Englewood, New Jersey.
Banker Street,
Mallinckrodt, Inc. - Basic Foods Division,
Mr. Gerard Weinatock,

Personal Assistant
Suzanne S. McFarlane

Sincerely,

future.
I know he would be happy to hear more about it in the
Center for Jewish Studies, which he found very interesting.
on his behalf for sending him the literature on Harvard's
Secretary Klaasinger has asked me to thank you

Dear Mr. Weinatock:

January 13, 1977

THE PROGRAM FOR THE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES

Chairman, GERARD WEINSTOCK
Honorary Chairman, HARRY STARR

January 11, 1977

The Honorable Henry Kissinger
Secretary of State
United States of America

Dear Doctor Kissinger:

Now that you will be resuming your place in the private
sector, I thought I would bring to your attention a very
significant effort in Harvard that was begun after your
departure from the University.

More than likely, the Center for Jewish Studies will prove
to be the most meaningful one in the world. Already it
has made its impact on other colleges and universities
which are expanding their Jewish studies, citing Harvard
as the role model.

Some time, not too far from now, I would like to discuss
this further with you.

With best wishes.

GERARD WEINSTOCK
Basic Foods Division—Mallinckrodt, Inc.
Bancker Street
Englewood, New Jersey 07631
201 567-1600

CHARLES D. THOMPSON
University Development Office
Holyoke Center 707
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
617 495-5433

CHARLES BERLIN
Hebrew Department
Widener Library M
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
617 495-2985

The Program for the
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CENTER FOR
JEWISH STUDIES

NEWSLETTER

March, 1976

## Million Dollar Gift Launches Campaign

A program to establish the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies was recently announced by President Derek C. Bok and the Fellows of Harvard College.

Gifts and pledges totaling $2.1 million, including a grant of $1 million from the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation of New York, have been raised toward the Program's goal of $15 million. Announcement of the Littauer grant was made by Harry Starr, President of the Foundation. He stated that "Mr. Littauer, a member of the Harvard class of 1878, was a prominent industrialist, member of Congress, benefactor of Harvard, and had long demonstrated his interest in Jewish Studies at the University through many gifts."

### The Program

With the funds, Harvard will establish an interdisciplinary Center for the study of Jewish history, culture, philosophy, literature and languages. The Center will include six endowed professorships covering a variety of scholarly pursuits in Jewish Studies, as well as new book funds and curatorships for the Judaica Collection in the Harvard College Library. The program also calls for the establishment of twenty-four endowed graduate fellowships, the creation of an administrative center to coordinate seminars, symposia, and public lectures, and support for visiting professors and scholars, as well as a publication program. It is a one-time effort to raise endowment which will insure income in perpetuity for Judaica scholarship at Harvard.

Chairman of the National Committee is Gerard Weinstock, A.B. '39, J.D. '42, of Larchmont, New York, President of Basic Foods, a division of Mallinckrodt, Inc.. Mr. Weinstock leads a committee of some 200 volunteers; men and women, alumni and non-alumni, Jews and non-Jews concerned with the future of Jewish Studies, not only at Harvard, but everywhere in the United States.

### A Special Tradition

While the establishment of the Program demonstrates Harvard's special commitment to Jewish Studies, it must be emphasized that the commitment is not a new one. With the establishment of the Nathan Littauer Professorship of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy in 1925, Harvard became

the first secular institution in the world with a chair specifically devoted to Jewish Studies. The late Professor Harry A. Wolfson, first holder of the chair, set a high standard for modern Jewish Studies in American universities.

In announcing the Program, President Bok said: "The joining of one of the major strains of culture in the Western world with an institution that for three centuries has been a symbol of intellectual excellence and humanitarian concern is a cause for great pride. Harvard University's Center for Jewish Studies will be more than a source of scholarship and inspiration. Its establishment will be nothing less than a major step in the enrichment of Harvard University, the United States, the Jewish people, and the Western world."

### Responding to a Need

In establishing the Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard is responding to a general need for scholars and teachers of Jewish Studies. Universities and colleges offering courses on the subject have risen in number from ten in 1945 to more than 150 today. Achieving the goals of this campaign will enable Harvard to provide many of the scholars who will be needed in the years ahead.

Other scholars will be invited to spend a year at Harvard, and the expanded University Judaica Collection will serve students around the world, through inter-library loans, extension of library privileges to visiting scholars, and publication of additional bibliographic material.

Harry Starr, Honorary Committee Chairman and Gerard Weinstock, National Committee Chairman

Harry Austryn Wolfson 1887-1974

## "Harvard's Resident Sage"

Harry Austryn Wolfson, first holder of the Nathan Littauer Chair in Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard, passed away on September 19, 1974 at the age of 87.

He joined the faculty in 1915 after receiving his B.A. '12 and Ph.D. '15 at Harvard and gave 60 years of devoted service to his alma mater. In 1956, he received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Harvard stating: "From enormous knowledge he graciously illuminates the major problems of religious philosophy and their relation to revealed truth."

### A Giant Among Scholars

Professor Wolfson was one of the world's leading scholars in the field of history of religion and has been described as 'a giant among scholars' and 'a cultural phenomenon' by colleagues who witnessed his prolific career.

