New York to Start $1,000, 000 Drive for Hebrew University

A $1,000,000 campaign for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem will be launched in Greaten New York under the chairmanship of Joseph M. Mazer, chairman of the hoard of directors of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, it was announced at a press conference here today by Dr. George S. Wise, president of the American Friends and chairman of the University’s board of governors. The American Friends will seek to raise an additional $600,000 elsewhere in the United States.

The $1, 000, 000 drive is the University’s first independent effort in New York since 1947, Dr. Wise said. It will open with an intensive campaign to recruit new members for the American Friends. Plans for the drive will be map pod out at a meeting of community leaders on May 6 and the campaign will be climaxed by a dinner in November. Mr. Mazer, who is deputy chairman of the board of governors of the Hebrew University, has long been active in community affairs.

Pointing to the Hebrew University as “Israel’s only home source of trained scientists, doctors, lawyers, agricultural experts and scholars,” Dr. Wise expressed confidence that the election of the eminent archaeologist, Dr. Benjamin Mazar, as president of the University, “will provide the University with the direction and leadership which will enable it better to fulfill its historic role in the development of Israel as a modern, progressive state.”

Dr. Wise recalled the University’s loss of access to its permanent buildings on Mount Scopus in 1948, and traced the University’s present financial difficulties to this loss He declared that the University is unique among the institutions of Israel in that it alone lost its home and has consequently been compelled to replace equipment and textbooks at increasingly inflationary prices.