Eugen Kullmann and Leonard Gordon: Visions of Jewish Life at Kenyon

by Nate Gordon, Kenyon ‘20

In this essay, I focus on two of Kenyon College’s most prominent Jewish leaders who paved the way for Jewish life as it exists on campus today. In focusing on Dr. Eugen Kullmann and Rabbi Leonard Gordon, I will present different ways that Jewish students, faculty, and other community members engaged with Judaism at different points in Kenyon’s history. Kullmann and Gordon each had ideas about how Judaism should be practiced at Kenyon and they initiated different forms of religious engagement. Their visions for the potential of Jewish life at Kenyon were influenced by their own religious and academic development, which I trace in this essay.

In the past year, I have interviewed approximately thirty Kenyon Jewish alumni, former and current faculty, and other community members who have experienced Jewish life at Kenyon. In these interviews, Gordon and Kullmann were frequently discussed as two individuals who have had the most significant impact on the trajectory of Kenyon’s Jewish community. Assessing their influence as Jewish leaders proves to be significant in understanding how Kenyon’s Jewish community developed into its current form. While Hillel and formal Jewish life does currently exist on Kenyon’s campus, it is important to recognize that Kenyon’s Jewish community has been developing and evolving since the late 1940s. Analyzing Kullmann and Gordon’s respective roles on campus as Jewish leaders offers insight into the state of Jewish life at Kenyon during two distinct time periods. Further, assessing the different ways that these two individuals created opportunities for the Kenyon community to engage with Judaism builds an understanding of different models of Jewish life on a small college campus. In 2019, Kenyon’s Jewish community is more stable today than in the past because of the establishment of Kenyon Hillel and the institutional support Kenyon now provides to its Jewish students. However, analyzing the Jewish leadership of Gordon and Kullmann is critical in gaining a better sense of different strategies that can be implemented today to continue to grow and strengthen Kenyon’s Jewish community.

Eugen Kullmann: “formidable in manner, formidable in learning”

Dr. Eugen Kullmann arrived at Kenyon in 1968, and during his sixteen year tenure he initiated the beginnings of organized Jewish life on campus. Kullmann was hired by the Religion Department, but his academic expertise included much of the Western humanities tradition. In addition to teaching courses in Judaism, Kullmann led Friday evening Shabbat services, inspired students in and out of the classroom to pursue lives of Jewish study, and became an outspoken campus voice on national and international issues of social justice while speaking from a Jewish perspective.

Dr. Kullmann was born in 1915 into a German Jewish family in the small rural village of Erlenbach, Germany. At a young age, he developed a deep interest in the study of Ancient Greek and began studying Greek and Latin literature at a high school in Landau in southwestern Germany. At this time, he also studied Hebrew with Rabbi Berthold Einstein, a prominent rabbi in that region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[1] Before attending university, Kullmann attended a yeshivah, a religious school focused on the study of critical Jewish texts, in Frankfurt. Around this time, he also attended Das Freies Jüdisches Lehrhaus (The House of Jewish Learning), where he heard lectures by Martin Buber, a preeminent Jewish philosopher of the twentieth century with whom he stayed in touch throughout his academic career. Kullmann wished to attend university in Heidelberg, Germany, and even received requests to attend other German universities, but his mother demanded that he leave Germany as she recognized the rising threat of Nazism. Kullmann studied at the University of Basel in Switzerland where he focused on philosophy, Greco-Roman antiquity, the Bible, and Semitic languages.[2]

Beginning in 1946, Kullmann taught at a number of institutions of higher learning in the United States, including the New School in New York, Smith College, and Bard College.[3] In 1968, Kenyon hired him to be a member of the faculty. During his time at Kenyon, Kullmann came to be regarded with mythic status, in large part due to his erudition that included a deep knowledge of historical thought from ancient to modern. As a teacher, he possessed a unique ability to motivate students to undertake intensive academic study, just as he did throughout his life. To this day, there is a network of Kullmann’s former students, self-identified “Kullmannites” whose careers and lives differed; but their admiration and appreciation for Dr. Kullmann provided them with a special bond.

