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Wandering Books Find Home in Yeshiva U. Library

•

NEW YORK — After some 801
years of being collected, carted!
and crated in buildings in New
York's lower East Side, Greenwich'
Village and Washington Heights,
Yeshiva University's books move
into their new home, the Mendel
Gottesman Library, to be dedi-
cated Sunday.
Moving the existing 260,000 vol-'
umes into the massive, fortress-
like structure represents the end of
a long journey, and a new begin-
ning for the books, which began to
be accumulated before the turn of
the century at Yeshiva's birth in a 1

rented room on East Broadway.

From there the books followed
Yeshiva to a small, private home
on Canal Street, and then in 1905
to Henry Street. In 1915, still on
the lower East Side of Manhattan,:
the books and the school moved to
a three-story building on Montgom-
ery Street. There, under the guid-
d
Revel, "the father of Yeshiva Uni-
versity." catalogues were develop-
ed and various Jewish and secular
books were assembled to serve
also the new high school the insti-
tute had established.

Boris Smolar's

'Between You
... and Me'

i
I

(Copyright 1969, JTA Inc.)

MARCH OF TIME: The history of a nation is the nation's lifeline.
The ancient history of the Jewish people has been the strength which
kept Jews of all generations and in all parts of the world alive at a
time when other nations ceased to exist. The proper recording of Amer-
ican Jewish history is, therefore, a matter of great importance not only
for our present generation but also for the great grandchildren of our
generation. as well as to their fellow Americans.
Unfortunately, the recollections of American Jews during the 70
crucial years since 1900—when Jews developed from poor immigrants
to people active in all spheres of American life—are rapidly fading.
There are still Jews who remember when they came to this country as
immigrants, escaping from persecution in Czarist Russia and from
unbearable life in other countries in Europe. There are more Jews who
can remember the rise of the newcomers in American society. How-
ever. they are all old men and women. Their first-hand testimony on
Jewish life in America would keep a window on the Jewish past open
for posterity. if only properly recorded.
The same is also true with regard to Jewish personalities who dur-
ing the last seven decades played an important role in the formation of
American Jewish life and in leading it to what it is today, as public
figures, writers. philanthropis'.s and social innovators. True, we know
quite a good deal about such people as Jacob Schiff, Rabbi StePhen S.'
Wise. Louis Marshall, Benjamin Cardozo, Felix Warburg, Julius Rosen-
wald, Louis Brandeis and Samuel Gompers. But what do we know of
the many others who shaped Jewish life in America in various fields of
endeavor? What do we know of Jewish ideologists, theoreticians and
writers such as Professor Chaim Zhitlowski, Dr. Nachman Syrkin, and
other men of great intellect who exercised a tremendous influence on
Jewish life in this country only about 60 years ago? What do we know
of the editors of the numerous Jewish daily newspapers and magazines
that appeared in the United States during the last 80 years who, like
Abraham Cahan, left their mark on Jewish masses of readers?
We know nothing about the great Jewish poets in this country,
except of Emma Lazarus. We know nothing about the great Jewish
public speakers, like Zvi Hirsh Masliansky and his like, who took Jew-
ish audiences by storm and inspired them to great participation in
national Jewish affairs. We know a little about Sidney Hillman but
nothing about Morris Hillquit, Benjamin Schlesinger and other Jewish
labor leaders who less than two generations ago brought Jewish work-
ers out of sweat-shop slavery and organized them into labor unions
which later served as an example for American organized labor.
There is hardly anyone alive today who can recollect the formation
of such important Jewish organizations as the Joint Distribution Com-
mittee, the American Jewish Congress, the HIAS. the American Jewish
Committee, which are so different today from when they were estab-
lished more than 50 years ago. Where are the records—and personal
reminiscences — of the emotional Jewish mass-meetings of protest
against Hitler's annihiliation of European Jewry?
*
*
*
ORAL HISTORY: To keep American Jewish history recorded not
only briefly in textbooks, but fully with all its nuances, the American
Jewish Committee has now embarked on a new method. Using the
modern recording technology, the AJCommittee is introducing the new-
est methods of preservation of the past—oral history immortalized by
means of audiotape and videotape.
Thus, documented Jewish history enters the electronic age. Elderly
Jews—men as well as women—will now be interviewed and encouraged
to relate their experiences of the early days of their arrival in the
United States. They will be able also to recall the pogroms in Russia
which caused them to come to this country. They will talk about Jewish
social life and customs in their youth in the "old country" as com-
pared with traditional Jewish life in this country. They will recollect,
as vividly as possible, the trials and tribulations each of them has gone
through in this country and the achievement of securing proper educa-
tion for their children. There will be the "personal touch" in their
stories which will make their material authentic and of human—not
only of historic—interest.
Younger Jews will be able to record for posterity their experiences
in Jewish community organizations, their activities in the fight for civil
rights and against anti-Semitism, their views on Jewish philanthropy,
on Jewish identity, on interreligious work, on Israel, on relation with
Jews in other countries and on other subjects concerning Jewish life in
this country. There will also be the reminiscences of writers, artists,
statesmen, scientists, philanthropists, industrialists, Jews prominent in
commerce, real estate, fashion, financing, publishing and transporta-
tion.
All this first-hand testimony will be preserved for scholars in Amer-
ican Jewish Committee's new William E. Wiener Oral History Library
now being established following a conference of some 30 scholars and
writers at which possibilities and problems of an oral history program
dealing with the American Jewish past were discussed. The project has
been made possible by a generous grant from the estate of the late

