National, state and local dignitaries joined with representative leaders of the Jewish community of Greater Los Angeles in paying tribute to Edward Sanders last Saturday night at the inaugural Aleph-Tav Award Dinner of the American Friends of Tel Aviv University (AFTAU), and heard a major address by Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D. Wash.).
Some 700 of the Southland’s most prominent personalities were on hand at the Beverly Hilton Hotel when Sanders received the first Aleph-Tav Award of Tel Aviv University from Victor M. Carter, president of the AFTAU and chairman of the university’s international board of governors. A well-known attorney who presently is serving his second term as president of the Jewish Ferderation-Council of Greater Los Angeles, Sanders received a standing ovation when he rose to accept the award after Carter read the citation.
The citation stated that Sanders “is a proven exemplar of integrity, vision and compassion. Through his personal endeavors, Mr. Sanders unceasingly promotes universal freedom, nurtures academic development and champions the cause of Israel. He is, clearly, deserving of this inaugural Aleph-Tav Award of Tel Aviv University.”
In his response, Sanders emphasized the need for full community effort to enhance the well-being of Israel and the strengthening of its institutions of learning, adding that “the survival of the people and institutions of the State of Israel is essential to the survival of Jews throughout the world, and that this, in turn, is essential to the survival of democratic government all over the world.”
Jackson restated his personal commitment to the support of Israel and his fight to ease the plight of Jews who seek emigration from the Soviet Union. In stinging criticism of “the Arab oil cartel,” he said the Arab nations, “wholeheartedly supported by the Soviet Union,” are directly responsible for the economic crisis which the world now faces.”
carter observed that the TAU’s student body has grown from an original enrollment of 1000 to a present high mark of 16,903. The faculty, he said, has increased from 211 in 1963 to a present figure of 2800, while the campus has grown from “two inadequate structures” to a complex of 35 modern buildings. Carter also presented a special award to Mrs. Maud Cady Guthman, who is endowing an academic chair at Tel Aviv University, and for which she was inducted as a charter member of the Council of Regents of the AFTAU.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