A “Mythical Persona”

Kullmann’s legacy as a teacher and as a Jewish presence on campus exists today through the lives and words of his students at Kenyon. Robert Schine ‘72 studied closely with Kullmann during and his initial interaction with the professor is highly indicative of Kullmann’s own perception of his role as a professor at Kenyon. He believed deeply that academic learning, though enjoyable as an end unto itself, was a means to understand life and make sense of one’s surroundings. In a recent interview, Schine expressed the connection that Kullmann made between classroom learning and an active concern for ethical issues in one’s life. Schine said, “Not that his teaching was overtly political, but people were looking for meaning. And there was someone who could help interpret and show us how others over a history of 6,000 years had understood their lives. It was extraordinary.” Schine added, “Dr. Kullmann would often say in class that the basis of religion is righteous indignation. He had the Hebrew prophets in mind when he would say this.”[4] 

Former students and colleagues maintain vivid memories of Kullmann’s classroom presence. His engaging lecture style, as well as his seemingly bottomless knowledge of canonical texts, captured students’ attention and contributed to his mythical persona on campus. Noting Kullmann’s classroom presence is important because it contributes to understanding why certain students were so drawn to the traditionally-minded professor. Ronald Sharp taught English at Kenyon from 1970 to 2003 in the English Department, was Editor of the Kenyon Review, and served in a number of administrative positions. He was appointed Acting President of Kenyon in 2002 before becoming Dean of the Faculty at Vassar College in 2003. Sharp observed classes Kullmann taught and recalls the professor’s entrance. Sharp said:

It was a wonderful kind of ritualistic entrance. He walked in and the whole atmosphere of the room changed. It was as though some great guru was coming into the room. He would place his books on the wooden desk and he would, sort of, pet them a little bit with great reverence and get them arranged.[5]

Once he was set for the lecture, Kullmann could launch into a myriad of historical and intellectual topics, with an uncanny ability to relate each one to the others. Steven Lebow ‘77 took courses and studied closely with Kullmann while at Kenyon and went on to a career as rabbi of Temple Kol Emeth in suburban Atlanta, GA. Lebow remembers his amazement at Kullmann’s ability to draw on literature from ancient to modern times. He said:

Kullmann’s eyes would flutter, he would close his eyes and he would recite an entire page of Homer in Attic Greek. Then he would compare that with some passage from Emily Dickinson which would lead to a quotation from William Blake, which would find its way back around to Friedrich Nietzsche, at which point he'd throw in a conversation that he had once had with Allen Ginsberg. It was mind-blowing.[6]                                              

Kullmann’s classroom presence was, indeed, performative, a method by which to capture students’ attention. However, students recognized that Kullmann’s teaching went beyond the texts which he illuminated. Many students held a deep appreciation for Kullmann’s desire to share his pursuit of learning, an interaction which shaped students’ career ambitions and values for those who decided to study closely with him. Robert Schine, who has been a professor of Jewish studies at Middlebury College since 1985, spoke about Kullmann’s extensive knowledge and his talent as a teacher:

He is what we would call a renaissance man from the European humanist tradition. And, that alone, was awe inspiring. But the way in which he could call upon this erudition to stretch our minds to think about ourselves and politics and the meaning of our existence in different ways and through the eyes of different thinkers throughout the millennia--this was a really rare gift. Not everybody has an opportunity like this in college or university or in life. I've read about extraordinary teachers. There are a few of them in a generation. And he was one.[7]

Kullmann made classroom learning relevant to current events

In conversations with those who knew Kullmann, it is clear that that students gravitated towards him because he made their classroom learning relevant and applicable to issues such as the war in Vietnam and the U.S. civil rights movement. Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies Royal Rhodes described Kullmann as “formidable in manner, formidable in learning” and was his colleague in the department for five years before Kullmann retired. Rhodes said, “He was very focused on the ethical dimension of life from a Jewish perspective.”[8] When national and international events impacted Kenyon’s campus, Kullmann was often at the fore, helping students to interpret the circumstances.

