New York Group Formed to Raise Funds for Brandeis University; $15,000,000 Needed

The New York Associates of Brandeis University was organized here today at a luncheon sponsored by the Albert Einstein Foundation as the opening gun of the Foundation’s campaign to raise New York City’s share of the national quota of $15,000,000 for the University, which is scheduled to begin functioning at Waltham, Mass., in the fall of 1948. The University will be the first Jewish-sponsored non-sectarian institution of higher education in the United States.

S. Ralph Lazrus, president of the Foundation, stressed that although the institution was founded by Jews and will be supported by Jews, its doors will be open to all students regardless of race, religion or sex. Mr. Lazrus announced that the climax of the fund raising campaign in his city would be reached at a dinner meeting at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on June 5. He said he was certain “that New York City would bearing full responsibility in meeting the national goal of $15,000,000 for the establishment of America’s first non-sectarian, Jewish-sponsored university.”

George Alpert, president of the University’s board of trustees, reported that $1,000,000 had already been contributed or pledged in Boston. In describing the aims of the educational institution, Mr. Alpert declared: “Our purpose in establishing Brandeis University is not as an answer to academic anti-Semitism. I prefer to look on this project as an affirmative expression by the Jews of America of their contribution to American culture.”

Other speakers at the luncheon were Mrs. Susan Brandeis Gilbert, Justice Louis Brandeis’ daughter, and a member of the New York State Board of Regents, and Prof. Otto Nathan of New York University, who represents Prof. Albert Einstein on the Foundation’s Board of Directors.