The largest study ever conducted of Hillel International's professional workforce — 1,269 named professionals across 250+ campuses.
This is Study 1 of the Olam Hillel Research Project.
What We Found
1,269 named professionals identified across 250+ campuses and Hillel International headquarters.
~250 rabbis identified in the workforce. Among those whose seminary training we could determine:
• ~90 Orthodox professionals serve across 35 campuses through the Orthodox Union's JLIC program — recruited, trained, and supervised by the OU, not by Hillel.
• Among Hillel-hired rabbis whose denomination was identified, the pipeline draws primarily from Reform (HUC-JIR), Reconstructionist (RRC), Open Orthodox (YCT), and pluralistic (Hebrew College) seminaries — institutions whose clergy affiliate as Democrats at rates of 70–80%+, according to a 2017 Yale University study of 130,000 American clergy.
• The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, which produces roughly 5.5% of American rabbis, accounts for approximately 7.5% of Hillel-hired rabbinic positions — an overrepresentation relative to its national share.
• 12 current or recent Hillel professionals were identified on publicly available petition and membership lists — including T'ruah's 750 Rabbi Letter, Rabbis for Ceasefire, and T'ruah's Anti-Annexation Letter — whose stated positions conflict with Hillel's own Standards of Partnership. All 12 come from non-Orthodox denominations.
• Hillel maintains dedicated national infrastructure for LGBTQ students — institutional partnerships, a monthly student cohort, and a published resource guide. No comparable national infrastructure exists for Sephardic or Mizrachi students, who represent 10% of American Jewry and report higher rates of Jewish engagement and Israel connection than Ashkenazi Jews.
The question this study asks: What does Hillel's institutional pipeline tell us about the Judaism America's largest campus organization is building?
→ Request the full roster of 1,098 named professionals: editorial@olam.business
The Stakes
American Jewry is facing the most difficult period since the Holocaust.
According to the Pew Research Center's 2020 survey of American Jews, 72% of non-Orthodox Jews who married since 2010 married a non-Jewish spouse. Only 48% of Jews aged 18–29 say they are emotionally attached to Israel. Among Jews with no denominational affiliation — the fastest-growing segment — the intermarriage rate is 69%.
Source: Pew Research Center, 'Jewish Americans in 2020,' May 2021.
Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, Jewish students faced a 700% increase in antisemitic incidents during the 2023–2024 academic year, according to Hillel International's own reporting.
Source: Hillel International, campus climate data, 2024.
Hillel International operates on more than 850 campuses and employs roughly 1,200 professionals in North America. It is the organization most responsible for shaping the Jewish identity of college students during the years when that identity is most contested.
Methodology
Between June and August 2026, researchers compiled a roster of Hillel professionals using publicly accessible sources: campus Hillel staff pages (250+ individual websites); Hillel International's executive leadership page and Greenhouse job board; the Orthodox Union's JLIC campus placement records; Hillel International Global Assembly (HIGA) award recipients from 2021–2025; New Professionals Institute (NPI) participant names from 2023–2026; LinkedIn employee directories; Hillel Ontario staff pages; and regional Hillel network websites across 20 multi-campus organizations.
Each entry was de-duplicated by normalized name. The final roster contains 1,269 unique named individuals. The roster does not include student board members, lay board members, volunteers, or Chabad rabbis serving independently of Hillel.
For each rabbi identified, we attempted to determine seminary of ordination, denomination, and — where publicly documented — organizational affiliations. Approximately 53% of Hillel-hired rabbis had their seminary or denomination identified through public sources. The remaining 47% could not be classified. Conclusions about denominational composition are drawn only from the identified portion of the sample.
The Workforce: Gender
Of 1,269 named professionals, approximately 786 are women (62%) and 483 are men (38%). This ratio held stable across every phase of data collection.
For comparison: among American rabbis nationally, 45% of Reform rabbis are women, 25% of Conservative rabbis are women, and virtually all Orthodox rabbis are men.
Source: Yale University / Paul Djupe, Denison University, '2000 American Rabbi Study'; Eitan Hersh and Gabrielle Malina, Yale University, 'Partisan Pastor,' 2017.
The Rabbinic Pipeline: Seminary by Seminary
We identified approximately 250 rabbis in the Hillel workforce. Their seminary backgrounds — where identified — reveal the institutional pipeline that feeds Hillel's rabbinic staffing.
To understand what these seminaries represent, two independent data sources are essential: the Pew Research Center's 2020 survey of American Jews (which measures denominational attitudes) and a 2017 Yale University study of 130,000 American clergy (which measures political affiliation by denomination).