Professor Miriam Dean-Otting ‘74 studied with Kullmann during her time at Kenyon and remained close to him until he passed away in 2002. After attending Kenyon and working with Kullmann, Dean-Otting pursued a career in academia. She earned a Phd from Hebrew Union College and then returned to Kenyon to 1984 to be a professor of religious studies where she has now taught for more than three decades. “Many of his students were inspired to become pacifists by him. That’s what I mean by active with words. He taught us to think seriously about what it meant to take a weapon and go to war against another group of human beings.”[9]

On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard killed four student protesters Kent State University, a two-hour drive from Kenyon’s campus. Murray Horwitz ‘70 was in his senior year when the Kent State massacre happened, and he remembers the Friday evening prayer service that Kullmann held following the shooting. Horwitz, who co-wrote the Tony-winning musical Ain’t Misbehavin’ and created the NPR show Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me, said:

Friday night we repaired to the Church of the Holy Spirit sanctuary and I have never heard a Kaddish before or since [like that one]...It was a prayer like none I’ve ever heard before or since. He comprised the rage that all of us were feeling.[10]

Schine recalls Kullmann’s participation in the national Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, a nationwide demonstration calling for the United States to end its involvement in a war that would ultimately continue until 1975. On the day of the Moratorium, October 15, 1969, Schine participated in a reading of names of those who were killed in the war. That day also marked his first interaction with Kullmann who approached Schine, a student in his “History of Jewish Thought” course. About that first interaction, Schine later wrote in his 2002 eulogy of Kullmann, “It was the first of many acts of pedagogical kindness and concern, from this man who was first and last and above all else a teacher.”[11]

Jewish services in the Church of the Holy Spirit

During much of his time at Kenyon, Kullmann led Friday evening Sabbath prayer services, as well as services for the High Holiday in the Church of the Holy Spirit on campus. Students who attended the services recall that they were often sparsely attended; there often was not a minyan, a quorum of ten Jewish adults traditionally needed for a Jewish prayer service. David Lynn ‘76, current Editor of the Kenyon Review, attended Kullmann’s services and recalls the dynamic of a German émigré leading Jewish services in a rural Ohio church, “I will always remember sitting under his thundering voice with a German accent beneath this huge stone cross that in those days hung above the seats. It was very weird and intimidating.”[12] At these services, Kullmann frequently delivered a sermon which he often used to bring attention to issues of social justice. Schine recalls that although there was no campus conversation about Israel and Palestine, Kullmann spoke about the issue in sermons. “He was very outspoken then about the cost of Zionism,” says Schine. Adding, “The climate on campuses was very different from what it is now. The fact that there was a Palestinian Arab side to Israel’s history was really not known except to those who were directly affected by it, and they weren’t represented in the campus population.”[13] Kullmann’s services were one of the very few opportunities for students at Kenyon to participate in Jewish life in any organized sense. Nonetheless, each Friday, any students who wished to join could attend Kullmann’s services, which were spread through word of mouth among students.

Different Expectations

Not only was Kullmann concerned with applying academic learning to life outside the classroom, but he also expected students’ learning to take place outside the usual confines of a college’s academic schedules. Rhodes said, “[For Kullmann], learning was supposed to be convivial. Serious students were expected to be on campus all the time, including during breaks.”[14] Kullmann never married, nor had children, so he viewed his students as members of his family. As a teacher and in retirement, Kullmann lived in a house on the side of the Kokosing River across from Kenyon’s campus on Met O Wood Lane. Rhodes compared entering Kullmann’s home to going into a nineteenth century salon in Vienna; similar to the classroom, it was a space of communal learning. Dean-Otting said, “He gave his all to his students. If you were willing to submit to the rigors of his expectations, and the bar was set high, what he gave you was precious. You can’t calculate the worth of it.”[15]

Objections to “Jewish Leader” and “Discipleship”

There are two aspects of Kullmann’s legacy that are forgotten and unrealized. The first is Kullmann’s own objection to people labelling him as a “Jewish leader” on campu. Secondly, there were students and faculty who were put off by Kullmann’s demeanor. His students formed what could be viewed as a circle of disciples, a dynamic that certain students did not wish to be a part of and faculty were displeased by Kullmann’s habit of wanting to teach courses in departments other than Religion.

Kullmann’s objection to the designation of “Jewish leader” is rooted in his belief that the study of Judaism cannot be separated from the study of the Western humanistic tradition; the two academic disciplines are inextricably connected. Schine recognized this aspect of Kullmann’s ideology and cautions, “He objected to being called the representative of Jewish studies on campus. Schine added, “His point of view was that Jewish culture, Jewish religion, the Jewish textual heritage is part of the history of the West.”[16] Kullmann objected to students and faculty labelling him as Kenyon’s Jewish leader. Nevertheless, his initiative to lead Jewish services and speak about current events from a Jewish perspective made him an individual with whom Jewish students could engage with Judaism, religiously and academically, in a way they likely would not have had he not been on campus.

