Stirred by a mixture of emphatic protest and praise as a result of a proposal to endorse the project of a Jewish Room in the new Cathedral of Learning, a skyscraper addition now being built for the University of Pittsburgh, Jewish leaders of this city have appealed to outstanding leaders, Jews and non-Jews for their opinion on this subject.
The Pittsburgh Conference of Jewish Women’s Organizations sent to one hundred outstanding persons a questionnaire. The list was not confined to local persons, but included such names as Jane Addams, Chaim Nachum Bialik, Lewis Browne, John Cowper Powys, Glenn Frank, John Haynes Holmes, Albert Einstein, Walter Lippman, Louis Lipsky, Emil Ludwig, Bishop Francis McConnell, Dr. Julian Morgenstern, H. G. Wells, Chaim Weizmann, Henrietta Szold, as well as names of many local men and women.
As a result of this investigation among world and local leaders, the Pittsburgh Conference of Jewish Women’s Organizations at an executive meeting held recently, voted to endorse the Jewish Room project.
Of the one hundred persons to receive the questionnaires, forty-four returned replies. Of these, twenty-five expressed themselves as believing that the Jews should have a room in the long heralded Cathedral of Learning. Seven, whose names were not made public by the organization, were opposed to a Jewish Room. Six were non-committal and six were unable to answer. Of the affirmative replies, nine were received from Pittsburghers.
The reasons given for abandoning the project of the proposed Jewish Room were as follows:
1. The only purely Jewish contribution to the culture and civilization of the world is in the field of religion. No other religious group is considering such a project, so that a room devoted to religion would be out of place.
2. Jewish scientists, musicians, and painters have not done their work as Jews. It has been produced through and as a result of their national environment. In medicine, science and art there is nothing typically Jewish.
3. The expense of such a room would be great and the money invested could
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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.