His research and publications ranged from Plato and Aristotle to Spinoza, early Church history, Medieval Jewish philosophy, and the religious philosophy of Islam. Some of his books, such as *Philosophy of the Church Fathers*, and *Philofoundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam* remain classics in their field to this day.

He founded Harvard's Judaica Collection, now the largest at any American university, and was its curator for many years. To honor his 85th birthday in 1972, his admirers endowed the Harry A. Wolfson Book Fund for Judaica in the Harvard College Library.

### An Example of Personal Devotion

In addition to his accomplishments in the world of books, Professor Wolfson was an outstanding teacher. In a Presidential Citation from John F. Kennedy '40, honoring Wolfson on his 75th birthday, the President praised his "extraordinary personal influence, not only on your students at Harvard, but on all those engaged in reflective learning and research.

... You have broadened the horizons of human thought and have given an example of personal devotion and humility for which we are all grateful."

Professor Wolfson was the recipient of ten honorary degrees during his lifetime as well as many other awards from learned societies throughout the world in recognition of his unique contribution to humanistic learning.

Brandeis University in conferring their honorary Doctor of Humane Letters upon him in 1958, cited Professor Wolfson as "a model of the scholar whose life and works have felicitously blended the intellectual piety traditional to the discipline of the Torah with the acumen and outlook of modern learning. His finely tuned critical powers have reached fruition in monumental studies on the sources, content, and genius of Jewish and Christian thought from ancient days to the God-intoxicated man, Spinoza."

### A Tribute

As a tribute to Harry Austryn Wolfson, the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard will include an endowed professorship in his name. Funding of one million dollars for this chair will result from the gifts of the many people who have known Professor Wolfson, studied with him, and admired his wisdom.

Peter J. Solomon '60, a close friend and student of Wolfson, and a partner of Lehman Brothers in New York, is chairman of the drive to establish the Wolfson Professorship.

"All of those who have supported the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, as well as all of those who will support it in the future, may be sure of a fruitful use of their gifts in a Program that is both important and timely, not to mention particularly needed in this era."

Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C.
President, University of Notre Dame
Honorary Committee Member
Program for the Harvard University
Center for Jewish Studies

"I am thrilled by Harvard's project for a Center for Jewish Studies. To me, it is the most important thing which has happened in Jewish life in my lifetime because I am sure that it will support the survival of Judaism as far as in the future one can foresee."

Walter S. Hilborn A.B. '01, J.D. '03
Attorney at Law
Honorary Committee Member
Program for the Harvard University
Center for Jewish Studies

## Dean Establishes Advisory Council

Henry Rosovsky, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, has established the Dean's Advisory Council on Jewish Studies. The members are: Chairman, Burton S. Dreben, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Philosophy; Myron P. Gilmore, Gurney Professor of History and Political Science; David S. Landes, LeRoy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science; Harry T. Levin, Irving Babbitt Professor of Comparative Literature; Muhsin S. Mahdi, James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic; Isadore Twersky, Nathan Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy; and Yosef H. Yerushalmi, Professor of Hebrew and of Jewish History.

## Regional Dinners Planned

From the inception of the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, the concept has received enthusiastic support. Some 200 volunteers on the National Committee across the United States, Canada, and abroad are donating time, energy and funds to help make the campaign successful.

Regional dinners have been planned by committee members in many major cities to help publicize the aims of the Program and encourage support from their communities.

To date, dinners are planned for San Francisco, March 29; Phoenix, March 30; Los Angeles, March 31; Kansas City, April 1; and Detroit, May 18. Dinners in other metropolitan areas will be planned during the next two years.

The dinners will include presentations from National Committee members from the area and representatives of Harvard University, discussing the importance of The Center for Jewish Studies, and Harvard's role in furthering the cause of Jewish Studies nationally.

## Book Fund Established

The Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation of New York has pledged $100,000 to the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies to establish The Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation Book Fund for Judaica in the Harvard College Library. The income from the fund will be used for the acquisition, cataloguing, and preservation of ephemeral Judaica, i.e., posters, broadsides, leaflets, pamphlets, and similar publications.

## Gulf Oil Grant

A pledge of $50,000 in unrestricted funds for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies was made to President Derek C. Bok by the Gulf Oil Corporation and the Gulf Oil Foundation in October, 1975. The Gulf Oil grant represents the first major corporate gift to the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies.

## Library Committee to Meet at Harvard

On May 3, 1976, the Harvard Program for Jewish Studies Library Committee will hold its first meeting in Cambridge. The Committee, which is chaired by William Lee Frost A.B. '48 M.P.A. '58, a New York attorney, hopes to raise $1.5 million in new endowed book funds and $1 million in endowed curatorships to insure the continued excellence of the Judaica Collection in the Harvard College Library, the largest at any secular university in the United States.

Featured at the meeting will be a public lecture delivered by Oscar Handlin, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor, inaugurating the Library's Bicentennial exhibition of Judaica Americana.

Harvard guests at the June 3, 1975 dinner in New York were: (front row) Yosef H. Yerushalmi, Professor of Hebrew and of Jewish History; Isadore Twersky, Nathan Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy; Harry Starr, Honorary Committee Chairman; Henry Rosovsky, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; (back row) Gerard Weinstock, National Committee Chairman; Douglas Bryant, Director of the University Library; and Paul A. Freund, Carl M. Loeb Professor of Law.

