Columbia University will have two rabbinical student advisers under a reorganization plan which was adopted after a controversy involving a decision against re-naming Rabbi A. Bruce Goldman for the post for the next academic year. However, Rabbi Goldman will be one of the two Jewish counselors.
Rabbi Charles Sheer, 27-year-old associate rabbi of the Riverdale, N.Y., Jewish Center was named by five Jewish student groups as their religious adviser. They are Kadimah, Ikan, the Sabbath Meals Committee, and the Yavneh Society, an Orthodox group, and the Committee on Soviet Jewry. Rabbi Goldman was selected by the Radical Jewish Union.
Previously, religious advisers, Jewish and Christian, had been named and their salaries paid by church and synagogue bodies approved by the university, including the Jewish Advisory Board, made up of alumni. That board decided not to renew Rabbi Goldman’s contract, leading him to charge that the action was taken because he had supported student rebellions at the university. The New York City Human Rights Commission agreed to investigate the charges. It could not be learned immediately whether Rabbi Goldman would ask that the proposed investigation be dropped.
Under the new arrangements, disclosed last week, any group of students may name its own adviser and obtain funds to pay for his campus services. The Jewish Advisory Board is being changed into a foundation with student and faculty members, as well as alumni. The board will meet Rabbi Sheer’s office expenses. Rabbi Goldman said private sources would pay the expenses for his counselor-ship.
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