$100,000 Presented for Jerusalem School of Hebrew Union College

Two gifts totaling $100, 000 have just been received towards construction and maintenance of the new Jerusalem School of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Dr. Nelson Glueck, president, told the HUC-JIR board of governors here today.

William Murstein, philanthropist of Hamilton, Ohio, has contributed $50, 000 for construction of a chapel in the school which will be dedicated as the William Murstein Chapel, he said. The Dan Danciger Fund of Dallas, Texas, contributed the other $50, 000 gift. A total of $750,000 is being raised for the entire project.

Dr. Glueck made the report to a meeting of 60 lay leaders of Reform Judaism from many parts of the United States–members of the College-Institute’s board of governors, in session at the New York School. Robert P. Goldman, Cincinnati lawyer, was reelected chairman of the board.

The Jerusalem School, now in construction on a two-acre site adjacent to the King David Hotel, will be the center of a College-Institute graduate department devoted to the study of archaeology and Biblical research. When plans for construction of the Jerusalem School were first announced in Israel in 1956, the announcement precipitated a nation-wide controversy around the issue of freedom of religion.

Leaders of Orthodox Jewry in Israel, headed by Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, opposed the project because provision was made in the plans for a chapel and for worship according to Reform Jewish practice. The controversy reached its peak when a formal application for a building permit came before the Jerusalem Municipal Council. Members of the Orthodox faction sought to prevent favorable action by boycotting meetings but, with the support of Mayor Agron, the permit was finally approved.