For many Jewish students, MSU's Hillel Jewish Student Center is a home away from home.

It is a place where students can feel comfortable, meet and hang out with other students with common beliefs and heritage.

Some go to become closer to their faith and others closer to their culture.

"For me, getting involved was because my family is so involved in the religion," said Heather Kerwin, a reformed Jew and communicative sciences and disorders senior. "I didn't know anything else."

Kerwin is co-president of MSU's Jewish Student Union, a student group that sponsors cultural events such as Israel Fest during Welcome Week, concerts and activities at Hillel, 360 Charles St.

"College is a place to find your own niche," she said, adding that she's "made a billion friends" through her active involvement in the Jewish community.

Mike Epstein, a political theory and constitutional democracy senior, said many student get involved because of social and not religious reasons.

"Jews are unique. They can keep the cultural aspect, but lose the religion aspect," Epstein said.

The departure from religion, he said, might just be a characteristic of people ages 18 to 25.

When students get to college, they are on their own for the first time — and are often more interested in hanging out with friends and finding their own path, Epstein said.

Once you get married and have a family, religion comes back into play because parents want to instill morals and values into their children.

Some students say they think they will be more motivated to get closer to God once they travel to Israel on a 10-day "Taglit-birthright" trip.

Ricky Kamil, an interdisciplinary humanities junior, said he hopes to go in May.

The birthright trip is free for young Jewish adults — a program created less than 20 years ago and sponsored by Jewish organizations.

Kamil said the birthright trip has made the religion "more accessible" to his generation than his parents' who didn't have that option.

For example, he said he and his siblings are more religious than their parents.

Kamil helps lead prayers at Hillel and has taken religious classes at MSU.

"I do think students are more religious now," Kerwin said.

Another contributing factor to an increase in young peoples' involvement in religious activities is because there is more acceptance of Judaism in society, said Lindsay Miller, a member of the Jewish Student Union.

In her parents' generation, she said, hatred of Jewish people was more apparent as they were closely tied to the genocide of the Holocaust.

"Now it's more OK to be Jewish," Miller said. Anti-Semitism is still a problem, but the younger generation knows how to counter it better, she said.

Cindy Hughey, the executive director of Hillel, agreed that Jewish students are more interested in their heritage because the Jewish population is declining worldwide.

"Young people are educated to realize Jews have almost a zero population," she said.

Students now are being taught in places such as Hebrew schools that the Jewish culture and religion is at risk of extinction, Hughey said.

She doesn't remember learning about the declining Jewish population when she was in college in the mid-1970s.

"When you grow up you are taught by your parents to maintain their faith," Hughey said. "And in these days and times, it is even more important because it not a growing population."

Also, Miller said, there are more outlets to become involved with Judaism, such as Hillel, which was rebuilt into a bigger facility in 2002.

The Center offers a weekly Friday night Shabbat services and dinner.

"There is a sense of family and community," Miller said. "We are all Jewish and can identify with the same problems socially and culturally. This has built a stronger Jewish community."