By Laura Finaldi, News Staff
The Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) fraternity is part of Sam Rubin’s family legacy. His family members had great memories of their college days spent doing activities as part of ZBT.
It’s because of this that Rubin was inspired to resurrect a ZBT chapter at Northeastern. He presented the idea to Zeta Beta Tau’s national headquarters, and he, his fraternity brothers and the national chapter soon started working to get a Northeastern chapter established as soon as possible.
The group of 25 Northeastern students was recognized by the national ZBT headquarters as the Zeta Beta Tau Boston-City chapter on March 22. Since then, Northeastern’s Hillel center yielded space for the fraternity’s executive board meetings, which are held on Mondays. The entire group meets in Rubin’s apartment every Thursday for educational meetings.
Still, even with 25 consistent members and official, national recognition, Boston-City members are eager to be recognized by Northeastern. Becoming the university’s official Zeta Beta Tau chapter would allow the fraternity to recruit on campus, something Rubin said is essential for its growth.
“It’s important to use their resources in terms of being recognized. Using their resources in recruiting is very important,” he said.
Northeastern’s Interfraternity Council (IFC) has a set expansion plan designating when chapters of different Greek life organizations will be brought to campus, Rubin said. IFC expressed interest in adding a Zeta Beta Tau chapter to its expanding list of fraternities and sororities, but since other fraternities are already on their way to campus, ZBT may have to wait to be established.
The council did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
But with 25 existing members and fully-functioning chapters at several area universities, Rubin said he thinks it would make sense for IFC to make Zeta Beta Tau more of a priority.
“[Fraternities ahead of us on the list] don’t even have members yet. But they were part of [IFC’s] expansion plan. If they’re open to Greek life and want Greek life on campus, it just doesn’t make sense for them to not recognize us faster,” he said. “If they’re having [other fraternities] come in with no recruitments, why wouldn’t they want us to come on earlier?”
Getting Northeastern’s official stamp of approval would allow the Boston City Chapter to join Boston University, Brandeis University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Tufts University as schools with Zeta Beta Tau chapters.
“All our other chapters in the Boston area are specific to universities,” Laurence Bolotin, executive director of Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity, said. “Those colleges were very welcoming to ZBT and it’s certainly our hope that Northeastern will be as well.”
Zeta Beta Tau fraternity was established in 1898 as the world’s first Jewish fraternity. Jewish men were discriminated against and not allowed to join other fraternities, so today, Zeta Beta Tau welcomes people of all races and religions. One of the things that sets Zeta Beta Tau apart from many other fraternities is its no-pledges policy. Bolotin said all men who are given bids must be initiated within 72 hours.
Dylan Oanono, a freshman business major and brother of the Boston-City chapter, said if ZBT gets the chance to come to Northeastern, its members want to change the way Greek life is viewed on campus.
“Northeastern has a very slow Greek life. We’re going to have a lot of social events and mixers. We’re just trying to get our name out there and come and have people enjoy college life more than they already do at Northeastern,” he said. “We’re all just some guys looking to help out the Boston area. We really want to improve life here, have more fun and do things that will make everyone happy.”
