Jewish Publication Society Receives $150,000 from Schiff Fund

The Jewish Publication Society of America has received the sum of $150,000 from the Jacob R. Schiff Charitable Trust Committee, Judge Louis E. Levinthal, president of the Society, announced. With this money the Society plans to establish The Jacob R. Schiff Library of Jewish Contributions to American Democracy.

The trust fund was created by the will of Jacob R. Schiff, philanthropist and financier, who died in 1948. The residue of the estate amounting to about $2,000,000 is to be allocated to such charitable or educational corporations as may be selected by a committee of three, consisting of the presidents of Columbia University and the College of the City of New York and the president of the Jewish Publication Society of America. In his will the testator declared it to be his wish that the beneficiaries of the trust fund be such corporations as in the opinion of the committee will “tend to further the ideals of American democracy.”

One of the last acts of President Eisenhower, prior to relinquishing his post as president of Columbia University, was to ###n with the other members of the trust committee in allocating the sum of $150 to the Jewish Publication Society of America. In a statement accompanying ###e announcement, Judge Levinthal expressed to the other members of the committee the appreciation of the officers and directors of the Society and explained briefly the use to which this fund will be applied.

Judge Levinthal said that among the works which the projected library would sponsor would be the writing and publication of books on the contributions to American democracy of various individual outstanding American Jews, of Jews in major cities or areas of the country and of Jews in key American historical epochs. He stressed that the decision to establish the library was reached because it was believed that “the writing and publication of this kind of history and biography is one of the best ways of spreading the ideals of American democracy and of stimulating the patriotic devotion of our young men and women.”