Among the National Committee members who attended the New York dinner was Martin Schwartz of Muncie, Indiana—shown here with his wife Helen and Eppie Lederer, better known as the newspaper columnist, Ann Landers.

NEWSLETTER

June, 1976

Harvard's Judaica Collection

Melanie Marcus (reprinted from *Harvard Today* May, 1976)

When Widener Library welcomes a Hebrew book to the Judaica Collection, the ritual is performed in two directions. Typing the catalogue card from left to right in English, and right to left in Hebrew, the secretary utilizes the first I.B.M. Selectric Kadurit typewriter to be purchased in the United States. This fancy machinery, which changes the alphabet and carriage direction with the swap of a font and the flip of a switch, is new at Harvard. But interest in Judaica is not.

In the Beginning

When John Harvard bequeathed his 329 titles to the newly formed Massachusetts "colledge" in 1638, he paved the way for what President Bok now refers to as "a Judaica collection unequalled at an American university." Several commentaries on the Old Testament, four Hebrew grammars, and a number of rabbinic works were among the volumes that formed the basis of Harvard College Library. John Harvard's collection probably contained the first Hebrew books

Charles Berlin '58, Lee M. Friedman Bibliographer in Judaica, with a French Yiddish theatre poster from the international collection.

to be introduced in North America, as well as the first
Zionist volume to be printed in English.

A Microcosm

Since the establishment of Harvard's first endowed chair in Jewish Studies in 1925, Harvard's acquisitions in the field of Judaic literature have made the Widener collection an internationally acclaimed bibliographic resource. Today there are some 150,000 volumes in the Judaica collection, including a thirteenth century manuscript of Maimonides' code of Jewish law and last month's flyer announcing a political rally in Jerusalem.

According to Charles Berlin '58, Lee M. Friedman Bibliographer in Judaica, "We have strengths in virtually every area of Judaica, and the field is not narrowly defined. Our department is actually a microcosm of the entire University library operation," says Berlin, who holds the only endowed Judaica curatorship in the world. "We collect in all languages, on a global scale, in virtually every field of the humanities and social sciences. The only difference is that we do it in miniature, for only one field of learning—Jewish studies."

Describing this "miniature" operation, Berlin almost loses his breath citing "but a few" areas in which major acquisitions have been made. Biblical commentaries and rabbinic texts join Jewish liturgy, belles-lettres, and periodicals on shelf after shelf in the Widener stacks. Manuscripts and other items predating the 1700's are stored in Houghton, the rare books library, along with the comprehensive collection of materials relating to the Dreyfus trial.

Prayerbooks and Publications

Widener exhibition cases have been filled with samples from the Library's world-famous Haggadah (Passover prayerbook) collection, a gallery of Jewish portrait studies, contemporary Jewish student publications, a review of Jewish life in France, and a survey of Hebrew books over the centuries.

Still, the whole of Harvard's Judaica collection is not comprised of basic Jewish texts, cultural documents, and ephemeral treasures. Some works, rather marginally related to Jewish studies, are gathered simply as "Judaica exotica"

continued on page 3

John Green, noted composer and committee member; Mrs. Gerald Labiner, Vice President and Program Chairman of The Harvard Club of Southern California; Walter S. Hilborn, Los Angeles attorney and civic leader who is a member of the National Honorary Committee; and Los Angeles attorney Preston J. Kline, Chairman of the Southern California Committee, discuss plans for the March 31 dinner hosted by Harvard at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Henry Rosovsky chats with Richard N. Goldman, Chairman of the Bay Area Committee and President of Richard N. Goldman and Company at the San Francisco dinner, March 29th.

Samuel Shapiro, President of National Metals Company; Henry Rosovsky, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Yosef Yerushalmi, Professor of Hebrew and of Jewish History; and Jack E. Brown, Chairman of the Phoenix Committee discuss the Center at the Phoenix dinner in the Hyatt Regency, March 30th.

Brent Abel, Co-chairman of the Bay Area Committee for the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies; Robert C. Harris, committee member; and Mrs. Abel at the Standard Court dinner in San Francisco, March 29th.

Jack Lemmon ('47), Walter Mirisch ('43), and John Green ('28) are members of the Southern California Committee for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies.

Henry Rosovsky, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and guest speaker; Mrs. William Kiskadden of Beverly Hills, committee member and mother of Harvard president Derek C. Bok; and National Chairman Gerard Weinstock at Harvard dinner in Los Angeles.

Morton I. Sosland, co-chairman of the Kansas City committee holds forth on the new Center to Edward A. Smith, co-chairman; Gerard Weinstock, National Committee Chairman; David S. Landes, Professor of History at Harvard and guest speaker; and Charles Berlin, Lee M. Friedman Bibliographer of Judaica at Harvard.

During the academic Spring recess, members of the Harvard faculty and administration addressed four distinguished dinner-meetings in California, Arizona and Missouri introducing the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies.

Henry Rosovsky, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Yosef Yerushalmi, Professor of Hebrew and of Jewish History, spoke to more than 500 interested business and social leaders, philanthropists, and Harvard alumni in San Francisco (Brent Abel and Dick Goldman, Chairmen); Phoenix (Jack Brown); and Los Angeles (Preston Kline). At Kansas City (Ed Smith and Morton Sosland) the speakers were David Landes, Professor of History, and Dr. Charles Berlin, Lee M. Friedman Bibliographer in Judaica in the Harvard College Library.

