Dr. Pinkhos Churgin, president-designate of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, announced at a press conference here today that he has received “solid commitments” from 25 American educators to serve on the initial faculty of the new University. Dr. Churgin also revealed that the initial student body will be restricted to 100.
Dr. Churgin, who also serves as dean of the Teachers Institute of Yeshiva University of New York, told the press conference that the first student body would be of decisive importance to the future of the University. For that reason he said, each of the first students would be “hand picked” in terms of potentialities for leader ship and scholarship.
Stressing that the University would begin with a faculty drawn largely from American Jewish educators, Dr. Churgin said that “it would be unwise to depend permanently on educators from outside Israel for our faculty. We expect to draw our faculty eventually from our own graduates.” He said that two years of study in Bible, Talmud, Jewish history and Hebrew language and literature would be required of all Jewish students at Bar-Ilan University.
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