Co-incidentally with the erection of the new $250,000 Library at the Hebrew Union College, Professor Adolph S. Oko will complete his 25th year as the librarian of that institution. He entered upon his duties as H. U. C. librarian on Sept. 1st, 1906. Professor Oko is regarded as a scholar of international repute. He is a leading authority on Spinoza. He was born in Russia and educated in Germany. In 1926 he was instrumental in obtaining a new and valuable acquisition of Jewish relics and books which aroused enthusiasm in cultural circles in America. He purchased a collection of ceremonial objects and other treasures in Germany from the two famous collections of S. Kirschtein of Berlin and that of Director Frauberger of the Dusseldorf Museum.
In the words of Professor Oko, the H. U. C. library “will make Cincinnati the center of the world so far as Jewish cultural history is concerned.” The success of the Hebrew Union College’s Bernheim Library is credited largely to him. The Bernheim Library will become the Museum upon completion of the new Library Building.
“Your name will be indelibly inscribed in the records of the Hebrew Union College Library as a creator of this great collection which is hardly equaled anywhere in the world,” Ludwig Vogelstein, New York, Chairman of the Executive Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and a member of the H. U. C. Board of Governors, wrote Professor Oko in felicitating him on his forthcoming 25th anniversary as librarian.
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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.