While many students at Kenyon widely respected Kullmann as a great teacher and informed commentator on world events, there were those who kept their distance from the professor. Schine says, “There were students who were not part of that inner circle, and I could imagine that many of them found Professor Kullmann less accessible.” [17] Dean-Otting adds, “I would be really just whitewashing if I said that he got along with everybody. He didn't.”[18] Those who decided to learn from Kullmann from afar were likely concerned about the intellectual independence they might forgo by becoming close with Kullmann. Widely published poet and biographer Daniel Epstein ‘70 was a student during Kullmann’s early years on campus. Epstein recognized Kullmann as a positive presence on Kenyon’s campus, but he did not want to become a member of the professor’s “inner circle.” Epstein said:

There were things I liked about Dr. Kullmann and there were things I didn't. For a number of reasons, I didn't particularly want to be part of his group. It had nothing to do with his philosophy but a kind of an atmosphere of discipleship that made me maybe a little bit uncomfortable. But he was certainly a marvelous influence, a great teacher, absolutely superb teacher, a great scholar, and I could feel his presence as a Jewish philosopher in the community.[19]

Kullmann’s place in Kenyon’s Jewish History

Despite Kullmann’s objection to the term “Jewish leader,” he provided both Jewish religious and academic direction for students who were on campus during his tenure. Although he likely did not think about it in these terms, Kullmann had a distinct model of Jewish engagement during his time at Kenyon: he encouraged students to explore Judaism by making classroom learning exciting and by making his Jewish services relevant to major issues of social justice as they related to national and international events. Kullmann’s model for a Jewish community at Kenyon was focused on student engagement. Granted there were not many on campus, but Jewish faculty members seemingly did not attend Kullmann’s services. This is significant to note in the development of Kenyon’s Jewish history because Kenyon’s next Jewish leader, Rabbi Leonard Gordon, made faculty engagement the center of his model for Jewish engagement.

Leonard Gordon: “articulate, and dynamic, and personable, and eager”

Just a few years after Kullmann retired from teaching in 1984, Rabbi Leonard Gordon arrived on Kenyon’s campus. Gordon’s vision of the potential for a Jewish community at Kenyon differed from Kullmann’s. While Kullmann’s services offered a Jewish space mostly to Jewish students, Gordon’s services had a deep impact on the Jewish engagement of Kenyon’s faculty members. Gordon’s time, too, was marked by disagreements about his role as a Jewish leader on campus, both as a religious leader and as a Jewish faculty member.

In 1986, Leonard Gordon came to Kenyon when the English Department hired his wife, Lori Lefkovitz. Ronald Sharp was in the English department when Lefkovitz was hired and formed a close relationship with her and Gordon. When Lefkovitz was deciding whether or not to accept the position, a critical factor for her and Gordon was understanding their options for Jewish engagement in and around Kenyon. During this time, she spoke with Sharp, who recalls a conversation with Lefkovitz in which she told him that her husband was a rabbi. Sharp says, “I remember walking around and stopping in my tracks. It was the most mind boggling thing I had ever heard anybody say in Gambier.”[20] Lefkovitz accepted the position, and Sharp was highly enthusiastic that the couple would be joining Kenyon’s Jewish community. Sharp quickly saw Gordon’s enormous value to Kenyon’s Jewish community and was eager for the college to find a long-term position for him. Sharp said, “Gambier was a very isolated place. It was a small Jewish community. It was unthinkable that we would ever have a shot at having a rabbi, let alone someone who was so articulate, and dynamic, and personable, and eager.”[21] Leaving in 1992, Gordon and Lefkovitz were at Kenyon for six years. In that time, though, Gordon redefined notions of the type of Jewish community that could exist at Kenyon and laid the groundwork for the future of Jewish life on campus.

