Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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Lamport Auditorium Yeshiva University Library Rosenberg, Samuel Mirsky, and Aaron Margalith. Drs. Meyer Atlas, Sidney Braun, Alexander Freed and Joseph Lookstein came to Yeshiva in 1938. The school received permission to confer ihe hon- orary degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1940. The first recipient of this degree was the late Rabbi Bernhard L. Levinthal. Other recipients of honorary degrees have been the Hon. Herbert Lehman, Professor Albert Einstein, the Hon. Benjamin Cardoza, His Excellency Jan Masaryk, Bernard Baruch, the Hon. Thomas E. Dev ey, and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. On December 1, 1940, Dr. Bernard Revel passed av ay after tv enty-five years of devoted work for Yeshiva. The following year the Graduate Department was renamed in his honor. In 1942 Dr. Belkin was appointed Dean of the Yeshiva; Mr. Sar was made Dean of Men; and Dr. Isaacs, Dean of the College. That same year, Drs. Gershon Churgin, Bernard Floch and Bruno Kisch became members of the faculty. With the election of Dr. Belkin as President in June of 1942, the institution entered a new era of physical and academic expan- sion. By this time the school had 267 students and 48 faculty members including Drs. Irving Linn and David Fleisher, and Joshua Matz, Bursar. The Harry Fischel School for Higher Jewish Studies and the Institute of Mathematics were formed in 1945. On November 16 of that year the institution became Yeshiva University with the authority to bestow the degrees of Bachelor of Hebrew Literature, Master of Hebrew Literature, Bachelor of Religious Education, Master of Religious Education, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy The Institute for Advanced Research in Rabbinics, the Audio-Visual Service, the Psychological Clinic and the Educational Service Bureau were all established within the next few years, in 1947 the construction of Graduate and Science Halls, the Pollack Library and the new dormitory on Amsterdam Avenue between 185th and 186th Streets was begun. By 1948, when the new buildings were completed, Yeshiva College consisted of 310 students and 57 faculty members including Karl Adier, Daniel Block, Gottfried Delatour, Nathan Goldberg, Hyman B. Grinstein, Walter Nallin, Emanuel Packman, Louis Sas, Maurice Chernowitz, Henry Lisman, Earl Ryan, Morris Silverman, Sidney Pleskin, Meyer Terkel, Milton Arfa, Abraham Tauber, and Israel Young, Guidance Director. The next impressive milestone in the history of Yeshiva occurred on December 14, 1950, when the Board of Regents of the State of New York granted Yeshiva University a charter for a medical school with the right to grant the M.D. and D.D.S. degrees. A compaign was begun to raise ten million dollars for the medical school to be constructed on Fordham Road in the Bronx. The school is to be operated in conjunction with a forty million dollar hospital now being built by the City of New York. At a dinner held at Princeton, New Jersey on March 15, 1953, Professor Albert Einstein acknowl- edged the naming of the Yeshiva University Medical School in his honor.

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training of orthodox Hebrew teachers, became part of the Yeshiva in 1921, and once again the Yoshiva moved, this time to 301-3 East Broadway. A charter amendment by the Now York Stale Board of Regents in 1924 granted the institution the right to confer the degree of Doctor of Hebrew Literature. Meanwhile, plans were being formulated for the es- tablishment of Yeshiva College, and at the end of the year, the Yeshiva College Building Fund was launched. On May 1, 1927, the cornerstone was laid for the present main buildings on Amsterdam Avenue and 187th Street. These buildings, erected at a cost of two and one-half million dollars, were dedicated on December 9, 1928. Classes, having begun that Sep- tember at the Jewish Center of New York, were now moved to the new buildings. The College faculty consisted at first of sixteen men. Among them were Dr. Revel, President; Dr. Shelley Ray Saphire, Secretary of the Faculty and Professor of Biology; Dr. Bernard Drachman, Instructor in German; Dr. Jekuthiel Ginsburg, Assistant Professor of Mathe- matics; Mr. Abraham Hurwitz, Instructor in Physical Education; Dr. Moses L. Isaacs, Instructor of Chemistry; Dr. Isaac Husik, Lecturer in Civilization; an d Dr. Nelson P. Meade, Lecturer in History. Tuition was $300.00 per year. No exact figures are available concerning the num- ber of students in the first class, but it is known that nineteen students received the Bachelor of Arts degree at the first commencement which was held on June 16, 1932. By that time the faculty had already doubled, comprising a total of thirty-three members among whom were included Drs. Pinkhos Churgin, Leo Jung, Alexander Litman and Kenneth F. Damon, and Yeshiva had begun the publication of its world- famous mathematics journal, Scripta Mathematica. One year later, the charter was amended to give Yeshiva College the right to award the honorary de- grees of Doctor of Humane Letters and Doctor of Laws. The following year Dr. Alexander Brody began teaching history and Dr. Eli Levine, the first Yeshiva College graduate to join its faculty, was appointed chemistry laboratory assistant. In 1935, the first graduate courses were given at the College and two years later the Graduate Depart- ment was organized as a separate division. Yeshiva now had 174 students and 46 faculty members includ- ing Dr. Samuel Belkin, Instructor in Greek; Mr. Samuel Sar, Instructor in Bible; Dr. Joseph B. Soloveichik, Lec- turer in Jewish Philosophy; and Dr. Jacob Hartstein, Acting Registrar, all of whom had joined the College faculty in 1936 along with Drs. Sidney Hoenig, Ralph First Faculty of Yeshiva College First Graduating Class of Yeshiva College. 1932 Dedication of Main Building, 1928

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The Yeshiva College of Medicine is the first medical school under Jewish auspices to be established in America. It will be a non-sectarian school with faculty and students to be selected solely on the basis of scholarship and ability, without regard to race, color, creed or sex. The College will have a Board of Over- seers of outstanding civic and communal leaders representing all faiths. Plans call for the new Col- lege of Medicine to be national in scope and world- wide in influence. Already it has elicited interest and enthusiasm throughout the United States. Over one thousand applications have been received from pros- pective students. More than four hundred have ap- plied for faculty appointments, many of them leading figures in American medicine. To the Jewish com- munity, this is an opportunity of a lifetime — to make a unique contribution to medical science and the wel- fare of America. A statistical survey made by Mr. Morris Silverman, College Registrar, shows that since 1917, 1,495 young men have received degrees from the various depart- ments of Yeshiva University (excluding the Talmudical Academy). 927 B.A. ' s; 560 Rabbinical degrees; 436 Teachers Institute Diplomas; 22 D.H.L. ' s; 16 M,S. ' »; 5 M.H.L. ' s; 3 Ph.D. ' s; 1 B.R.E.; 26 L.H.D. ' t; 14 {.iD. ' t; and 1 1 D.D. ' -, have been granted. At present, Yethivo College, with tuition at $18 a credit, consists of 526 student! and 71 faculty members. The lolest faculty additions arc Helmut Adier, Irving Agus, Manfred Halberstadt, Herbert Robinson, Leo Prijs, Arthur Imerti, and Seymour Lainoff. Yeshiva has come a long way since the early doys of its humble beginnings. But it still refuses to resist the tide of progress by resting on past laurels, and it therefore faces the future with unlimited opportunities for still greater service. A re-affirmation of the guiding principles of Yeshivo University was recently made by President Beikin. He said: Yeshiva University has never looked upon itself as a completed university, but rather as a pioneering enterprise. . . We have no ambitions to become bigger merely for the sake of bigness; we rather consider it our duty to make our contribution in terms of service, and in accordance with the needs of education in general. Albert Einstein College of Medicine