|
It's a similar situation at the University of Florida...we have a very large Jewish student population, in comparison with a lot of other schools. I'm not sure how many out of the 45,000+ students here are Jewish, but they're very active on campus, Hillel and several other student groups, etc. We get a LOT of Jewish students from South Florida (Miami, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale) as well as a significant number that come all the way from NYC.
Several of my Jewish friends have said that their parents wanted them to come to UF specifically because of higher likelihood of meeting someone Jewish to marry. Which makes a lot of sense I guess - I know there is a lot of pressure from many parents to marry someone who is also Jewish and I can see how it's much easier at UF than some small southern college.
A E Phi and D Phi E are the "Jewish" sororities here, and TEP, A E Pi, ZBT and Pi Lam are predominately Jewish fraternities. Other houses have a significant population as well. I don't have any exact statistics, but it certainly seems that a higher % of Jewish students go greek than the rest of the UF population. Especially if they're from middle or upper class families - there's a lot of pressure.
A E Phi and D Phi E are almost totally Jewish and any "schicksa" who ends up in either house is usually half Jewish and just isn't religious or ends up inactive after about a year. Someone asked how the houses know if you're Jewish or not - most of the Jewish rushees will wear some type of jewerly that gives it away - i.e. a necklace with a star of david, or their name in hebrew. Of course if the girl's last name is Goldberg and she's petite with dark curly hair, then take a guess, right?
It's actually quite amusing sometimes to watch the two sororities here try to "profile" the rushees. They don't have time to "investigate" everyone (1000+ rushees go thru at UF every year), so after ruling out everyone who listed "such-and-such church youth choir" on their resume or wore a cross necklace (some girls do that on purpose to get dropped from those houses and help them at A D Pi, XO, etc.), some girls get past the radar. Rushees that are Italian, etc. and "look Jewish" sometimes get asked back.
When I rushed (a million years ago - Fall 1996), I really liked A E Phi - they were really fun, down to earth, and didn't seem stuck up or prissy like some other houses - they were smart a**es like I am. Plus, when I was there Round 1, it was after about 4 houses in a row that were almost all petite blondes. I'm a tall brunette so I definitely looked more like the A E Phi girls (even though I was taller than a lot of them). D Phi E had dumped me right after Round 1. Well, I got asked back to AEPhi all the way thru Round 3, just loved them, and was about in tears after listening to one of their seniors speak about the house. I hadn't really given the whole religion thing much thought until the night before when I had told a fellow rushee on my dorm floor what houses I liked best and she told me that I wouldn't fit in there because I wasn't Jewish.
So anyway, Round 3 is almost over, I was having a great time talking with the sister that was rushing me, and I told her that I just felt so comfortable there and all her sisters were so fun, etc. She just grinned and asked if I had any questions about anything. So I said something along the lines of, "I know that a lot of your sisters are Jewish, and that's cool, but I'm not - am I going to fit in here?" Can I tell you, the look on this girl's face, how quickly it changed??? She practically hisses at me "You're NOT Jewish?!?!?!?!" She was a little loud and several other rushees turned and looked at us in horror. I just froze and stuttered out "ummm, no?" like I wasn't sure myself. We just stared at each other for a couple seconds, she turned bright red (I think she was well aware that she'd been pretty rude) and then she passed me off to another one of her sisters. Guess which house didn't invite me back for Prefs???
It was kind of awkward at the time, but I'm glad it happened when it did - it would have been just awful to have a scene like that as a pledge. Apparently I had unwittingly fooled them. I'm a brunette, my personality was pretty similar to theirs, and I have a German last name. I never really thought it was a big deal. Most rushees that know what goes on will save the Jewish houses the trouble and talk about what they did for Christmas or something they did with their church so that they will be dropped. No one told me the proper procedure, so there I was, causing a minor ruckus in the middle of their Rush party.
|