Met Your Spouse
@ Hillel

I came to Hillel for the first time in my freshman year in the fall of 1985. David Krishef was one of the first people I met after walking in the door for the first time!  David was in his senior year. We also met again in a class, Intro to Judaism. We recognized each other from Hillel!  We became friends and saw each other at numerous Hillel dinners, services, and events at and outside of Hillel with groups of friends.

David graduated in Spring of 1986 and was hired to be the Outreach Program Director of Hillel to Carleton and Macalester Colleges. He had an office at Hillel and I would often stop in and say hello. One day in the winter of 1988 David asked me if I wanted to go to the theater with him. I said yes. Barbara Mindess, Hillel's beloved receptionist at the time, was thrilled! We went to a play and to dinner afterward. We then began officially dating.

David moved to New York in the summer of 1988 to pursue a Master's Degree at the Jewish Theological Seminary. We continued dating in a long distance relationship until David came home to Minneapolis for Rosh Hashana in the fall of 1988. We got engaged during that visit and continued our long distance engagement until I graduated in the spring of 1989.

We were married on June 25, 1989 in my hometown of Superior, WI with Rabbi Irvin Wise, the Hillel Rabbi, officiating. After living in New York for 5 years, we moved to Michigan and have lived here for 31 years. We have four grown children. Hillel created a lifelong love and partnership and four new Jewish (and wonderful) people! We are so blessed to have "met our spouse at Hillel House!"

When I was 17, I was at an AZA party and met a strikingly, beautiful, tall, brunette, Phyllis Bruzonsky, from Duluth. Phyllis came to the Twin Cities for a BBYO convention. We each had dates that night, however, I was determined to meet her and ask her to be my date for the convention dance. That didn’t happen. However, during the convention I made every effort to talk and get to know her. I just could not get her out of my mind!

That next fall I entered the U and immediately got involved at Hillel. A few months passed and I joined the career day committee for incoming freshmen. I was sitting on the steps waiting for the program to start and Phyllis walked in, came up the stairs, and turned the corner, and there we were, face to face. We made eye contact and it was love at “2nd sight”. We spent the afternoon together showing her around Hillel and talking about fun at the U. We told each other we would keep in touch and the next day she returned to Duluth to finish high school.

I was determined to see her again. I was not going to let 157 miles keep us apart. I joined a fraternity, SAS, and saw my chance. The fraternity had a formal social dance and dinner, and I decided to invite Phyllis to be my date. I sent Phyllis an invitation. In those days, long distance calls were expensive. So, I sent the invitation on a postcard, little did I know, the mailman delivering mail to Phyllis’ home in Duluth was Vally Cohen, a Jewish postman. He read the postcard, and in no time, the entire 3rd Street Shul in Duluth heard that “Phyllis Bruzonsky was invited to a dance at the University by a college boy!” We had a good laugh. And, 40 years later, I was asked to present an estate planning program at St. Ann’s Home in Duluth. I finished my presentation and up comes a resident and got my attention and says “Are you the Earl Cohen that invited Phyllis Bruzonsky to a formal dance at the University and sent the invitation on a postcard?” I laughed, and resident turned out to be Ann Cohen, the postman’s wife.

Phyllis entered the U in the fall of ’67 and I made certain I was her welcoming committee at Hillel. Hillel was truly our home away from home. We were there every day. We ate almost all our lunches at Hillel, especially after we learned how to make Kosher Hamburgers as good as McDonalds. I was on welcoming and social committees and Phyllis was in charge of in-town/out of town student activities. We did everything from welcoming everyone to running services on Friday nights. My fraternity, SAS, met at Hillel. Phyllis was crowned Ms. Hillel in 1968 and by her senior year, Phyllis was Rabbi Milgrom’s assistant with a coveted parking spot behind the building. We made many friends and made endless memories. I graduated in 1970 and entered law school at the U. Phyllis graduated the next year and went to work for Target, the only woman in the management training program.

Fast forward 30 years, our daughter, Amy, attended and graduated from the U, and was very active in Hillel as well. She represents a good example of the phrase L’dor V’dor, from generation to generation, as she met her husband-to-be Josh, at Hillel. When we graduated from the U and went “out in the world” we joined the Hillel board and served for 10 years.

We have now been married 56 years. Hillel at the University of Minnesota was and has been a community-builder for decades. Rabbi Milgrom was Hillel’s Rabbi for decades and was our dear friend and mentor. His favorite saying, and ours, was and still is, “Meet your spouse at the Hillel House”.

I grew up in Saint Paul, but went to school out of state for my freshman and sophomore years. For my Junior year, I started at the U in the fall of 1973.