Each dinner was attended by local academic leaders and dignitaries such as the Presidents of the Universities of California, Arizona, Missouri (Kansas City), Hebrew Union College (Los Angeles); General Omar Bradley, Nobel Prize Laureate Willard Libby, Father Royal Vadikan and Rabbis Joseph Asher, Brian Lurie, Edgar Magnin and Albert Plotkin.

Fellowship Endowed in
Memory of Sidney L. Solomon

An endowed Fellowship in
memory of Sidney L. Solo-
mon will be established at
Harvard University under a
joint grant of Federated
Department Stores, Inc., of
Cincinnati, Ohio, and the
family of Mr. Solomon. The
Fellowship will be the first
established in the Harvard
University Center for Jewish
Studies.

Mr. Solomon, who died in 1975 at the age of 73, was the former chairman of Abraham & Straus of Brooklyn and New York City. He was associated with Abraham & Straus for 36 years. Mr. Solomon was also a member of the board of directors of Federated for 19 years.

Federated Department Stores has donated $100,000 in Mr. Solomon's memory, with an equal amount committed to Harvard by the Solomon and Rabb families. Mr. Solomon's wife is the former Jeannette Rabb. Friends and associates of Mr. Solomon have contributed additional funds to Harvard in Mr. Solomon's memory.

The purpose of the Fellowship, according to the terms of the grant, is "to enable young men and women to further their graduate education toward the end of teaching, scholarship or pursuit of a career in any of the arts and sciences with specialization in Jewish Studies. Whenever possible," the Fellowship specifications state, "consideration should be given to students interested in the fields of art and music."

One of Mr. Solomon's outstanding characteristics was his interest in young people and his ability to instill in them a desire for excellence. The Fellowship gives recognition to these facets of Mr. Solomon's career and personality.

During his lifetime, Mr. Solomon received many awards for excellence in retailing. He was an active fund raiser for

Harvard's Judaica Collection (cont.)

says Berlin, pointing to a booklet in Melanesian Pidgin entitled *How the Jews Lived*. Hebrew translations of Shakespeare and Aristotle are examples of works gathered for linguistic reasons, and show the incorporation of many cultures into the Hebrew language.

Much of What is Scarce

In order to make their materials more accessible, the He-
brew department has published a dozen volumes of bibli-
ographic catalogues and reference tools. Berlin emphasizes
that "We are dealing with a literature that, because of his-
torical circumstance, has not always been preserved by the
world. Especially since World War Two, items are quite
scarce, expensive to acquire, and costly to process and pre-
serve."

Most of the funds used are supplied by the Library's endow-
ments for Judaica, current gifts from Friends of the Harvard
Judaica Collection, and unrestricted funds from the Uni-
versity. It is hoped that some $2.5 million can be raised for
the Judaica collection through the Program for the Harvard
University Center for Jewish Studies. William Lee Frost '47,
a New York attorney, is heading the Library Committee to
raise these funds for the Judaica collection.

Mr. Frost feels that "the establishment of endowed book
funds and curatorships in Judaica at Harvard will form the
base for the expansion of Jewish Studies. The donors of
these new endowments will have created sources for schol-
arly achievement for generations to come."

numerous philanthropies in the New York area and served
the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the United
Jewish Appeal.

A graduate of Harvard College, class of 1922, Mr. Solomon also graduated from Harvard's Graduate School of Business Administration. His two sons, Richard and Peter, also graduated from Harvard's college and business school. Jeannette Solomon, Mr. Solomon's wife, is a Radcliffe College graduate.

Harvard University, from its foundation, has had a deep interest in Hebraic Studies. Its first graduating class in 1642 had the choice of writing papers on the following topics: 1) "Hebrew Is the Mother of Languages"; 2) "The Hebrew Consonants and Vowels Are of Equal Age"; 3) "The Hatef Vowel Does Not Form a Syllable." Since that time, instruction in various aspects of Jewish Studies has been given by an array of fine teachers, including such outstanding scholars as professors George Foot Moore and Harry Austryn Wolfson.

I was very glad, therefore, to join the Honorary Committee for the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, and I hope that the community will see its way clear to support generously this eminently worthwhile undertaking.

Salo W. Baron
Professor Emeritus
Jewish History
Columbia University

It is not a matter of consciousness rais-
ing, it is rather a matter of contributing
to the larger society.

We approach this problem with the
idea that we are doing something spe-
cial. I am not speaking as a Harvard
chauvinist, but I have faith that Harvard
can be a model for the advancement of
Jewish Studies, just as it has been for
more than 300 years in so many other
areas of instruction and cultural activity.

What has been built historically at Harvard in a modest way can now be strengthened by our efforts. There are hundreds of similar courses of instruction throughout the country. Are they competing with us? Not really. They are looking to Harvard to set the standard. What we propose will do just that.

