Rabbi Menachem Schmidt (Courtesy of Rabbi Menachem Schmidt)
Today, one of the biggest and most well-known Jewish organizations on college campuses is Chabad. From Middlebury to Madison to Missoula, Chabad-Lubavitch centers dot campuses large and small and host students of all Jewish backgrounds for holidays and a variety of other creative events.
But for Rabbi Menachem Schmidt, who founded the Chabad house at the University of Pennsylvania with his wife Chava, and who serves as president of Chabad on Campus International Foundation, the organization was much less ingrained when he joined the team. In fact, when Schmidt founded the organization that sits on Spruce Street in University City in 1980, it was just the ninth full-time campus Chabad in the country.
“When we first started, people didn’t know much about what we did,” Schmidt said. “It was an uphill battle in terms of people understanding. But as soon as we got to campus, we found that the students really appreciated it, and we’ve been here for 46 years and developed a bunch of programs and been involved in many other things as time has gone on.”
When Schmidt started, he and his wife used all kinds of methods to drum up interest in the fledgling Chabad house. The rabbi is a musician, and he used to set up and play music in public just to interact with new faces. The Chabad at Penn also started the crisis intervention hotline on campus, which garnered support from the student body, both Jewish and not.
Schmidt also realized that there was a huge opportunity for Chabad houses to interact with each other more. They all shared the same mission, which was the genesis for the Chabad on Campus International Foundation.
“You went to Wisconsin, your friend went to Miami, or to Maryland or Harvard. All of you guys are friends, and you’re talking to each other. The people you went to camp with, or are related to or went to high school with — there’s a network of high school students, and so we figured that there’s a lot of commonality and common programming that we could help each other with,” Schmidt said.
It turns out that idea was a forward-thinking one. In the era of cell phones and social media, college students are more connected than ever, and Chabad’s willingness to collaborate within itself set them up for success down the road.
“[There were] nine, and now there are Chabads on over 400 campuses full time and more than 500 campuses altogether. It’s pretty incredible,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt has been a key cog in the Philadelphia community outside of his work at Chabad, too. He was instrumental in founding the Jewish Relief Agency, which serves over 6,000 low-income individuals across the Philly region through its monthly food distribution program.
“I helped start the Jewish Relief Agency together with Marc Erlbaum — he did more of the heavy lifting, but we’re listed as co-founders,” Schmidt said. “At one point, he came to me and said, ‘I have lots of friends, I want them to think about giving back to the world and doing something positive. I want to go all over the world with them and help poor Jews.’ I said, ‘Marc, what about Philadelphia?’”
For Schmidt, the Jewish Relief Agency plays a more important role in the community than just acting as a source of donations for the needy. It helps raise a new generation of Philadelphians with an appreciation for giving back.
“JRA is something which fulfills a bunch of very important roles in our community. One, it helps people in need, but it also does something else — it’s one of the premier volunteer programs in Philadelphia, Jewish or non-Jewish. It takes people on a Sunday and says, ‘You could go play golf, or go to the beach or go bowling or shopping, or you could spend a few hours helping somebody,” Schmidt said.
A newer venture of Schmidt’s is the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, which is a joint venture with professors across the country to create an intellectual network on campuses that explores Jewish wisdom and culture.
“It’s a very exciting thing, and giving professors and thought leaders on campus an opportunity to see Judaism in a positive and useful light, we’ve seen some remarkable results,” he said.
Whether it’s on campus, with charity work, or elsewhere in Philadelphia, Schmidt has been a staple of the Jewish community in the city and beyond for decades.
He has an important job, and it’s not one he is going to stop working at any time soon.
“We want to communicate the importance of Jewish identity and whatever level of Jewish observance is comfortable for a person. We also want to focus on, in general, making the world better, giving back, doing something constructive … and using your profession and your talents and abilities and resources that you’re going to be getting to do that,” he said.