Kenyon’s campus quickly acknowledged Gordon’s presence as a Jewish leader on campus. A September, 1986 issue of the student newspaper, the Kenyon Collegian, includes a front-page article titled “Rabbi Makes History at Kenyon” and recognizes Gordon as the college’s first Jewish chaplain. According to that article, college president Philip Jordan was eager to establish a Jewish chaplaincy at Kenyon, and Gordon filling that role was an ideal situation with his wife’s appointment.[22] Gordon, who earned a B.A. at Columbia University, masters degree from Brown University, and was ordained as a conservative rabbi in 1985, was finishing up his doctorate dissertation at Columbia during his first year at Kenyon.[23] The Collegian article notes that Gordon’s role on campus would include teaching a course in the college’s Integrated Program in Humane Studies (IPHS), in addition to providing counselling services to students. In the article, Gordon expressed his awareness of Kenyon’s Episcopal history and the challenges that face a Jewish community where Christianity is the “norm.”[24] Gordon quickly began working with the Union for Jewish Students to establish weekly Friday evening services for students and faculty families, which were held in the Nu Pi Kappa room on the third floor of Ascension Hall.

These Friday evening services became the centerpiece of Kenyon’s Jewish community during Gordon’s time. Multiple Jewish faculty members who attended Gordon’s services reflect that those Friday evenings, to this day, represented their deepest and most active engagement with Judaism. Current Kenyon Review editor David Lynn says, “Those years in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when the Jewish community met regularly in Ascension Hall for Shabbat services, that was a kind of golden age. I loved that and I was very much a part of it.”[25] Gordon, himself, estimates that twenty to thirty students, faculty, spouses, and children attended the Friday evening services on a regular basis. Allan Fenigstein, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, who arrived at Kenyon 1974, believes that part of what drew Kenyon Jews to Gordon’s services was the fact that it was much more than a religious service. “All of a sudden, there were dozens of people who would be showing up. It was not just a religious event, it was a social event. For me, it was an opportunity to learn.”[26] Fenigstein, Sharp, and others note that Gordon’s model for Kenyon’s Jewish community and his emphasis on his role as a Jewish educator were two parts of why he was so successful at drawing in Jewish students and faculty who otherwise would not have engaged with Judaism on a weekly basis.

The services took place on Friday evenings, but Gordon used that time to celebrate any Jewish holidays that occurred that week. Though High Holidays services for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah did occur separately, Gordon incorporated the celebration of all other holidays into the Friday evening rituals. In this way, Gordon met the Kenyon Jewish community’s level of observance and avoided alienating those who did not feel “Jewish enough.” Meaning, he recognized the potential for vibrant Jewish life at Kenyon, but there was certainly an extent to what Gordon could expect from Kenyon’s Jewish community, at least when he first arrived. For example, though Friday evening services were well-attended, Gordon may not have had the same success if he had also held a weekly Saturday morning prayer service, a staple of observant Jewish life. This type of religious compromise likely was not easy for Gordon, who was ordained as a rabbi in the Conservative movement, a sect of Judaism between Reform and Orthodox. Additionally, Gordon grew up in east coast Jewish communities, which gave him a particular conception of what a Jewish community should look like. He explains, “I sort of had a vision of a more public Jewish community and then others had a vision of a quieter Jewish community.” He adds, “Some people felt that Kenyon was an Episocopal/Christian space, and that therefore the Jewish community should keep a low profile and function more or less within certain bounds as a religious community.”[27] Gordon’s vision for the future of Jewish life at Kenyon differed from Kullmann’s both in terms of its target audience and in its methods of relating to Judaism.

The basis of Gordon’s vision for Kenyon’s Jewish community was predicated on the involvement of Jewish faculty members and their families. Gordon viewed faculty engagement as the necessary catalyst that would, as it did, make more students enthusiastic about involving themselves in Jewish life. In retrospect, Gordon explains his approach to building a Jewish community at Kenyon in 1986:

What we basically decided to do was to build a Jewish community not on the traditional Hillel model where everything would be student led and student run. Given the peculiar nature of Kenyon, by that I mean a more isolated setting where informal faculty-student interaction is nurtured, that we would organize the community around the families who had Jewish interests, most of whom were interfaith families who wanted to either raise their children with Jewish identity or with you know as part of a Jewish community.[28]