Harry Starr '21
President
The Lucius N. Littauer Foundation
Honorary Committee Chairman
The Program for the Harvard University
Center for Jewish Studies

Honorary Committee Members

Raymond Aron, Paris, France Historian and Philosopher

Salo W. Baron, New York, New York Professor Emeritus, Jewish History, Columbia University

The Reverend John C. Bennett, Claremont, California President Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary

Isaiah Berlin, Oxford, England Philosopher and Historian

Leonard Bernstein, New York, New York Conductor and Composer

Rene Cassin, Paris, France Nobel Prize for United Nations Human Rights Declaration

Benjamin V. Cohen, Washington, D.C. Attorney; former United States Representative to the United Nations

William Frankel, London, England Editor, the Jewish Chronicle

Paul A. Freund, Cambridge, Massachusetts Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard University

William Haber, Ann Arbor, Michigan former Dean, University of Michigan; International President, ORT

The Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, Notre Dame, Indiana President, University of Notre Dame

Howard H. Hiatt, Boston, Massachusetts Dean, Faculty of Public Health, Harvard University

Walter S. Hilborn, Los Angeles, California Attorney and Community Leader

Philip M. Klutznick, Chicago, Illinois Attorney and Honorary National President, B'Nai Brith

David Lloyd Kreeger, Washington, D.C. Business Executive and Community Leader

Simon Kuznets, Cambridge, Massachusetts George F. Baker Professor of Economics Emeritus, Harvard University; Nobel Prize for Economics

Louis H. Pollak, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Dean, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Abram L. Sachar, Waltham, Massachusetts Chancellor, Brandeis University

Albert M. Sacks, Cambridge, Massachusetts Dean, Faculty of Law, Harvard University

Murray Seasongood, Cincinnati, Ohio Attorney; former Mayor

Judah J. Shapiro, New York, New York Educator

Edward M. M. Warburg, New York, New York Community Leader; former President, United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York

Theodore H. White, New York, New York Author

Rene Cassin, Honorary Committee
Member, Dies in Paris

Renowned human rights proponent, Professor Rene Cassin, passed away in Paris on February 20th. With his death, the world lost a great statesman and champion of human dignity.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1968, Professor Cassin was the primary author of the Declaration of Human Rights, which has been translated into eighty languages, and has served as the basis for the constitution of many new countries.

During his lifetime, Professor Cassin was a founding member of the United Nations Economics and Social Organization (UNESCO) and of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. He also founded, and was President of, the International Institute of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg. He had served as chairman of the European Court of Human Rights since 1959 and as President of the Alliance Israelite Universelle from 1943 to 1970.

In addition, Professor Cassin was a member of the Faculty of Law at the Sorbonne for thirty years, and was a leader in

De Gaulle's government, serving as De Gaulle's legal advisor as well as France's delegate to the League of Nations and later to the United Nations assemblies.

The Committee to establish the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies was honored when Professor Cassin lent his support to the Program. As a member of the Honorary Committee, he demonstrated that the concept of Harvard as a center for Jewish learning had gained wide acceptance.

If you would like more information about this program, please call or write:

The Program for the Harvard University
Center for Jewish Studies
c/o Mr. Charles D. Thompson
707 Holyoke Center
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
617/495-5433

NEWSLETTER

October, 1976

Visiting Professorship Endowed

A visiting professorship which will enable Harvard to invite Judaic scholars to teach at the University Center for Jewish Studies for a year will be endowed by Margaret and Gerard Weinstock of Larchmont, New York.

In announcing their intention, the Weinstocks said "The Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies represents a happy fusion of many of our interests. As American Jews, we are concerned with the preservation of the Jewish heritage. As alumni, we are proud that Harvard is in the forefront of academic innovation and progress."

Focusing on Jewish Studies

Upon learning of their intention, Henry Rosovsky, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, commented: "The Visiting Professorship will enable the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies to attract a variety of eminent scholars from throughout the world for an academic year in Cambridge. Their presence here will become the focus for seminars, colloquia and other intellectual and academic efforts at the Center."

Mrs. Weinstock, the former Margaret M. Epstein (Radcliffe '45) received an M.S.Ed. in Guidance from the Bank Street College of Education and is an alumna interviewer for Harvard. She is an independent educational counsellor who advises students on school and college placement and is a founding member and director of the Independent Educational Counsellors Association.

National Chairman

Mr. Weinstock (AB '39, JD '42) is President of the Basic Foods Division of Mallinckrodt, Inc. He has been involved with the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies since its inception and serves as its National Chairman, coordinating the efforts of some 250 volunteers across the country. Weinstock and committee have raised over $3 million in endowment funds for the Center since the announcement of the Program last March.

Mr. & Mrs. Gerard Weinstock of Larchmont, NY

Weinstock gives additional service to Harvard as a director of the Associated Harvard Alumni and through membership on two of the Board of Overseer's Visiting Committees—The Committee for University Resources, and the Committee for Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He also serves as a class agent. In the past, Weinstock has served on the Visiting Committee for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and as a former member of the board of managers of the Harvard Club of New York City.

Community Service

Weinstock's outstanding leadership at Harvard is well preceded by his involvement in several community and national organizations. He serves as treasurer of the American Jewish Committee and as associate chairman of its Middle East Committee. He also serves as a director of *Commentary* magazine. In his home community, Weinstock has served as president of the Guidance Center, the largest community mental health clinic in Westchester County.

## Wolfson Drive

The Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies has undertaken to endow a professorship in memory of Harry Austryn Wolfson. Professor Wolfson's sixty years of devoted service to Harvard and his preeminence in the field of philosophy of religion established the foundation on which the concept of the Center for Jewish Studies has been built. He has had an extraordinary influence on the growth of Jewish Studies elsewhere in the United States, and has brought great distinction to the University. The Center for Jewish Studies will maintain the tradition of excellence established by Professor Wolfson.

