Rush based on religion?
 

Now, let's not make this flame-y!!

My Aunt went to a large southern school in the 1960s and joined a sorority. My mom has mentioned (we're Jewish) that back then, that my aunt only rushed the "Jewish" sororities on campus. I thought you had to rush all of them like you do now?

Was it different back then?

I think that the NPC rules were more lax back then, although I could be wrong. Also, when she says she only "rushed" the Jewish groups, she could mean those were the only ones she showed interest in or went back to their parties.

I wish I could remember which thread this was on awhile back...a lot of UF members were discussing their recruitment and how the historically Jewish groups worked. I'm pretty sure, though, that even if a PNM knows she wants to pledge one of them, she'd have to go by the school's rules and visit every group at first.

I know one person on GC that might know, and it would be Bama_Alumna

From the way my mom told me, it made it sound like she only visited the houses she was interested in, but I'm not sure...

But I knew GC would be the place to ask!

You rang????? :D

I went through rush in the early 90's, so I'm not sure how things were when your mother rushed. I'm assuming that she was an SDT if she was at Alabama, because that is the only predominately Jewish sorority at UA. As long as I've known anything about the greek system at UA, SDT has participated in formal recruitment along with the other NPC sororities. Probably, your mom meant that she was only interested in joining that house. She may have cut other houses and only returned to SDT, or the other houses may have cut her because they knew her religious background and assumed that she was only interested in joining a Jewish sorority. I know this didn't do much to answer your question... I will try to ask some questions of people who are older than myself and find out more about how rush was conducted back then. If I find out anything more, I will PM you.

Actually, it was my Aunt and she joined Alpha Epsilon Phi. And yes, the school was the University of Alabama.

I was just going to post that there were probably more "Jewish sororities" back then -- AEPhi had a chapter, DPhiE had a chapter until 1973 that may or may not have been considered "Jewish," and it's possible that there were even some other NPC sororities that no longer exist that were there too.

I'm not sure how that works either, but I agree that rush rules were probably more relaxed back then.

I dont know a whole lot about this, but what I do know from talking to alumnae from various organizations is that back in the day, is that there were indeed two rushes at many schools - "Jewish" rush and "Christian" rush. From my understanding (and correct me if I'm wrong, please, because I am very curious to know about this!), is that Christian women rushed the Christian sororities and Jewish women rushed the Jewish sororities. Within those groups, rush runs like it does now, i.e. you have go attend parties at all the sororities, etc.

Many of the groups that were predominantly Jewish back then have since moved to a more non-sectarian base. The only two NPC groups that I can think of that are still predominantly Jewish are AEPhi and SDT.

Again, please correct me if I'm wrong - this was a long time ago, and this is based on information I've recieved from chats with alumnae from a few different organizations....

This makes sense, but what about the groups that were founded to be inclusive of both religions?

DPhiE was at Alabama. It sounds as if (from a family friend) that there were many Jewish girls in it then mid 1960s. The family friend is Jewish as well as a my dad's cousin these two women were big and little sister at Alabama's DPhiE.

FWIW, when I was in school, Alpha Epsilon Phi, Delta Phi Epsilon, and Sigma Delta Tau were considered Jewish sororities, with the occasional exception. Theta Phi Alpha was considered a Roman Catholic sorority.

Strangely, the "Christian" sororities were more religiously (searching for the right word here) blended (?), for the most part.

Is there anyone on GC who rushed in the South before 1970? Perhaps she could explain the whole rush process back then. :)

Sorry... I guess I didn't read your post carefully. For some reason, I thought you'd said your mother and I was wondering if it was your mom, why she hadn't explained more fully! LOL

Like I said, I rushed in the early 90's, and I was the first in my family to go greek at Alabama. So I don't know much about the history of the greek system as far as what chapters were there in the past and are no longer around. Since I've been involved with the system, only one chapter (Sigma Kappa) has folded.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help. When I have a chance to speak to some older alums, I might be able to clarify a bit more.

What sorority are you a member of?

Hmm...this sounds like this might be what happened