I was referring to the org - there's only a couple historically Jewish houses, right? So in "reading between the lines" we could clearly rule out several houses.

^^^ read back a few posts, she already says her affiliation.

^^ I know that, I was referring to when OTW asked what house she was in. I was saying that we could have easily speculated long before now.

Oh, Ellebud... you have effortlessly become one of my favorite posters!!! What a wonderful story so expertly told.

Just wanted to add my thanks for telling us your story. Sounds like it was really difficult with so much prejudice. I'm glad you found your home though. :)

Fascinating thread, and an artistic flair in the telling! Just out of curiosity, isn't this the chapter from the book "Loose Change"?

So, I'm curious.

Beyond recruitment, did the Jewish chapters (I'm assuming there was also a fraternity!) mix with the other chapters on a regular basis? Were they treated just as any other Greeks, or were they somewhat ostracized?

I'm pretty sure I had another question when I read this thread earlier, but I can't remember what it is. I'd really be interested to hear any other information you'd be willing to share about your experiences in this chapter or in the Greek community.

Thanks for such an interesting story!

Trust me, no this is not from a chapter from Loose Change. Totally true story. As for mixing...By the way, in my pledge class we had one anomaly: A Christian girl pledged with us. She was very comfortable with Jews and found our chapter to be her favorite. I think that sorority sisters kind of stick together within their chapter. Obviously on Panhellenic Board there was cooperation, but I really don't recall that many friendships between girls from different houses. On the other hand...cute boy sees cute girl...Hormones rule at that age. I think there have been lots of movies made from this. I dated a guy from a non Jewish house. But I don't remember formal exchanges between our house and Christian fraternities. There may have been exchanges between Jewish fraternities and Christian sororities.

I think that the last part was again a throwback to my generation's idea that you went to college to meet a husband. And it was "easier" to marry someone Jewish. Intermarriage wasn't as common then. Again, the anti-semitism wasn't blatant in daily life or overtly cruel. It was what I call polite bigotry. People were comfortable with the status quo.

I'm curious, what year was this? Guessing it was either the very late 60s or early 70s.

Benzgirl, you are good. I rushed in the early 70s.

Excellent Thread!
 

The AEPhi chapter in Loose Change is University of California - Berkeley



Again, Great Thread Ellebud! It was very thought provoking, and extremely well written!! Oh, and a belated congratulations you and AEPhi ! :D

So on top of the turmoil of the war, protestors and the anti-establishment, you had to deal with something as rediculous as this. That is really too bad.
Many chapters closed during this era. I'm curious, how did the chapters survive at USC?

There are 11 chapters at SC today. One, SDT, just became part of the row. I don't believe that they have a house as yet. AEPhi closed in the late 70s. It was a victim (?) to a positive change: Jewish girls began to have choices. And SC, not a traditionally strongly Jewish school didn't have a lot of Jewish girls rushing. The other sorority that didn't make it was, Chi Omega.

SC was always more conservative. Yes, there were some protests but totally unlike UCLA or Berkeley. And despite its location SC at that time was very insular. The neighborhood was awful and there was a leave campus and run mentality. Today the row is very strong. And there are more Jewish girls there. I know that if my youngest rushes she wouldn't be interested in a Jewish house per se. My oldest daughter, who decided not to pledge, might have been interested in a Jewish house. (She dropped out of rush...). But not because it was Jewish.

I didn't want to insinuate that this WAS a chapter from "Loose Change"; I was just wondering if it was the same chapter. To a lot of us east of the Mississippi, all those California schools soemtimes seem to be interchangable!

Thank you so much for posting this story! It's interesting to me because I know this past year we were scared of losing girls we absolutely fell in love with to our AEPhi chapter because they were Jewish - I just couldn't imagine completely cutting out an entire group of rushees based on their religion. Congratulations to you for finding a home and being such an amazing sister!