William E. Wiener, a noted philanthropist. The Oral History Library
will-be located at the AJCommittee headquarters side-by-side with the
Jacob Blaustein Library which is involved with documentation of Jew-
ish We in America through the printed word.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

14—Friday, April 18, 1969

Dusseldorf Police Seeking Swastika-Daubing Youths

The books, spilling over from
BONN (JTA)—Dusseldorf police,I daubed swastikas and Nazi slogans
Dr. Revel's office to rooms on the
top floor, moved in 1921 to Ye- aided by four teen-age youths, are on a church, several shop windows
shivah's new home on East Broad- searching for young vandals who and on about 20 parked cars.
way. Nine years later, Yeshiva
College was established, the insti-
tution moving to their new Byzan-
tine-like edifice on 186th Street and
Amsterdam Ave. in Washington
Heights.
Continuing to grow in size and
272-3470
scope, the university in 1949 estab-
lished the Pollack Undergraduate
American United Life Insurance Company
Library on 185th Street and Am-
sterdam Ave. on property once the
• LIFE • HEALTH • GROUP • ANNUITIES • PENSIONS
site of a power station for the Am-
sterdam Avenue Trolleys. Thou-
sands of books, many uncrated,
however, continued to remain at
the Graduate Centers, first on W.
56th and 57th Streets, and then in
SPECIAL SAVINGS
Greenwich Village.
ON THE CHEVROLET OF YOUR CHOICE!
The new library, costing S5.000.-
000, fronts an entire block between
185th-186th Streets at Yeshiva Uni-
versity's Main Center on Amster-
Serving Yoe Since 1925
dam Avenue in Washington Heights.
Rising six stories. its multi-leveled
123,000 square foot interior has a
capacity of 650.000 volumes and I
12555 GRAND RIVER • TE 4-4440 • 134-82111 • 477-2059
will house the Pollack Library. a
Judacia library, various special;
collections and university and gen-
eral archives. Its 13 levels have
areas for a large student lounge,
museum and exhibition section.
rare book room. conference and
11311 10
TO
seminar rooms, offices, study sec-
tions and individual study carrels.

ARNOLD LEVITSKY

A.U.L.

CHEV ROLET PASSENGER CARS
-

IS. FABER

JOE MAY CHEVROLET

`MIZRACHI
TOURS

ISRAEL

Menora Program to Light
Interfaith Relations

SOUTH ORANGE. N.J. iJTA
Seton Hall University announced
that its Institute of Judaeo-Chris-
tian Studies and the Anti-Defama-
tion League of Bnai Brith will
sponsor an eight-day "Menora In-
stitute" on the university campus
from June 15-22. Seton Hall. a
Roman Catholic institution, said
the program was intended to pro-
vide an intellectual foundation for
interfaith relations. Teachers of
religion and the social sciences
from colleges, high schools and
elementary schools will attend.

SOME DATES STILL
AVAILABLE FOR 1969

Sulfa-

Photographers

UN 4-8785

60th Annual Convention

of fly*

Religious Zionists of America

Mizrachi-Hapael Hamizrachi
'in Jerusalem
July 30 — August 3, 1969

Special

tours and rates have been arranged in connecticn with

this Convention.
be among
• Government leaders, Chief Rabbis, religious leaders
the dignitaries addressing the convention sessions.
and
special
sight-
Special
receptions
for
the
delegates
will
be
held
•
seeing tours will be arranged.
Take advantage of the special rates which are for the Convention
only.

Other tears are also available.
For information and details, call:

MIZRACHI OFFICE

18033 WYOMING, DETROIT 48221

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