Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel, which today claims about a quarter of Harvard undergraduates as members, started out in 1944 with a few students and a vacant space in a Mass Ave. movie theater.

Hillel was founded by three students seeking "A feeling of home within the school," says William L. Frost '47, the first president of Hillel.

Besides serving a religious function, Hillel was an early example of what is today a burgeoning number of campus ethnic and cultural organizations. Harvard now has approximately 30 such groups, and the number continues to grow.

The Jewish organization just last month moved into a brand-new $8 million building located on Harvard property. This was a significant change in Hillel's status from the 1940s. when the University did not allow national religious organizations on Harvard property.

"We never thought of ourselves as `on campus," says Charles R. Feldstein, who as a graduate student was associated with Hillel in the '40s. "Harvard did not welcome us on campus."

In a letter to the founder of Harvard Hillel, Dean of the Divinity School William J. Sperry explained that the group would not enjoy the same privileges as Hillel chapters on other campuses.

"I know that you will feel by contrast [to other campuses] a little out in the cold," wrote Sperry, "but please believe that these are the conditions under which such men are serving their churches in Cambridge as pastors of Harvard students."

Original Hillel members are astonished at how far the organization has come since its founding.

"The idea that there is a new building, which is in some ways a Harvard building, is astounding," Feldstein says.

Countering Assimilation

Eliezer Krumbein '46-'47. Frank M. Lowenberg '47 and Frost, the three founders of Harvard's Hillel chapter, say Jewish students had previously lacked a cultural identity. Indeed, the organization was formed partially to counter the widespread assimilation of Harvard Jews into the broader campus culture.

Harvard was not overtly anti-Semitic in the 1940s, some alumni say, but others indicate there may have been subtle prejudice.

"Anti-Semitism was part of our society...There was a lot of self-selection offriends," says A. Leroy Atherton Jr. '44-43. "Itwasn't was that overt, but being not Jewishmyself, and having sat in on bull sessions...Iheard ethnic jokes."

Atherton says he sometimes heard non-Jewishstudents use ethnic slurs to refer to Jews.

And Frost notes that Jewish students tended tohave Jewish roommates.

Harvard's final clubs were the most obviousbastions of prejudice: future Nobel laureates andinternational politicians were blacklisted becausethey were Jewish.