Bressler's confidence in the power of students characterizes the attitude of the 250 participants in the 23rd Congress of the World Union of Jewish Students, held in Jerusalem this January. While students in the United States are primarily serviced by professional organizations such as Hillel, The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, students in most other countries run their own unions. In some countries, the student movement is so well established that the adult community rarely questions student autonomy. Elsewhere, students have earned community respect more slowly. However, this level of inclusion has not always been the norm, says Chertorivksi.
Student leaders stress the empowerment that comes through running their own organizations.
In most communities students receive some communal funding, but still must devote much of their energy to soliciting individual donations. Thomas Atthias, a member of UEJF and a student at the Sorbonne, blames the apathy of American students for the absence of a union structure in the United States. We're political, we protest, we fight for what we believe. We're not like American students who are passive. We're stronger than that.