Universities Hail Magnes at Big Reception

With representatives of leading American universities greeting him as head of the only university in Palestine, Dr. Judah L. Magnes announced last night that twenty German refugee scholars will be added to the faculty of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

More than 2,000 people attended the reception to Dr. Magnes, chancellor of the university, which was tendered him at the Waldorf-Astoria by the American Friends of the Hebrew University, of which Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach is president. The reception was presided over by Roger W. Straus, member of the Board of governors of the University, and Felix M. Warburg, chairman of the council of the American Friends, introduced Dr. Magnes.

Professor John Dewey of Columbia welcomed Dr. Magnes on behalf of American academic scholars, and Dr. John H. Finley, associate editor of The New York Times, who recently visited Palestine, also spoke briefly. Delegates from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Syracuse, City College and New York University brought messages of greeting from their institutions.

Dr. Magnes declared that refugee savants formerly connected with German universities will be appointed to the Hebrew University staff following a meeting of the board of governors next August. “The Hebrew University,” Dr. Magnes said, “not only wishes to afford a temporary asylum to exiled German scholars, such as has been provided so generously in other countries, particularly the United States, but it wishes to keep them permanently on its staff.”

In his address of welcome to Dr. Magnes, Professor Dewey recalled the Nazi assault on learning and science in the Reich, and asserted that “non-Jewish citizens now have an opportunity and a responsibility in the present crisis-an opportunity and responsibility to help German scholars who are under the ban while assisting also a great and noble educational enterprise.”

Greetings from American universities were brought by Dean Christian Gauss of Princeton, Dr. Edward Sapir of Yale and Dr. G. Canby Robinson of Cornell. Professor Gottheil of Columbia, former director of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, also spoke. Dean Paul Klapper represented City College and Dean Marshall S. Brown, New York University. Dr. C. S. Gager, director of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, was assigned by Syracuse University to represent that institution.