The latest fraternity stunt at UCSD elicited quite a bit of commentary from
local political and religious leaders.

U.S. Rep. Susan Davis (D-San Diego) sent a videotaped message from
Washington, D.C., urging the brothers of Alpha Epsilon Pi to keep up the
good work. State Sen. Dede Alpert (D-San Diego) appeared at the fraternity's
banquet Tuesday, Feb. 7, to praise the organization's thoughtfulness and
kindness. Rabbi Alexis Roberts of Congregation Dor Hadsah and Rabbi Lisa
Goldstein of Hillel of San Diego added their blessings for the fraternity's
endeavors. 

The predominantly Jewish fraternity staged its third annual 56-hour peddling
marathon on the campus last week to raise awareness and funds to combat
hunger. Stationary bicyclists, who were not only fraternity members but also
sympathetic sorority women, attracted other students to an area along
Library Walk where a booth with information and goods for sale focused their
attention on the need to eradicate hunger.

As the bicyclists continued pumping the pedals outside the Price Center,
AEPi president Lance Miller told attendees inside at a kosher banquet
catered by Felafel King that this year's event had been unexpectedly
successful.

Miller said that whereas in the first year the fraternity raised $2,000 and
last year raised $3,000, about $7,600 was raised this year, both because of
a greater level of on-campus donations and a substantial gift donated by
Holocaust survivors Beno and Hadassah Hirschbein.

The Hirschbeins did not attend the banquet, but allowed this reporter to
relay the reason behind their gift. Hadassah Hirschbein had been in the
Auschwitz concentration camp for approximately three years when the approach
of the Russian army prompted the Germans to force march her and her fellow
inmates to Ravensbruk, another nazi concentration camp. A single loaf of
bread was to be divided on the march of several days by her and three other
females.

She confessed that she was so hungry she could not resist tearing a little
piece of the bread off, to the censure of the other young women. After she
promised not to do it again, they let her hold onto the bread at night. She
kept it under her head as a pillow, only to awaken and find it stolen.
Neither she nor the other young women received anything else to eat for the
rest of the march.

When she did eat at Ravensbruk, it was from contaminated soup pots, and she
became deathly ill. For a long period was unable to keep any food down at
all. 

"I know what hunger is," Hirchbein told Heritage. "I don¹t want anyone else
to experience it."

Her husband Beno, whom she later met as a Displaced Person in the
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the end of World War II, said that he
remembered having a frequent fantasy as a concentration camp inmate: "Seeing
a big loaf of bread and a knife, which I could cut off as much as I wanted."
Miller said when he learned of the Hirschbeins' generous gift to his
fraternity's campaign for Mazon, the Jewish anti-hunger organization, "I
almost dropped the telephone."

Alpert said the fraternity's effort to raise money for hungry people
inspires her to continue working onn behalf of people who would otherwise be
voiceless. She vowed to make certain that the state's budget is not balanced
"on the backs of poor people."

Roberts, whose Reconstructionist congregation has a partnership with Mazon,
told the banquet guests that each year more than 34,000 children around the
world die from hunger, and in the United States every night 31 million
people go to bed hungry, including 12 million children.

Mazon proposes a voluntary tax to Jewish families: whatever they pay for
such celebrations as weddings or b¹nai mitzvah, they should set aside a
surcharge of 3 percent to raise money for the hungry.

Additional ways the Jewish community raises money for the hungry include
donating the amount of money meals would have cost on Yom Kippur if that
were not a fast day, and donating the cost of an additional guest at a
Passover seder meal.

Sitting on a stationary bike and peddling furiously for 56 hours wasn¹t in
Mazon's handbook, but then AEPi has a reputation of being an innovator
rather than a follower.

According to Elan Carr, the fraternity¹s supreme governor, who came to San
Diego to attend the banquet, the UCSD chapter has distinguished itself for
several years running by having the highest collective grade-point average
of any fraternity on the UCSD campus.

Furthermore, he said, "You never forgot the forgotten."