— The Lubavitch movement will mark the 80th birthday of their rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, Wednesday by launching a worldwide program to promote Yiddishkeit and Jewish education as well as education in general.
The Rebbe’s birthday has been the date for the last several years proclaimed by the President and Congress as “Education Day–U.S.A.” This year, the proclamation was made by Secretary of Education T.H. Bell at a ceremony last week at the Dirksen Senate Office Building attended by several hundred persons, including 35 Senators and 40 to 50 Representatives. Bell praised the Lubavitch movement for being instrumental in establishing Education Day. “The Jewish people have survived, by passing down through the generations, the love and sweetness of learning,” he said. Bell quoted Schneerson as saying that “education is the cornerstone not only of Jewish life but of humanity at large.”
President Reagan, who was still in George Washington University Hospital at the time, sent a message to the gathering for prayers offered in his behalf. “Please know that I am deeply grateful for your thoughts and for the sentiments expressed by my fellow citizens,” Reagan said.
Rabbi Abrahm Shemtov, director of American Friends of Lubavitch, sponsor of the program, said that 38 of the Lubavitch regional directors in the United States attended the ceremony. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R. Minn.) was chairman of the event.
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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.
