Where can you meet other Jews after college? SF Hillel has a new answer

Originally published in the JWeekly. Written by Lea Loeb.

At a bar in San Francisco, a group of Jewish young adults meets up before Shabbat on the second Friday of every month.

Some are graduate students. Others are young professionals. Some have lived in the Bay Area for years. Others are brand new and still figuring out the area. They have different alma maters, careers and backgrounds, but they have found their way to the same table in search of the same thing: Jewish community.

This is SF Hillel+, a program from SF Hillel designed for grad students, nontraditional undergrads attending college later than usual and young adults from 21 to 39.

The program is one of the first of its kind in the country and hosted its first event in August 2025, after SF Hillel recognized both that its traditional undergrad model didn’t fit older students and that it could do something to help people newly out of college. At San Francisco State University, where SF Hillel is based, about half of the student body is over 21. Some of the 11 other campuses that SF Hillel serves, such as UCSF and UC Law, are exclusively graduate- and professional-level institutions.

Read more here.