The establishment of the professorship in Professor Wolfson's memory will simultaneously honor a great scholar and aid the university. The endowment for the chair will come from many sources, including former students and colleagues as well as admirers of his many contributions to humanistic learning.

The drive for the Wolfson Professorship, which has just begun, has received nearly $100,000 in gifts and pledges. One donor, now a retired New York rabbi, sent a gift to the Program after reading about the Wolfson Chair because Professor Wolfson had been the first to suggest he study for the rabbinate while he was still an undergraduate at Harvard College.

## Committee formed

Peter Solomon '60, MBA '63, a friend and former student of Wolfson's, is chairman of the drive to establish the professorship. Solomon is a general partner of Lehman Brothers in New York and a professor of finance at The Columbia University Graduate School of Business Administration. Other members of the Wolfson Professorship Committee include: Wilbur Cowett, Richard Deutsch, George Lasry, Kenneth Lipper, Stuart Marks, Harry Starr and Rose Wolfson in New York; Carol Goldberg, David Livingston and Lewis Weinstein in Boston; Sidney Sulkin in Bethesda, Maryland; Merom Brachman in Columbus, Ohio; and Martin Gang and Preston Kline in Los Angeles.

## Jewish Studies in Detroit

On May 18th, the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies sponsored an informative dinner in Detroit at the Standard Club in the Detroit Cadillac Hotel. Maynard I. Wishner, President of Walter E. Heller Company in Chicago; Dr. Chase N. Peterson, Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development, Yosef H. Yerushalmi, Professor of Hebrew and of Jewish History; and Gerard Weinstock, National Committee Chairman addressed an assemblage of Michigan dignitaries, philanthropists, business people and alumni, explaining the goals of the Center.

George E. Gullin, Jr., President of Wayne State University, endorsed the Center as an important addition to American education, emphasizing Harvard's influence on the expansion of Jewish Studies to other major universities across the country including Wayne State.

Mandell L. Berman '40, MBA '42; Toby Citrin '56 LLB '59; Max J. Pincus '45; and Alan E. Schwartz LLB '50 chaired the dinner with the help of twelve other committee members. Response was enthusiastic, and gifts to the Center for Jewish Studies since the dinner have exceeded $130,000.

Mandell L. Berman and Toby Citrin, two of the chairmen of the Jewish Studies dinner held at the Standard Club in Detroit, May 18th.

The spiritual, social, and economic life of the Jewish community, in its homeland and in the Diaspora, has extended by now for over three thousand years. In its interrelations with other nations over this long period, the community contributed in a major way to the heritage—religious, intellectual, and social—of much of mankind. The long record of Jewish history, one of many centuries of survival as a small minority within a variety of host nations, should be illuminating not only of the Jewish fate and Jewish problems but also of the history of the several larger host nations.

It is the task of scholars in the humanities and social science disciplines to interpret our past so as better to understand the present, and shed light on questions that loom for the future. If so, one welcomes the effort of Harvard University to continue and extend its past valuable contributions to Jewish studies; and to provide a lasting foundation for more sustained analysis of a major component in the history of mankind.

Simon Kuznets

Nobel Prize in Economics

Honorary Committee Member

JUDAICA BICENTENNIAL EXHIBITION

"Wohin?" the query of the Jewish immigrant, was the emblem of the exhibition of American Jewish ephemera, which opened May 3rd in Widener Library.

The Harvard Judaica Collection Bicentennial Exhibition, "American Jewish Ephemera," was on display in Widener Library from May 3 through June 3, 1976. Items exhibited were restricted to ephemera—broadsides, posters, leaflets, pamphlets, periodicals and other non-book materials—dealing with various aspects of Jewish life in the United States over the past one hundred years.

Topics included: relations with countries of origin; community organization; anti-semitism; religious traditions; reaction of American Jewry to World Wars I and II; Zionism; Jewish press; Jewish theatre; and political and economic affairs. The case "The Local Scene" displayed ephemera printed in the Greater Boston area illustrative of many of these phenomena on the local level. Most unusual was a display of Yiddish advertising handbills printed in Newark, New Jersey in 1898, illustrating aspects of life in one immigrant neighborhood.

Among the more esoteric items displayed were: the statute book (in German) of a Detroit women's organization to assist Jewish widows and orphans in Michigan (1883); a Purim greeting card from Dallas, Texas, printed in 1893; a Yiddish leaflet issued in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1898 summoning Jewish women to a Zionist rally; an election leaflet, issued in Boston in 1898, urging "the Hebrew-American

citizens" to re-elect John F. Fitzgerald to Congress; a black-bordered appeal issued by Oscar S. Straus, Jacob H. Schiff, and Cyrus L. Sulzberger in November 1905 seeking to raise one million dollars to relieve the distress of the Jews in Russia; a leaflet (Russian and Yiddish) issued in Kovno in 1909 offering advice to potential "emigrants travelling to America, Africa, Argentina, Palestine and other lands."

The selection of ephemera as the exhibition medium was intended to demonstrate the importance of this frequently neglected type of material for scholarship and to commemorate the establishment, through the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, of "The Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation Book Fund for Judaica" in the College Library, the only endowed fund for the acquisition, cataloguing, and preservation of ephemeral Judaica. The exhibition was prepared by Charles Berlin '58, Lee M. Friedman Bibliographer in Judaica in the Harvard College Library.

