Harvard. The person who holds this role will take up a leadership position not only in the Harvard Jewish community, but in American Judaism writ large by asking a set of questions that no one else is asking about how to make use of a leading university’s resources to expand and enrich Jewish life, and coming up with new possibilities that will be widely influential, studied, and copied.
What You’ll Do
- Build productive relationships with critical Jewish Harvard alumni - to enlist their professional connections, university relationships, and networks in support of Harvard’s Jewish life
- Work with alumni to develop flagship student-facing initiatives
- Foster critical relationships with campus partners beyond the standard administrative roles, creating alliances of shared purpose in areas of mutual concern, thereby allowing the Jewish community to effectively make its case throughout the university
- Bring concerned alumni together in cohesive, effective teams with shared narratives and strategy
- Collaborate closely with critical partners, such as CJP, Hillel International, AEN, the ADL, and the 1636 Forum
- Proactively provide alumni and other key partners with timely information and insight about strategic-level developments at Harvard
- Keep abreast of similar projects at other universities, both to benefit from their learnings and to share yours (and, when appropriate, convene leaders in this field)
- Plan and execute strategically selected educational programs, travel, webinars, and social events that build cohesion, connection, and purpose among the Harvard Jewish alumni community
- After making substantial progress on the problems that came to light post-10/7 - identify opportunities to leverage the university’s resources for the Jewish community. These could include creating embedded research partnerships to study and improve on Hillel’s work; training programs for Jewish leaders; partnerships with Israeli universities; internship pipelines to work with leading Jewish and Israeli figures in different sectors, or other possibilities that haven’t even been considered.
- Ultimately - make Harvard into a leader in responding to the wave of post-10/7 anti-Semitism and in what a university Jewish community can be
- Actively support Harvard Hillel’s Development initiatives as appropriate
Who You Are
Any candidate for this position must be highly motivated by the urgency of the moment for the Jewish people at Harvard and more broadly; be able to pursue work that takes years to come to fruition; and be possessed of significant erudition and emotional intelligence. Intimate familiarity with both the worlds of American higher education and Jewish philanthropy are absolutely necessary; Harvard affiliation is a significant bonus. Candidates should possess 5-15 years of relevant professional leadership in higher education, Jewish non-profit, law, or politics.
Additionally, we are looking for:
- Graduate degree required
- An appreciation for the intrinsic diversity - politically, religiously, and otherwise - of Harvard’s Jewish community
- Comfort in managing teams as well as working independently and collaboratively
- An embrace of the unpredictable nature of this work, including the capacity to absorb, learn from, and move past disappointments
- Strong written and verbal skills, effective at communicating with a variety of stakeholders including students, parents, alumnae/i, and university partners
- The capacity to listen deeply, and to inspire and lead
- Ability to juggle long-term, complex projects with urgent and ever-shifting demands, losing sight of neither
What You’ll Receive
- Competitive compensation of $135,000-$150,000 depending on experience and qualifications
- Generous benefits, including health care retirement contributions
- Opportunities for professional development and travel
- An unrivaled network of connections and relationships throughout Harvard’s Jewish community
About Harvard Hillel
Harvard Hillel is the Jewish center of the world’s greatest university. Home to 500 Jewish undergraduates and 1,800 Jewish graduate students, Harvard Hillel’s mission is to train a generation of Jewish students to lead a divided Jewish community in an uncertain future - by helping mentoring them as they create an inspiring, life-shaping community of meaning with and for one another during their years as students.
Harvard Hillel is affiliated with Hillel International. Hillel International enriches the lives of Jewish students so they may enrich the Jewish people and the world, and envisions a world where every student is inspired to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning and Israel.
About Hillel International
In 1923, Rabbi Benjamin Frankel started Hillel with humble means, a noble mission and a breathtaking vision: to convey Jewish civilization to a new generation. Today, Hillel International continues to enrich the lives of Jewish students and is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world at nearly 1,000 colleges and universities across North America and around the world. As Hillel evolves as an organization, the mission remains steadfast: to create lasting connections with every Jewish student that foster an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning, and Israel and train them to become the next Jewish leaders.
Hillel is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an accepting and inclusive environment for all.
