Hillel Director Search Continues

A Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel search committee has shortened the list of prospective candidates for a new director to two and will come to a final decision next month.

Rabbi James Diamond, Hillel director at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and Rabbi Gerald Serotta '68, who heads George Washington University's Hillel, in Washington D.C., are the two candidates that Harvard Hillel is now considering.

Yesterday evening Diamond met with Hillel's student coordinating council and then was interviewed by the selection committee, consisting of nine student and nine non-student affiliates.

This weekend Diamond will meet with Hillel staff and members of the board of directors, said Jonathan S. Savett '90, former chair of the coordinating council. Serotta will visit Cambridge for a similar weekend in two weeks, Savett said.

Hillel is seeking a director who has had experience with Jewish student life and who encourages student leadership, said Eliot Z. Fishman '92, chair of the group's Inter-Ethnic Committee.

The present director, Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold will retire in June after holding the position for over thirty years. Savett said that students appreciated Gold for giving undergraduates more say in the running of the organization and for attracting a great variety of speakers.

"He was also instrumental in allowing Hillel to move to its present central campus location," Savett said. In November, Hillel affiliates said the organization was negotiating with the University for a possible move to the Harvard-owned lot next to the Fly Club.

Gold will remain involved with Hillel as an advisor to one of the Conservative congregations, said Daniel J. Libenson '92, Hillel annual events coordinator.

Diamond, a graduate of the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary, holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature.

Serotta, who concenentrated in social relations as an undergraduate at Harvard, received his masters degree in 1974 from the Jewish Institute of Religion and the Hebrew Union College.