Our Building
 The Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA was officially dedicated on November 17, 2002. The 25,000 square foot building is a dynamically designed home away from home for 4,000+ Jewish young adults currently enrolled at UCLA - a place where students socialize and share Jewish learning, celebrations and programs.
We also house the Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts.
Our building is also available for rentals.
Photo – © 2004 Tom Bonner
The Architecture of Sacred Space:
Structural Judaica in the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Jewish Life at UCLA
Jerusalem Stone
Rabin Memorial-Entry Courtyard
Entry Glass Inscription
Donor Wall
The Jewish Journey:Glass Floor Tiles
Meditation Garden and Water Sculpture
The Mobile of Diversity and Mezuzot
Animural
From Darkness to Light: The Holocaust and the State of Israel
The Spectral Windows: Torah Orah
The Seven Faceted Aron Kodesh (Torah Ark)
Jerusalem Stone
The building's façade is covered with distinctively hewn and hued stone from the Jerusalem hills. The façade, as well as the building's interior and exterior arches, contribute to an immediate identification with Jerusalem and Israel. In this way, the structure itself transmits identity.
"There are humans with a heart of stone,
And stones with the heart of a human being."
R. Abraham Isaac Kook
 Rabin Memorial-Entry Courtyard
The bas-relief, which hangs in the entry courtyard, was designed and sculpted by internationally-renowned artist Jonathan Hirschfeld. The Zen-style sculpture communicates many important themes, among them: the longing for relationships and human contact, the attempt to transcend boundaries, and the eternal quest for reconciliation.
"Better the pains of peace than the agonies of war."
Yitzhak Rabin
"Unlike war memorials, The Rabin Peace Memorial does not recall historical events. It honors the ideal of reciprocity and justice in our relations with others. The rendering of the figures in sunken relief is an acknowledgement of the second commandment. The events in the life of Yitzhak Rabin which inspired this work remind us of how difficult it can be to distinguish illusion from reality."
Jonathan Hirschfeld March 2005
Sculptor: Jonathan Hirschfeld
Donors: Phyllis and Lou Mann
Photo – © 2004 Tom Bonner
Entry Glass Inscription
Two words are written, at eye-level, across the front windows. Viewed from the outside, it reads v'limadten-"you shall teach them" (Deuteronomy 11:19, from the second paragraph of the Sh'ma). Viewed from the inside, it reads v'ahavta-"you shall love" (Deuteronomy 6:5, from the first paragraph of the Sh'ma).
We believe that Hillel is a place of teaching and learning. It is a place where students enter in order to learn, and leave imbued with the loving values of Judaism with which they will engage and transform the world.
This is one of the many design ideas generated by the spiritual and artistic genius of Jewish master Calligrapher David Moss. He also served as the Judaica consultant for the entire Hillel building.
 Donor Wall
The ten categories of donors correspond to the ten sefirot (emanations) of the Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). This suggests a link between fiscal sustenance and spiritual growth.
We believe that fundraising itself can be a holy activity, when it is grounded in a commitment to nurturing human relationships and in the pursuit of a sacred goal.
"No flour, no Torah"
Pirke Avot 3:17
 The Jewish Journey: Glass Floor Tiles
The building is oriented from West to East, which represents the migration of Jews through the Diaspora and their perpetual quest to return to Zion. It is this deep tension, between exile and redemption, which invigorates Jewish thought. The glass tiles I the floor, each with maps etched onto their surface, contain earth from the many different countries of origin of our students.
From the Western entrance to the building, on Hilgard Avenue, one heads east along the path directed by the maps. The visitor proceeds from New York City, to Spain (honoring Sephardim heritage), France (honoring Ashkenazi heritage), Poland and Russia (honoring Eastern European heritage), South Africa, Ethiopia, Iran (honoring Mizrahi heritage), and finally, to Israel.
Of particular note is the earth from Poland, which was donated by Dana Schwartz, a child survivor of the Holocaust. This earth was taken by Dana from the Janowska Road work camp where her father perished. The camp was adjacent to Lemberg (Lvov), Dana's hometown (300,000 Lemberg Jews were murdered in the Holocaust). The tile serves as an abiding memorial for Dana's father and the Jews of Lemberg. Also notable is the earth form Iran, which was taken form what is purported to be Queen Esther's garden in Hamadan.
And so, step by step one retraces the 2,000 year Jewish journey from Jerusalem to Tarzana and back - a journey of adaptation, enrichment, and survival. Once again, the earth gives forth life and spirit.
Artist: David Moss
Fabricator: Ben Baron
Donors: Char and Dr. Ed Kamenir, Janice and Benjamin Resnick
 Meditation Garden and Water Sculpture
Moving past the final glass tile with earth from Eretz Yisrael, one arrives at the peaceful meditation garden with reminders of the Land of Israel: citrus trees, Armenian tiles inscribed with the names of Jerusalem stone donors, a trim of Jerusalem stone (to be installed) and a water sculpture adorned with three biblical verses that link land, water, God, and redemption. From the top down the verses read: "for the Lord, your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains rising from plain and hill" (Deuteronomy 8:7). "Joyfully shall you draw water from the fountains of salvation" (Isaiah 12:3). "For the land shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).
