President Yitzhak Navon warned that unless immediate steps are taken to check assimilation, the Jewish people may lose three million of its members by the end of this century. He singled out university campuses around the world as the places “where the Jewish boy comes into contact with the wide world” and “it is there that assimilation begins.”
Navon made his remarks at ceremonies here Friday marking the 25th anniversary of Bar Ilan University. He praised the Orthodox-sponsored institution for combining Jewishness, religion and tradition with general knowledge, thereby fighting assimilation. He called on the Jewish academic world to dedicate itself to the existence of Judaism and check the phenomenon of assimilation.
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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.