Israel Institutions of Higher Learning to Seek Increased Allocations in U.s., Canada

Jewish communites throughout the United States and Canada will be asked for increased allocations for the $5,500,000 fundraising campaign launched here at the national conference of the American Committee for the Hebrew University, Weizmann Institute of Science and the Haifa Technion. The 250 Jewish community leaders attending the conference expressed the conviction that the joint campaign for the three leading Israel institutions of higher learning will be successful.

Professor Albert Einstein, in the course of his address last night, told the gathering that Jews must have their own higher institutions of learning in Israel in view of the fact that universities in many countries are closed to Jewish students. He urged that the Jews throughout the world should support the Hebrew University, Weizmann Institute and Haifa Technion not on a year-to-year basis, but on a more permanent foundation. He pointed out that it was the Jewish devotion to culture, science and learning that enabled the Jews as a people to survive throughout the centuries.

Israel Ambassador Eliahu Elath pointed out that in the process of western transformation of the Middle East, Israel can play a highly important role. “The emergence of modern Israel with its western outlook and modern structure of society and economics, however, will expedite the process of westernization of the Middle East without impairing the independence and sovereignty of its Arab neighbors,” he said.

The Israel Ambassador emphasized that the Jewish state is not merely an outpost of western civilization in the Middle East but it tries to blend modern civilization with the ancient spiritual and cultural traditions of the Jewish people. “This attempt,” he declared, “can be of great interest to our Arab neighbors who have to tackle similar problems. They, too, do not wish to give up, in the course of their necessary and voluntary assimilation to western civilization, their entire spiritual and cultural heritage.”

Meyer Weisgal, chairman of the executive council of the Weizmann Institute, pointed out that “no state, even the Jewish state, can long endure unless it is anchored on Torah in its widest sense.” This, he said, shapes the character of the state. “And it is the character of the state — and not the state itself–that matters,” he pointed out. “That character will be forged out of the things we pour into Mount Scopus, Rehovot and Mount Carmel–the seats of higher learning and science in Israel,” he said.

Other speakers included Col. J.R. Elyachar and Abraham Feinberg, vice-presidents of the joint fund-raising committee known as the U.I.T., and Samuel Hausman, executive president of the organization, who presided at the conference.