Although a newcomer to the Kenyon community, Gordon quickly realized that Kenyon’s Jewish faculty members had an unfulfilled desire to reconnect with their Judaism in the company of fellow faculty, as well as students. In creating this model for Kenyon’s Jewish community, Gordon demonstrated a keen understanding of faculty-student dynamics on campus. Similar to other liberal arts colleges, students at Kenyon seek out relationships with their professors that extend beyond discussions about a course’s next assignment. Student-faculty relationships are considered an essential part of a student’s education on small liberal arts campuses. Gordon recognized this and built a Jewish community at Kenyon where Jewish students and faculty could further develop these relationships. This faculty-student interaction at Gordon’s services was a marked change from those that Kullmann hosted, which were attended almost entirely by students, in part because of the very few number of Jewish faculty members on Kenyon’s campus in the late 1960s and 1970s. While Kullmann felt a responsibility to create Jewish opportunities for students in the form of religious ritual, Gordon had a vision for the formation of a community of Jewish people in Gambier.

Ronald Sharp experienced the leadership of both Kullmann and Gordon during his more than three decades at Kenyon beginning in 1970. He observed differences between the two individuals who, in the twentieth century, were the leading agents of change for Kenyon’s Jewish community. Speaking about Kullmann, Sharp says:

I never really thought of him [Kullmann] much as a leader of the Jewish community in the sense that there was Jewish community. He didn't seem to, as Lenny [Gordon] did, see himself as somebody who was trying to organize the community and get them to reflect on what they wanted to be and what they wanted to do. He was a little bit aloof from all that.[29]         

One way Gordon was able to make Kenyon’s Jewish community think about its future potential was by making his religious services a space for Jewish learning. Sharp says, “He was an incredible educator in the sense that he knew there were a lot of Jews at Kenyon who were not very practicing Jews, that needed an education in Judaism.” He adds, “[Gordon] found a way to make the Jewish community partly about an educational experience about learning about Judaism...Eugen [Kullmann] did a little of that but not much.”[30] Gordon’s extensive academic and religious training made him well-suited for for taking on the role of Jewish leader and educator on Kenyon’s college campus. However, owing to a number of factors, Gordon and Lefkovitz realized that their time at Kenyon was finite.

There are multiple reasons why Gordon and Lefkovitz decided to leave Kenyon. First, it was difficult for them to envision raising a Jewish family in rural Ohio. They desired a Jewish day school education for their children, and the closest such school was in Columbus. In addition to finding a Jewish school, it was difficult for Gordon and Lefkovitz to be active members of a synagogue community while living in Gambier. During their time at Kenyon, Gordon led Friday evening services on campus and then he and Lefkovitz drove on Saturday mornings to attend a Conservative synagogue in Columbus, a routine Gordon said they enjoyed though likely found unsustainable. However, had Gordon and Lefkovitz been satisfied with their situation on Kenyon’s campus, they likely would have found a way to raise a Jewish family in rural Ohio. But they both recognized that Kenyon was not a place they would stay for the rest of their careers. Gordon reflected on this realization when he said:

Kenyon is a conservative place in many ways and it’s a very loyal place. I think there was a little bit of a sense that there were people who were going to be lifers and they were people who were going to come and leave eventually. And I think there was a sense that Lori and I were going to probably leave eventually and there were other people who were going to be there for decades.[31]

From the beginning of Gordon’s time on campus, there was tension between Gordon and the Religion Department that had already hired Professor Miriam Dean-Otting, a Kenyon graduate and former student of Eugen Kullmann, as the department’s Judaic Studies specialist. For Gordon and Lefkovitz to envision a life for themselves at Kenyon, the college likely would have needed to offer Gordon a full-time faculty position. Ronald Sharp spoke with Kenyon administrators on Gordon’s behalf and hoped the college could find a position for him within the Religion department. Quickly, though, it was clear to Sharp that this would be unlikely. Sharp said about the Religion department:

They just greeted him with no charity, no grace, no respect. He was considered by them and made to feel like an interloper, an outsider, somebody who was ambitious and it got ugly in terms of Anti-semitic stuff... They didn't say it explicitly but the notion was that there was this aggressive pushy Jew who was who was trying to make a career for himself. That was very clear right from the beginning.[32]

In 1992, either because Gordon and Lefkovitz had reservations about raising a Jewish family while working at Kenyon or because they did not feel fully welcome into Kenyon Community, the couple left for jobs elsewhere. Gordon became the Senior Rabbi at the Germantown Jewish Centre, a synagogue in Philadelphia where he remained until 2010.