Dear LOVEin ZTA

So, how did it work out? I don't know where most people here went to college so I am curious. What part of the country is your school and what happened? And how strong is AEPhi at your school?

ellebud-that was a great story! I'm curious (and you may have already mentioned this already) but, what happened to Ms.Chicago? The girl who was set to join a "top tier" house couldn't have completely looked away at all the sororities in the end-right? I would think it would be better to join an NPC that wasn't necessarily top on your campus (knowing they all have different reputations at various schools) than to NEVER join an NPC and be bitter about sorority life for the next 20 years-right?

As far as I know Ms. Chicago never joined a house. Did she rush again as a sophomore? No, I would have seen her. At that time, at SC it was unusual to rush as a junior. And while sororities were strong at SC even then, it wasn't imperative for a girl like her to have joined. (I mean "like her" in the sense that her family had a strong Greek/waspy tradition to uphold. She, and her family I guess, could have excused her lack of affiliation by saying that Ms. Chicago didn't want to join. I don't know what they did.) I agree with you 1000% about joining a "second tier" house is better than nothing if you want to join in the first place. But some people don't look at this or life like that. It's all or nothing, and I'll take my marbles and go home. And, in hindsight, it is the quality of the people you are friends with and not the superficial stuff that determine how a friendship(s) endure.

I must say-I truly agree with you...Some of the chapters that are "top tier" at my school are "bottom tier" at other great schools-but, would never go to another school and look down on those other chapters....For instance, a chapter that may be "top tier" at my university may be "bottom tier" at a university where we are #1. If I went to that university where we were #1 and the other chapters were "bottom tier" I would honestly think nothing less of them....I would think-"Wow...look at those great girls who want to get involved with philanthropy...That's great!" Maybe that's because I truly have Greek Pride in Every Chapter...I'm glad it worked out for you! That's wonderful to hear!

Honeychile, Cal and USC are NOT interchangeable. Oh dear, I think I am feeling faint. I do believe you have committed an atrocious faux pas, but as you are not from California, we will graciously forgive your inadvertent error. ;)

Well, now you know how we feel when people confuse the University of Pennsylvania (aka Penn) and Penn State. Yipes.

I feel shame.

I suppose I better learn which is which before my godchildren start going to school in Cali!

I don't want to turn this thread into something completely different, but if you are talking about campus culture then the two are vastly different...if you are commenting on academics/prestige, USC has been climbing rapidly and according to the 2008 US News Rankings Berkeley is 21 and USC is 27...still a slight difference but I think the next poster's comment about it being similar to the difference between Penn and Penn State is extremely exaggerated.

But great to read a USC rush story, even from an alumni. It's crazy how much the campus are changed...there are several Jewish girls in the "top" sororities and there seems to be no problem for them during rush.

I've just read through this thread... wow. It's an eye-opener to read a rush thread where women were, ah, "encouraged" to pursue or not pursue a given sorority because of their religion. (Not to make you feel old, but you rushed before I was born!)

When I rushed in the early 1990's, religion was - I won't go so far as to say it was totally a non-issue, but it was less of an issue than it seems it was for you. There were four NPC sororities (none historically Jewish, but I believe each had Jewish members) and one newly-founded local whose members were all Jewish... I gravitated straight to the local, which is now a chapter of AEPhi. Off the top of my head, I can think of several Christian alums and one Hindu alum. Times change. :)

LML,
aephi alum

bejazd, how precious of you to so graciously point out honeychiles faux pas.

i think all the chapters at fsu in the mid to late 70's had jewish members. we had several members who were jewish and it was never an issue with them or us.

Hey, ellebud, you and I seem to be about the same vintage. It's truly surprising to me that the U of Alabama at that point was a tiny bit more "progressive" than USC. I remember my sophomore year (1971-72), the rush chair explained that all the Jewish girls were dropped "as a courtesy" to the Jewish chapters, SDT and DPhiE. By then most of the other groups were OK
to pledge non-Christian girls, although there weren't that many. By my senior year, DPhiE had folded, and SDT pledged a (Christian) great-great-niece of one of our Founders. The gloves were off, so to speak, and by then the Jewish girls were considering ALL the groups, not just the Jewish ones. It probably hurt SDT in the long run, although they are still hanging in there.