## Library Committee Meets in Cambridge

The first meeting of the Library Committee of the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies was held on May 3, 1976 in Cambridge. The agenda included a tour of the Judaica Collection Bicentennial Exhibition "American Jewish Ephemera," introduced by a lecture delivered that afternoon by Oscar Handlin, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard, on the topic "Jewish Daily Life in America Over the Past 100 Years."

Some one hundred guests, coming from New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Texas, and Illinois as well as New England, were greeted later that evening by President Derek Bok at the reception preceding the Library Committee's inaugural dinner. At the dinner, guests heard remarks by Burton S. Dreben, Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Professor Handlin; Douglas W. Bryant, Director of the University Library; Louis E. Martin, Librarian of Harvard College; and Gerard Weinstock, Chairman of the National Committee. Charles Berlin, Lee M. Friedman Bibliographer in Judaica in the Harvard College Library delivered the main address.

William Lee Frost, Chairman of the Library Committee, announced the establishment of twelve new Judaica book funds, ranging in size from $5,000 to $100,000 and with a total endowment of nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

Since the May 3rd meeting, fourteen additional Judaica book funds have been established. The Program now has 26 book funds with an endowment of some $300,000 or 12% of the Library goal of $2.5 million within the Center's goal of $15 million.

## Judaica Book Funds

*The Lassor and Fanny Agoos Book Fund for Judaica*
established by The Lassor and Fanny Agoos Charity Trust
*The Berman Book Funds for Judaica*
established by Mr. and Mrs. Mandell Berman

*The Jennie and Samuel Birnbaum Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Eugene, Gerald, Herbert and Ira Birnbaum
*The Cohn Judaica Book Fund*
established by William Lee Frost and members of the Cohn family

*The Ferkauf Book Funds for Judaica*
established by The Eugene & Estelle Ferkauf Foundation
*The Max Hartfield Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Mr. and Mrs. Preston J. Kline
*The Robert D. Hoffman Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Mrs. Robert D. Hoffman

*The Dorothy C. and Clarence N. Jacobson Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Clarence N. Jacobson

*The Kagan Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Robert A. Kagan

*The Preston J. Kline Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Philip Meltzer

*The Arthur T. Levine Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Judith Frost Levine and William Lee Frost

*The Charles and Elaine Petschek Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Charles I. Petschek

*The Murray and Kate Seiden Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Melvin M. Seiden

*The Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation Book Fund for Judaica*
established by The Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation

*The Leo Schwartz Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Martin D. Schwartz

*The Lena Minkoff Memorial Foundation*
established by Harry Minkoff

*The Rose F. and Ben L. Nicholas Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Frederick M. Nicholas

*The Dr. Gabriel H. Shohet Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Mrs. Richard Brettman

*The Harold J. and Marion Weinstock Book Fund for Judaica*
established by Harold J. Weinstock

## Walter S. Hilborn, Honorary Committee Member, Dies at 96

With the passing of Walter Hilborn this July in Los Angeles, Harvard lost a loyal and industrious alumnus. A member of the Harvard College class of 1901 and of the Law School class of 1903, Hilborn was a practicing senior partner with the law firm of Loeb & Loeb until his death. He was also involved in many university, community and religious activities.

In 1975, at the age of 95, Hilborn accepted membership on the Honorary Committee of the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, which he called "the most important thing which has happened to Jewish life in my lifetime." He was honorary in title only, participating in the Southern California Committee's efforts actively, and attending the dinner in Los Angeles last March 31st. He was also a member of the Harvard Club of Southern California, where he was "oldest lord alumnus."

Among his many philanthropic concerns was the Jewish Institute of Religion, of which he was a founding member and

life trustee. Hilborn was also a member of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Committee (and honorary chairman of its Los Angeles chapter), a past president of the Federation of Jewish Welfare Organizations in Los Angeles, and a director of the Welfare Federation of Los Angeles.

In 1958, Hebrew Union College recognized his outstanding social service by awarding Hilborn an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

This bulletin is published in Cambridge by the Program for the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies.

Harry Starr—Honorary Chairman

Gerard Weinstock—National Chairman

Charles D. Thompson—University Coordinator

Eleanor R. Degan—Editor

*Studies at Harvard depend upon it, and other fields benefit from its strength.*
*needs an additional endowment of $2.5 million.*

... *No Better Library From the Working Scholar's Point of View...*

... I will say this without the slightest hesitation—I have worked in libraries all over the world, in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia. There is no better library from the working scholar's point of view than what we call the Harvard College Library...

Henry Rosovsky

DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

... *The Whole Record...*

In this effort to increase Hebraica and Judaica in the Harvard College Library, we acknowledge the centrality of the Jewish religious, moral, and scholarly tradition in any great library dedicated to the preservation of the whole record of the human endeavor.

