As the oldest Hillel organization in the United States, Texas A&M Hillel has a rich history here in College Station. Founded by Dr. Jacob Taubenhaus, the first Jewish Professor at TAMC, and his wife Esther Taubenhaus, the group first began meeting in 1916 as the TAMC Menorah Club. Later, under the guidance and direction of Rabbi David Lefkowitz, the club was transformed into the TAMC Hillel Club.
In 1940, Dr. & Mrs. Raymond Reiser moved to College Station and took over leadership of the Hillel Club. Under their leadership and coordination, the Hillel building was completed in 1958.
This 1958 structure was torn down in November 2010 to make way for the new Texas A&M Hillel Foundation Student Center as it became outdated and too small to meet the needs of the students. Since the 1958 building has no set of official drawings, a small CHC team worked to obtain accurate measurements to produce one floor plan and one section in addition to detail photographs when we learned it was to be torn down within a matter of weeks in the fall of 2010. This quick documentation process took only one day. The CHC documentation team included CHC Director Emeritus David Woodcock, graduate students Andrew Pipkin and Meredith Butler, and undergraduate student Jennifer Whisenhunt.