It is truly interesting to see that Alabama was more liberal than SC! Yes, SC is climbing in the national rankings. When I was there and on the row it was very heavily Pasadena/San Marino based. That area was old line money and very WASPy. I was from the west Los Angeles area...very show business-y, liberal and Jewish. UCLA and Berkeley (now called Cal) were very liberal and public schools. I have friends who have daughters in some of the top houses. And one girl in particular is a trailblazer. She is Jewish of Persian background. She has broken all traditions: she is living on campus, studying in college..and not keeping kosher. I think the last part she hasn't mentioned to her mother...and that might be a good thing. They are very traditional.

you last statement made a question pop into my head--do the traditionally jewish sororities that own houses and serve meals keep kosher?

How would you know a PNM was Jewish? Was it part of the rush application? Was the drop based on the PNM's last name (some last names are associated with Jewish families)? Was it based on that the PNM looked Semitic? I have to wonder.

I am half-Middle Eastern. My father, who was Iraqi, was Roman Catholic; I look like I could be Jewish. My mother, who is Episcopalian (as am I), divorced my father and married a man who later adopted me, giving me his last name of Miller (considered by some to be a Jewish last name). So if I did not list that I was Jewish on my rush application, based on my looks and maiden name, some sororities might think I was Jewish and cut me as a "courtesy" to the traditionally Jewish sororities - is this the case?

^^ Excellent question - I wanna know too!

I know I talked to a PNM at Maryland a couple years ago during tours. She was wearing a Star of David pendant and I saw her tuck it under her collar while we were talking! I called her out on it and told her she didn't have to do that! It's very common for PNMs and Jewish members of all chapters to wear Star of David pendants during recruitment.

Also, sometimes Jewish PNMs will tell you. Not like "I'm Jewish," but if they say they are involved with Hillel, Jewish Student Union (JSU), or they are doing the Birthright trip to Israel, you know they are Jewish. Some PNMs want you to know.

I remember reading an article online a while back stating that decades ago (in the 1940s and/or ’50s), Bama had the largest Jewish student population of any school in the U.S. outside the Northeast. At one point, they had chapters of AEPi, Phi Epsilon Pi (merged with ZBT), Sammy, and ZBT for the men and AEPhi, DPhiE, and SDT for the women.

The two AEPhi chapters that I am familiar with did not serve kosher meals. Far from it...the veal parmagania and tacos were testaments to that. There was one girl who kept kosher. Her mother sent prepackaged meals to the house once a week. (Remember this was before microwaves. I imagine everything was dried out and yucky.) I know that she would eat salad, tuna, and eggs. (As long as bacon hadn't been cooked in the same pan. It took real commitment to keep kosher at that time. I imagine the in today's world, with so many vegetarians, it is easier. But my family stopped keeping kosher when we arrived in the United States in the 1880's.

The question of how does a sorority know if you are Jewish or not is much harder to answer nowadays. When I was in school, if you came from Beverly Hills (as I did) it was ASSUMED that you were Jewish. My name wasn't Jewish, but the high school, at that time was 95% Jewish. Names used to be a guide but I know girls with the first name of Crissy (Christ as the base) who are Jewish and very observent. (Her mother loved the name Crissy.) I know a girl with the last name of Cohen who isn't Jewish. (Her grandfather was Jewish). Barry Goldwater (boy am I dating myself) wasn't Jewish...his grandfather was. I also know women with very non-committed names who are Jewish. (Many Jews changed their names to be more "American". My original last name was changed to sound more American by my grandfather.) Miller is a perfect example. It is not a Jewish name. It is English. But some families who had a name like...Militcovich changed it to Miller. And at Ellis Island (as happened with my family) the family name was changed by officials because the officials simply couldn't spell the family name.)

If you want to let people "know" that you aren't Jewish (or are) the most obvious way is to wear a small cross or a Star of David. There really isn't a thing about "looking Jewish." My oldest daughter has blond hair, blue eyes. My youngest has brown hair and green eyes. You might have seen my youngest on some tv commercials: She has been the homecoming queen, a young all American teen...and a latina. (The last because she has brown hair and they covered the reddish streaks in her hair.) And they are both Jewish. Oh and yes, on your application for rush there a subtle "hints" as to whether one is Jewish based on activities. (not the obvious like "Christian Fellowship", although that could work.)