Although brief, Gordon made a significant impact on the Kenyon Jewish community during his six years on campus. Especially for faculty members, the Friday evening services represented the period of their lives during which they were most religiously engaged. Professor Fenigstein said, “Lenny [Gordon] was an enormously important figure in my life both in terms of my own sense of Judaism, my own understanding of Judaism, and in terms of how much he assisted me in terms of my family's connection to Judaism.”[33] Gordon’s time, too, was a transitional period between the informal Jewish community of Kullmann’s era and the formalization of Jewish engagement with the advent of Kenyon Hillel. A February, 1992 Collegian article expressed uncertainty about Jewish life at Kenyon. “Many fear that what Leonard Gordon and the various supporting families have been able to do for the Jewish community will be threatened by their departure.”[34] Gordon’s departure did produce more than a decade in which time there were no dynamic Jewish leaders at Kenyon. That changed in the early twenty-first century with the hiring of current Jewish Chaplain and Director of Religious Life Marc Bragin.

Marc Bragin and the era of Kenyon Hillel

After Leonard Gordon’s departure, Kenyon hired a number of Jewish chaplains, none of whom made a lasting impact on Kenyon until the arrival of Marc Bragin in 2006. When hiring Bragin, students and Kenyon’s administration were not only searching for a capable Jewish leader, but also an individual with whom students could connect. Jessie Rubenstein ‘08 was actively involved in Kenyon Hillel during her time on campus and served on the search committee which hired Bragin. She explained the type of Jewish leader that she hoped to find through the search:

What I wanted was someone who students would see as a friend, and that was the big thing for me. The previous Hillel director, people didn't see him as their friend. [I wanted] someone who they [students] could go to if they had an issue, as someone who was an integral part of the community. the most important thing for me was that they were someone who students could relate to.[35]

Rubenstein believes that hiring Bragin was vital to reenergizing Jewish life on campus: “Bringing in Marc probably helped change the face of Hillel,” said Rubenstein. She added, “Marc helped reboot Hillel, which Hillel needed.”[36] Bragin is now in his thirteenth year as Kenyon’s Hillel Director and he also serves as Director of Spiritual & Religious Life, which is notable considering Kenyon’s Episcopal foundings. During his time on campus, Bragin oversaw the building of the Rothenberg Hillel House in 2014 in which there is a religious sanctuary with a Torah scroll, a full-service kosher kitchen, as well as space for students to relax and study together.            

Kenyon’s Jewish community going forward

In 2019, students and faculty who walk into Rothenberg Hillel House for a Friday evening Shabbat dinner might get the impression that an organized Jewish community has always existed at Kenyon. In different forms, there has been a Jewish community on campus since Kullmann’s era beginning in the 1960s. In 2014, Rothenberg Hillel was built and that marked another turning point in the development of Kenyon’s Jewish history. In some ways, the Rothenberg building can be seen as a culmination of certain aspects of Jewish life at Kenyon. No longer must prayer services happen in the Church of the Holy Spirit or Ascension Hall--Jews at Kenyon have a home. However, tracing the development of Kenyon’s Jewish community from Kullmann to Gordon to Bragin emphasizes that Jewish life on campus is constantly evolving.

The models for a Jewish community that Kullmann and Gordon established are useful for understanding innovative ways that Kenyon can continue to engage Jewish students with varied backgrounds and expectations for Jewish. From Kullmann’s era, it is clear that students at Kenyon have a desire to connect their Jewishness with their academic learning. As a professor, Kullmann was in a unique position to do that, something that is more difficult today because religious life is in many ways separate from students’ academic lives. Moreover, Kullmann’s model for Jewish life emphasizes that students will want to deepen their connection to Jewish life if it is relevant to the world that they live in. Kullmann was adept at making students recognize that they should take an active interest in national and international events. He helped students realize that religious engagement with Judaism could help them formulate their own personal views about the world around them.

The Jewish community that Gordon built initially engaged a segment of Jews on campus that Kullmann’s did not: members of the faculty. From there, Gordon was able to attract large numbers of Jewish students. This is a strategy that can continue to be utilized in 2019. Students who attend Kenyon often come to campus with the desire to interact with members of the faculty. Kenyon’s Jewish community today can take advantage of this by making Rothenberg Hillel a space that Jewish faculty members come to for Friday evening Shabbat events, not just for the High Holidays. In turn, students who may not otherwise attend Hillel might come more often to be able to interact with professors outside of the usual classroom and office spaces.