On the Saturday Night of the weekend before classes started, I went to a gathering of students at Hillel. Some of the folks I had grown up with were there, but I also wanted to meet new people. As I was making my way around the room, I noticed 2 young women, Sally and Sue, who were sitting on the bricks in front of the fireplace. I went over to talk with both of them, and I married the one who was interested in chatting. But I'm getting ahead of my story.

Sally was quite interesting, and after a little while, I asked if there was somewhere we could go to get something to eat. We walked over to Dinkytown, and Sally picked Vescio's.

During the next 2 years, both of us were regulars at Hillel. We would have lunch every day downstairs. I got active in the Hillel student organization and became President in my senior year. Sally became the evening receptionist and would have long chats with Ken Raskin, who lived upstairs just down the hall from Rabbi Milgrom's office.

Next month, we will celebrate our 50th anniversary.

And, it all began with a party at Hillel.

Barb and I met in 1971 at the one and only “Grad Club” event that Hillel had that year, a Sunday brunch. Besides grad students, senior women (not senior men) were invited--try doing something like that today! I was a second-year grad student, and Barb was a senior living at home.

It was a bitterly cold January morning. Barb debated over and over whether to go, but she finally worked up the courage to brave the cold. Against my better judgement, I walked from my apartment at Seven Corners. We sat next to each other and started to talk. Barb was cute (still is!), very friendly (still is!), and laughed at my sometimes corny jokes (maybe not so much now). Rather than have me walk home, she drove me back to my apartment, and we agreed to meet up again at the next Friday night Shabbat dinner at Hillel. That went well too, so we decided on a first date—Valentine’s Day no less.

I took the bus to Barb’s home. Almost as soon as I entered, her mother informed me that Barb had an uncle named Earl and another uncle and aunt named Hoffman—karma, perhaps? We had a great time on that date, and I think we both soon realized that we had found our “b’sherts.”

Like many Jewish students in Minneapolis and Chicago, Hillel was where Allie and Dylan spent time between classes, attended programs, and built community during college. Beginning in 2013, Dylan served as a freshman representative and Allie as the “sophisticated” (as Dylan likes to say) vice president. Over the next two years, they crossed paths often and formed a friendship, never imagining those moments were laying the foundation for a lifetime together.

After college, their paths continued to run parallel. In 2016, Allie became the director of Camp Olami at the Minnesota JCC, and a few years later Dylan became the assistant director at OSRUI. During the pandemic, they began reaching out more frequently— at first for professional advice and mutual support — and somewhere along the way, finding more reasons to stay connected.

In November of 2021, mutual friends finally stepped in, “conveniently” pairing them to walk down the aisle at a wedding. That walk changed everything. Weekend trips along I-94 between Chicago and Minneapolis soon followed, and nine months later Dylan moved to Minneapolis.

What once felt like a joke on a window turned out to be true. Their love for the University of Minnesota and Hillel has only grown through Maroon & Gold Shabbat, football games, singing the Rouser at Allie’s family Seder, and so much more

I was a regular at Hillel during college, which was the main hangout to see friends between classes, especially for those of us who were "commuters" and lived at home. During late spring of my sophomore year in 1970 Hillel held a dance for the next fall's incoming freshmen. I noticed a group in the hall and introduced myself - and I will always remember the moment I first met Diane Garon, from Duluth!

Early that next fall quarter, I was asked by a friend, Alan Ingber, who was the Tifereth B'nai Jacob Synagogue youth director to be the leader for the 7th/8th grade USY boys group. I was told that he had also asked someone from Duluth to be the girls group leader - Diane Garon!

Our first event was a hayride, but there was a problem that needed to be solved - Diane lived on campus at Sanford Hall and needed to be picked up and driven to the farm, then back again afterward. Alan and I decided to flip a coin to determine the "loser" who would have to drive Diane to and from the hayride.

I lost that coin flip.

And I couldn't have been more thrilled!

At the hayride I did my best to get to know and be friendly with this amazing, intelligent and beautiful red head. I wasn't sure if my strategy was paying off, however, as Diane remained completely engaged in watching over the kids. I later learned that at least someone had noticed - the teen girls teased Diane, "Can you tell that Allen is hitting on you?" She laughed and shrugged those comments off, saying she hadn't noticed!

On our way back to campus we stopped at Perkins for a late night bite. I was completely smitten by Diane as we shared a waffle with strawberries and whipped cream - and the night culminated with our first kiss at the door of Sanford Hall when I dropped her off - and I was hooked.

We continued to see each other at Hillel and for the next pre-USY event I happily volunteered to pick Diane up at the dorm - and we had our second "date" at Burger King afterward.

And the rest is history! We were married two years later, while Diane was finishing her education degree and I was in my 2nd year of medical school at the U.

We're both happy that Hillel is where it started, and Hillel continues to hold a special place in our history and our hearts.