Dr. George S. Wise replied today to charges by Dr. Ben-Zion Katz, rector of Tel Aviv University, that, as president of the institution, Dr. Wise “interfered in academic matters in such a way as to endanger the university’s level of instruction. ” Dr. Wise, who is out of New York, was informed of Dr. Katz’s statement and telephoned his reply to New York.
“If being responsible, ” he said, “for bringing and retaining at the university, Prof. Yuval Neveman, world-famous physicist; Prof. Abba Lerner, universally recognized authority on economics; Prof. Joshua Jortner, a young, bright star in physical chemistry; Prof. Burton Marvin, dean of the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas; Prof. Abel Schejter, research associate in space sciences of Nobel Prizewinner Prof. Libby of UCLA; and Dr. Jonathan Shapiro, promising young sociologist, is endangering the university’s level of instruction, I cheerfully plead guilty. “
(A dispatch from Tel Aviv today reported that Tel Aviv Mayor Mordechai Namir has been authorized by the Tel Aviv University board of trustees to name a committee to mediate the dispute between Dr. Wise and Dr. Katz. Mr. Namir announced that the chairman of the committee will be Aryeh L. Pincus, chairman of the executive of the Jewish Agency. The Tel Aviv mayor said that half of the committee members would be from countries outside Israel.)
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.
