Newspaper Page Text
Friday, July 16, 1971
THE SOUTHERN ISRABJTI
Pag* The**
—3T
AMERICAN NEWS REPORT
Fraternity Jewishness?
by BEN GALLOB
If the Jewish college frater
nity can survive in today’s
egalitarian mood only by taking
in Gentile students, can it still
be considered a Jewish frater
nity when the proportion of
non-Jewish members at a par
ticular house reaches 100 per
cent? A hypothetical idea
dreamed up to raise eyebrows?
Not at all; it has happened.
There are three such fraternity
houses at Wisconsin universities
and there may well be more to
come.
The risk to the Jewish “iden
tity” of such fraternities inher
ent in the acceptance of non-
Jewish members appears to be
within the acceptable range for
at lease one fraternity official,
Jeff H. Auslander, former
fraternity advisor at the Univer
sity of Wisconsin at Milwaukee
and district governor of the
Zeta Beta Tau fraternity. He
outlined his views in a report
published in the Wisconsin Jew
ish Chronicle, in which he
briefly described the history
and current status of Jew
ish 1 fraternity and sorority
life at a number of Wis
consin universities. They in
cluded Wisconsin University at
Madison, Wisconsin University
at Milwaukee, Wisconsin State
University at Oshkosh, Wiscon
sin State University at Super
ior and Marquette University.
The much sought-after “group
identity” that the fraternity of
fered in the 1950s and 1960s, as
Auslander put it, has given way
to “student activism and the
search for self-expression of the
1970s.” The impact on the frater
nities has been a steadily grow
ing disinterest in such affiliation
among college students, Jewish
and non-Jewish alike. There are
only two Jewish fraternities
still in existence at the Madison
branch of the University of Wis
consin and both are struggling.
During the past six years, Jew
ish fraternity membership at
the Madison campus has tum
bled by some 90 percent and
all three Jewish sororities at
Madison have folded, according
to Auslander.
But a “new hybrid” has
emerged at Wisconsin colleges
—and elsewhere—which “prom
ises to continue the existence of
the ‘Jewish fraternity,’ ” accord
ing to Auslander. Thus, the
Jewish fraternity chapter has
reappeared at Wisconsin Uni
versity in Milwaukee, WSU at
Oshkosh and WSU at Superior,
partly as a result of increased
Jewish enrollment at those
schools. This is credited to the
“new hybrid,” which plainly
put, means those houses pledg
ing Gentile students. Thus, in
the revived chapters, while affil
iated with the “Jewish nation
als—mainly ZBT and Alpha Ep
silon Pi—the fact is, as reported
by Auslander, the membership
of these chapters runs a neat SO
SO Jewish and Gentile.
One of the reasons why the
Jewish fraternity leadership
feels impelled to pledge Gen
tiles—apart from the spreading
disinterest among today’s Jew
ish students in membership—is
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that the Gentile fraternities,
once the campus bastions of
WASP purity in membership,
have been actively recruiting
the same Jewish prospects they
used to regularly rebuff.
Auslander contended that his
fraternity has been successful
in staying alive on campus by
inviting Gentiles as members.
In 1966, ZBT had one chapter
at the Madison campus, with
100 members. Now, five years
later, there are six ZBT units in
Wisconsin, with a combined
membership of at least 225 mem
bers. He conceded that the total
number of Jewish members “has
numbered” about the same, with
“no net change" during that
period, however.
But this survival policy does
not work on campuses where
Jewish fraternity “traditions”
exist against Gentile members,
he said. He reported that the
ZBT chapter in Madison has re
mained exclusively J e w i s h
throughout its 50-year history,
despite “numerous efforts to ex
tend membership to Gentile
members and despite the trans
ition of the national fraternity
to a point where an average of
one out of two members in all
150 undergraduate chapters is
not Jewish.” He concluded that
the future was “bleak” for the
Jewish fraternity that found it
self unable to break with a past
tradition of a totally Jewish
membership, as “opposed to the
new hybrid chapter that has ad
justed to its environment” by
accepting Gentiles.
ZBT at Marquette, AEPI at
Marquette and ZBT at Wiscon
sin University at Parkside have
gone in this direction just about
as far as they could go. Auslan
der reported that those chapters
are now made up entirely of
Gentile members.
Copyright 1971, JTA
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