This would be a place for quiet thought, personal reflection, or an intimate conversation. It is that place of our dreams overflowing with the spirit of the Presence and with the mindfulness of meditative awareness.
Sculptor: Paul Chilkov
Donor: Cheryl and Haim Saban
 The Mobile of Diversity and Mezuzot
In the stairwell hangs a mobile that boldly expresses Hillel's unique pluralistic ideology of unity with diversity. Each one of the seven spherical elements represents one of the seven lower sefirot (divine incantations or potencies) corresponding to the seven-fold world of human experience. The range of primary colors constitutes the full spectrum of the rainbow with each color symbolizing a specific sefirah. In the same way that the light is fragmented and diffused so as to create variegated beauty, so is the One God manifest and experienced in multiple, diffuse ways. Thus the mobile is a visual metaphor for the interplay of the many in the One, the diversity that comprises the unity.
Further elucidating this theme is the choice of verses from Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) Chapter 3: "For everything there is a season-turn, turn, turn." This biblical section is composed of twenty-eight phrases: "a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planed; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to breakdown and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time together stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time and a time for peace" (Ecclesiastes: 3:2-8).
Four phrases surround each spherical element with each phrase calligraphed onto a particular color. One can only read the phrase if the mobile is moving. In this way the mobile is intended to reflect the dynamism of the Hillel program which incorporates the fullness of the human experience. No monolithic, dogmatic single path here, but a deep awareness of power of variety. As one ascends and descends the stairs one is confronted with the natural diversity of life that comes together to form the wholeness of being. This exemplifies Hillel which is constantly celebrating the lovely dance between unity and diversity. Hillel is a community of diverse beliefs, politics, experience and origins that is united in its basic commitment to Judaism, the Jewish people and the land of Israel. The mezuzah on the front arch incorporates an element of the mobile thereby uniting inner and outer space. All of the remaining mezuzot are identical bringing a dimension of unity to all the different spaces in the building and indicating that all activities in Hillel are dedicated to a sacred purpose.
Designer: David Moss
Fabrication: Ben Baron
Animural
On the second floor, in the cove immediately outside of the small dining room, is a whimsically sculpted band of animals. The kosher animals are right-side-up and are walking into the small dining room, while the treif (non-kosher) animals are standing upside-down, and are marching out.
"The same degree of care is required with regard to that which issues from the mouth as with regard to that which is consumed by it."
Adapted from A.J. Heschel
Artist: David Moss
Fabricator: Ben Baron
From Darkness to Light: The Holocaust and the State of Israel
In the Beit Midrash (House of Study) hang two remarkable works by acclaimed fiber artist Laurie Gross-Schaefer. Both pieces are based on Laurie's signature "tallit motif." The narrow piece, on the left, is a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. Six bands of gradually darkening gray fiber surround the background tallit (prayer shawl). Each band has subtle threads of red peering through from the bottom. The second piece is a large menorah-shaped series of seven tallitot, which represents the Jewish future and the rebirth of the State of Israel.
"The people that walked in darkness
Have seen a brilliant light;
On those who dwelt in a land of gloom
Light has dawned."
Isaiah 9:1
Artist: Laurie Gross-Schaefer
Donors: Jean and Jerry Friedman, Robert and Annie Ives
 The Spectral Windows: Torah Orah
Constructed in the form of an abstraction of an open torah scroll are three spectral windows, one for each subdivision of the third-floor multi-purpose auditorium. The prismatic glass, through which light is refracted, represents the words of the scroll. This symbolically makes a connection between light and Torah, denoting our belief that light comes through the word. Thus the Torah appears as the ultimate source of our enlightenment.
As the bright California sun moves past the southern-facing windows the room is filled with colorful rainbows and ever-changing patterns. These shifting images are intended to reflect the multi-purpose function of this space.
Artist: Davis Moss
Fabricator: Ben Baron
Donor: Larry Field
The Seven Faceted Aron Kodesh (Torah Ark)
The three Torah arks are shaped into seven-faceted prisms, each one containing one scroll. This symbolically represents the teaching of the Talmud, which asserts that there are "seventy facets to the Torah." Just as a prism takes pure sunlight and reveals its rainbow-like diversity, so too can light of the Torah be understood in a multiplicity of ways.
The three movable glass arks also represent Hillel's deep commitment to inclusivity. Each of the three denominations which hold services at Hillel use one of the arks. When the partitions are drawn to subdivide the multi-purpose auditorium for the different services, the transparent arks are aligned to fit into openings between each partition. Thus, individuals praying in each minyan can see one another. This suggests that while we acknowledge and respect the different manner in which each group is worshipping, we are all united by the one Torah.
The torot are adorned with special mantels prepared by fiber artist Peachy Levy. Each me'il is of a primary color, and each is overlaid with a cloth breastplate representing the full rainbow.
Artists: David Moss, Peach Levy
Torah Donors: Diana and Robert Friedman, Abraham Spiegal, Anna and William Tennenblatt, and Judy Weintraub
"This is my Lord and I shall adorn Him" (Ex. 15:2)
Beautify Him through the commandments.
(Mekhilta d' Rabbi Ishmael)
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