George H. Williams

HOLLIS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY

The Strengths of the Harvard Judaica Collection

Biblical Literature • Jewish Education • Medieval Hebrew Poetry •
Jews in Russia • Jewish Philosophy • Jews in the United States • Jewish
Liturgy • Sociology of the Jews • World Literature in Hebrew and Yid-
dish Translations • Jewish Religious Ethics • Jews in France • Yiddish
Literature • Cabala • Jewish Art • Archaeology of Palestine • Modern
Hebrew Literature • Talmudic Literature • Ladino Literature • Holo-
caust • Jewish Religious Law • Jews in Germany • Jews in Palestine •
Jewish Historiography • Jewish Labor Movement • Israel Government
Documents • Jews in England • Anti-Semitism • Jewish Bibliog-
raphy • Jewish Theatre • Jewish Homiletics • Jews in the Nether-
lands • History of Judaism • Jewish Philology • Hasidism • Jews in
Hungary • Zionism • Jews in North Africa • Jewish Music • Jews in
Science • Sephardic Jewry • Jews in Poland • Jewish Numismatics •
Jews in Latin America • Jewish Newspapers and Periodicals • Eco-
nomics of the Jews • Scandinavian Jewry • Jewish Biography • Israel:
History, Government and Politics, Geography, Social and Economic
Conditions, Arts and Sciences

As an integral part of the world's largest university library, Harvard's Judaica Collection is enriched by the enormous resources of the Harvard University Library: some nine million volumes, a sophisticated bibliographic and technical apparatus, and a skilled staff of experts—including the only endowed curatorship in Judaica in the world, the Lee M. Friedman Bibliographership in Judaica, established in 1962 and held since then by Charles Berlin. It is this unique combination of resources that enables the Harvard Judaica Collection to serve the needs of scholars and students so well in the present and to plan for the needs of generations yet to come.

LOUIS E. MARTIN

Librarian of Harvard College

(v)

2

Selected Judaica Publications of the Harvard University Library

Harvard University Library

Catalogue of Hebrew Books:
Supplement I

Volume 1

Classified Listing

APPENDIX

Judaica in the Houghton Library

Published by the Harvard University Library
Distributed by the Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1972

Among the collections in which the Library takes particular pride,
none is more outstanding than Judaica.

DOUGLAS W. BRYANT

HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

WIDENER LIBRARY SHEFLIST, 39

JUDAICA

CLASSIFICATION SCHEDULE
CLASSIFIED LISTING BY CALL NUMBER
CHRONOLOGICAL LISTING
AUTHOR AND TITLE LISTING

Published by the Harvard University Library
Distributed by the Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1971

HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS

in the Houghton Library of the
Harvard College Library

A CATALOGUE

Prepared By MORDECHAI GLATZER
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
and
Comité de Paléographie Hébraïque, Paris — Jerusalem

Edited By CHARLES BERLIN
Lee M. Friedman Bibliographer in Judaica
Harvard College Library
and

RODNEY GOVE DENNIS
Curator of Manuscripts
Harvard College Library

Harvard University Library · Cambridge, Massachusetts · 1975

3

The History of the Harvard Judaica Collection

Among the books bequeathed to Harvard College by John Harvard were
several items of Judaica. In the three hundred years that followed John
Harvard's gift, the Judaica Collection grew slowly and steadily. The
establishment of the Littauer Professorship of Hebrew Literature and
Philosophy at Harvard in 1925 marked the beginning of the major expan-
sion of the Judaica Collection.

The acquisition of two superb collections of Hebrew books—that of Ephraim Deinard in 1929 and of Felix Friedmann in 1951—and the great Judaica collection of Lee M. Friedman in 1957 elevated the Harvard University Library to a position of eminence in the field of Judaica library resources.

The establishment of the Library's Hebrew Department and the simul-
taneous endowment of the post of Lee M. Friedman Bibliographer in
Judaica in 1962 has enabled the Library to intensify the development of
its Judaica Collection on a sustained and systematic basis. The result has
been that in the relatively short span of some fifty years, the Judaica Col-
lection at Harvard has become the leading university research collection
in its field in the United States and one of the world's major resources for
Jewish Studies.

4

The Nature of the Harvard Judaica Collection

Harvard's Judaica Collection is a record of the Jewish cultural heritage as preserved in print over a period of more than five centuries, in a variety of languages and formats. The Collection numbers approximately 150,000 volumes—50,000 in Hebrew, 10,000 in Yiddish and the remainder in other languages including English, French, German, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Dutch, Danish and Hungarian. Virtually every area of Jewish Studies is represented: Biblical and Talmudic texts and commentaries, liturgy, religious law, homiletics and ethics, philosophy and theology, belles-lettres, history, economics, sociology. Materials are collected in a great variety of formats: books, pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, posters, broadsides, leaflets, and microfilm.

Global in scope and provenance, the Judaica Collection is at one and the same time a museum preserving the recorded history of Jewish civilization and a laboratory facilitating the study of the Jewish past and present—the contribution of this generation to the cultural heritage of future generations.

Charles Berlin

LEE M. FRIEDMAN BIBLIOGRAPHER IN JUDAICA

Professor
Harry A. Wolfson
at 85

November
1972

HAGGADAHS
FROM
HARVARD

April 1972
Washington, D.C.

The 25th
Anniversary
of the
State of
Israel

May 1973

The
Passover
Haggadah

March
1971

Jewish
Life in
France

April 1972

Jewish Portrait
Studies

Lionel Reiss

October 1971

Hebrew
Books
at
Harvard

October
1968

THE
JEWISH
STUDENT
PRESS
IN
AMERICA

August
1972

Recent Harvard
Judaica Exhibitions

5