Eight rabbis were graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, twenty-three diplomas for graduates of the teachers’ institute of the Seminary and eight certificates from the extension department were awarded at the commencement exercises held Sunday at Pythian Temple, New York. The exercises marked the forty-second anniversary of the Seminary.
The honorary degree of Doctor of Hebrew Literature was conferred upon Dr. Solomon Solis-Cohen of Philadelphia. In conferring the degree, Dr. Cyrus Adler, president of the Seminary who presided over the exercises, declared: “Solomon Solis-Cohen, skilful, humane and kindly practitioner of medicine, teacher of a generation of students, investigator and writer in many departments of medical science, in whom are exemplified the words of Sirach: ‘Honor a physician before need of him; Him also hath God apportioned.’
“Poet in your own right and interpreter in English verse of the first Hebrew poets of Spain and Portugal, one of the founders of this Seminary, friend and counsellor of all its presidents, active supporter of every worthy cause for the spread of Jewish knowledge, we gladly admit you to the degree of Doctor of Hebrew Literature honoris causa.”
Further subscriptions of $400,000 to the Seminary Building Fund, in addition to the $1,200,000 previously announced, including subscriptions from Mortimer L. Schiff, Felix M. Warburg, other members of the Schiff family, Israel Unterberg, William Prager and the bequest of Louis S. Brush, were announced by Dr. Adler in his address. The donors of this sum do not wish to disclose their names at present. The building fund will be used for the erection of three buildings, a library, a dormitory and a building for the Teachers Institute, on a site opposite the present quarters of the Seminary, on Broadway between 122nd and 123rd Streets.
“All these have been voluntary gifts,” Dr. Adler stated, “and I am emboldened to hope that the few hundred thousand dollars still required for building and equipment will come to us in like generous fashion.”
Those who received the degree of rabbi were Jeremiah J. Berman, Jacob Morris Cohen, Henry Fisher, Harry Jolt, Harry M. Katzin, Maurice A. Lazewick, Meyer Rubin and Milton Steinberg.
Dr. Hirsch L. Gordan of Newark received the degree of Doctor of Hebrew Literature.
Dr. Elias N. Rabinowitz delivered the invocation. An address by Dr. Solis-Cohen followed the conferring of degrees by Dr. Adler, Rabbi Jacob B. Grossman of the Temple Gates of Prayer, Flushing, L. I., delivered the baccalaureate sermon to the graduating class on Sunday morning.
Dr. Adler, in his address, declared that the seminary plan for training rabbis and teachers is the only one feasible in the western world. The president of the Jewish Theological Seminary took exception to the arguments of those critics who demand a clearer definition of Conservative Judaism.
“Forty-two years is a brief period in the history of Jewish institutions of learning which go back to the distant past, but it represents nearly one-half of the whole period of the modern Jewish Theological Seminary, a descendant of the ancient academies and the mediaeval Yeshibahs which, facing the new conditions in the world that required general knowledge along with Jewish learning, brought about a situation whereby seminaries were established, detached schools of divinity, as it were, but always flourishing along side of great universities and in close connection with them.
“Those who have watched the development of these Seminaries, and particularly of our own, are well persuaded that we are proceeding upon the only plan feasible in the western world and that it is not unlikely that a similar plan will commend itself to the Jewish people wheresoever they may hold fast to the desire to provide spiritual guides for the synagogue, and competent teachers for the religious school.
“The body of our students in the Seminary, in the Institute and in the extension courses, now numbering well on to five hundred, constitute our main strength,” Dr. Adler continued. “These, some older and some younger, are giving themselves whole-heartedly to a cause which many people consider a losing cause and about which we hear dire prophecies, a cause I would describe by its largest term as the cause of Judaism. One or another uneasy spirit and some critics and non-well-wishers clamor for a definite platform, and they would like us to qualify our Judaism in some such way as the figures are labelled in an ethnological museum.
“Having myself for a long time been engaged in museum work, I realize that nothing can be definitely labelled until it is dead. Even in a good Zoological park the labels are not definite as they are in a museum. You get the name of the creature in captivity and the family to which he belongs and sometimes a map indicating his habitat. Geographical Judaism never interested me because I feel as much at home with my brethren in lands abroad, where I occasionally wander, as I do in New York or in Philadelphia. Party Judaism has no interest for me because Judaism is not a political institution and is not to be divided into parties. As a development of a great religion with four thousand or more years of history behind it, subject to growth and in spots even to the decay to which all living organisms are subject, it has occasionally given rise to abnormalities. These in theological parlance are called sects, and we have had our share of them and at times they have been very strong and have left their impress upon the main trunk. But they withered and the great tree still remains. It is under this tree that we, of this institution, take our shelter.
“Among the many debts of gratitude that we owe to Professor George Foot Moore for his splendid work on Judaism, the most notable, I think is the coining of the phrase Normative type of Judaism, or normal Judaism, and the moment you use such a qualification you realize that it is unnecessary.” Dr. Adler declared.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