When I was in school we had SDT, DPhiE, AEPhi, Sammy, ZBT and AEPi. All had houses with meals, none were Kosher.
My brother's apartment mate did keep Kosher and his pots and pans confused the heck out of the other guys. At least he had two sets of dishes (each a different color)

I'm only kidding, jwsteele!:p My parents are USC alums so we generally root for the Trojans, at least during football season! It's so tough to get into USC or Cal that I think you'd have to consider the two as academic equals. And the last kid I knew that went to Cal is a conservative Christian and a staunch Republican, so go figure. Stereotypes just don't hold up to reality.

Loved your story ellebud!

Interesting- although even the activities that you list can be misleading. For example, I worked as a summer camp counselor for the JCC. The JCC is a jewish organization, but you don't have to be jewish to be a member or work for them. In fact my oldest son played soccer through a JCC league last spring- but we are Catholic.

Granted these are activities like Federated Temple Youth, but still if you saw it listed on a rush form, you might wonder.

To add to JWSteele's comments.....
Recently, I did a report on SC admissions and a survey of their graduate/undergraduate rankings. According to an official at SC who wrote to me it is just as difficult to be admitted to Cal, UCLA or SC. For those of you out of California SC is a smaller private university. UCLA and Cal are much larger and part of the public Univ. of California system.
For information purposes SC had 33,754 applicants for a freshman class of 2964 (2763 last year)entering in 2007. National Merit Scholars were 220 and 5 were National Achievement Scholars. Unweighted GPA of entering freshmen was 3.7.
For this academic year there were 9 Fulbright Scholars, 1 Marshall Scholar and 1 Rhodes Scholar. It has one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation.
If any of you Trojans wish to PM me I have the rankings of most of the graduate and undergraduate programs.

When I was in college, it was kindof a joke that USC was for kids that couldn't get into UCLA. But it's not really that way anymore. It has gotten so hard to get into 75% of the UC schools (public) that USC (private) has benefitted from the competition as well. I almost went to USC, but admittedly if I had to apply today with the grades I had in high school, I would probably not get in. And FORGET about UCLA or Cal...you have to split the atom to get in there now. All of the "big name" schools in California - and there are a lot of them - get an insane amount of applications for the small number of spots, meaning they can truly take the cream of the crop. At least with private schools they typically consider a number of other factors beyond gpa and tests, and they generally can be much more subjective in their admissions.

In terms of size, I wouldn't call USC small, though. It's huge compared to my alma mater (3,000 undergrads). It's pretty big for a private university.

USC really is in a class by itself here as far as being an old, large, private residential university in the heart of the city. With a sticker price of somewhere around $200K for four years living on campus as an undergrad, I pretty much expect that the students there are generally quite serious and studious. I think I read somewhere that less than 2% of USC students receive a "full ride" in scholarships. Even though it's totally unique I think to some extent for Greeks in California, its sort of seen as the "flagship" of the Greek system.

As far as admssions to Cal and UCLA, I think its been pretty difficult to get into either for some time, and it's not much easier to get into any of the other UC schools. According to my son's HS counseler, even if you qualify for admission to UC with the min GPA, ACT/SAT scores, and have taken all the pre-reqs in HS, meaning 4 years of math, 4 years of English, 4 years of science and social science, 3 years of foreign language, the only schools that guarantee admssion are UC Merced and UC Riverside. So that means if you've taken that many academic courses as a HS student you didn't spend a lot of time in HS taking elective courses like drama or art or music. I think that's pretty impressive!

According to the website for admissions 60% of SC students receive need based financial aid.
SC requires about the same course requirements as the U.C. system. To apply for the School of Cinematic Arts (1) a film portfolio must be included. The School of Music (5) requires an audition.

SC is smaller compared to some of the bigger public universities such as Ohio State with about 55,000 students or private universities such as NYU and Brigham Young with much larger enrollments.