Jewish students at Kenyon come from a variety of Jewish backgrounds. There are students who identify with the Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox sects, as well as students who would not categorize their religiosity in these terms. The history of Jewish life at Kenyon under Kullmann and Gordon is useful in understanding that there are different strategies that can be implemented to make students, faculty, and other community members excited about connecting with Judaism individually and as part of a growing Jewish community.

[1] “Landau.” Jewish Virtual Library. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/landau (Accessed 05-09-19)

[2] Robert Schine. “Tribute to Eugen Kullmann” (eulogy, Gambier, OH, March 23, 2003)  and Miriam Dean-Otting “Memorial Minute” (eulogy, Gambier, OH, June 24, 2002)

[3] Robert Schine. “Tribute to Eugen Kullmann” (eulogy, Gambier, OH, March 23, 2003) 

[4] Schine, Robert. Interview by author. Phone interview. June 19, 2018.

[5] Sharp, Ronald. Interview by author. Phone interview. February 12, 2019.

[6] Lebow, Steven. Interview by author. Phone interview. June 27, 2018.

[7] Schine, Robert. Interview by author. Phone interview. June 19, 2018.

[8] Rhodes, Royal. Interview by author. Digital recording. Gambier, OH. February 7, 2019.

[9] Dean-Otting, Miriam. Interview by author. Digital recording. Gambier, OH. March 24, 2019.

[10] Horwitz, Murray. Interview by author. Phone interview. My interview with Horwitz. May 27, 2018.

[11] Robert Schine. “Tribute to Eugen Kullmann” (eulogy, Gambier, OH, March 23, 2003) 

[12] Lynn, David. Interview by author. My interview with Lynn. Digital recording. Gambier, OH. May 29, 2019.

[13] Schine, Robert. Interview by author. Phone interview. June 19, 2018.

[14] Rhodes, Royal. Interview by author. Digital recording. Gambier, OH. February 7, 2019.

[15] Dean-Otting, Miriam. Interview by author. Digital recording. Gambier, OH. March 24, 2019.

[16] Schine, Robert. Interview by author. Phone interview. June 19, 2018.

[17] Schine, Robert. Interview by author. Phone interview. June 19, 2018.

[18] Dean-Otting, Miriam. Interview by author. Digital recording. Gambier, OH. March 24, 2019.

[19] Epstein, Daniel. Interview by author. Digital recording. Gambier, OH. May 21, 2019.

[20] Sharp, Ronald. Interview by author. Phone interview. February 12, 2019.

[21] Sharp, Ronald. Interview by author. Phone interview. February 12, 2019.

[22] Armstrong, Pete. “Rabbi makes history at Kenyon.” Kenyon Collegian, September 11, 1986.

[23] Armstrong, Pete. “Rabbi makes history at Kenyon.” Kenyon Collegian, September 11, 1986.

[24] Armstrong, Pete. “Rabbi makes history at Kenyon.” Kenyon Collegian, September 11, 1986.

[25] Lynn, David. Interview by author. My interview with Lynn. Digital recording. Gambier, OH. May 29, 2019.

[26] Fenigstein, Alan. Interview by author. Phone interview. February 6, 2019.

[27] Gordon, Leonard. Interview by author. Phone interview. June 11, 2018.

[28] Gordon, Leonard. Interview by author. Phone interview. June 11, 2018.

[29] Sharp, Ronald. Interview by author. Phone interview. February 12, 2019.

[30] Sharp, Ronald. Interview by author. Phone interview. February 12, 2019.

[31] Gordon, Leonard. Interview by author. Phone interview. June 11, 2018.

[32] Sharp, Ronald. Interview by author. Phone interview. February 12, 2019.

[33] Fenigstein, Alan. Interview by author. Phone interview. February 6, 2019.

[34] Luman, Stewart. “Jewish Community Faces ‘Tough and Fundamental Changes.’” Kenyon Collegian, February 27, 1992.

[35] Rubenstein, Jessie. Interview by author. Phone interview. June 4, 2018.

[36] Rubenstein, Jessie. Interview by author. Phone interview. June 4, 2018.