On March 27, 1925, days before the inauguration of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on Mount Scopus, Prof. Albert Einstein shared a powerful vision for the fledgling institution in the pages of The New Palestine (page 294). In his essay, "The Mission of Our University," he called for a home dedicated to pure scientific truth and envisioned a vibrant center that would serve the Jewish people while embracing universal human values.
Later, he would become a member of the university's first Board of Governors and chair its academic committee, actively shaping its destiny as a world-class center of research.
Here is Einstein’s original text:
"The Mission of Our University" By Albert Einstein
"THE opening of our Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, at Jerusalem, is an event which should not only fill us with just pride, but should also inspire us to serious reflection.
A University is a place where the universality of the human spirit manifests itself. Science and investigation recognize as their aim the truth only. It is natural, therefore, that institutions which serve the interests of science should be a factor making for the union of nations and men. Unfortunately, the universities of Europe today are for the most part the nurseries of chauvinism and of a blind intolerance of all things foreign to the particular nation or race, of all things bearing the stamp of a different individuality. Under this regime the Jews are the principal sufferers, not only because they are thwarted in their desire for free participation and in their striving for education, but also because most Jews find themselves particularly cramped in this spirit of narrow nationalism. On this occasion of the birth of our University, I should like to express the hope that our University will always be free from this evil, that teachers and students will always preserve the consciousness that they serve their people best when they maintain its union with humanity and with the highest human values.
Jewish nationalism is today a necessity because only through a consolidation of our national life can we eliminate those conflicts from which the Jews suffer today. May the time soon come when this nationalism will have become so thoroughly a matter of course that it will no longer be necessary for us to give it special emphasis. Our affiliation with our past and with the present-day achievements of our people inspires us with assurance and pride vis-à-vis the entire world. But our educational institutions in particular must regard it as one of their noblest tasks to keep our people free from nationalistic obscurantism and aggressive intolerance.
Our University is still a modest undertaking. It is quite the correct policy to begin with a number of research institutes, and the University will develop naturally and organically. I am convinced that this development will make rapid progress and that in the course of time this institution will demonstrate with the greatest clearness the achievements of which the Jewish spirit is capable.
A special task devolves upon the University in the spiritual direction and education of the laboring sections of our people in the land. In Palestine it is not our aim to create another people of city dwellers leading the same life as in the European cities and possessing the European bourgeois standards and conceptions. We aim at creating a people of workers, at creating the Jewish village in the first place, and we desire that the treasures of culture should be accessible to our laboring class, especially since, as we know, Jews, in all circumstances, place education above all things. In this connection it devolves upon the University to create something unique in order to serve the specific needs of the forms of life developed by our people in Palestine.
All of us desire to cooperate in order that the University may accomplish its mission. May the realization of the significance of this cause penetrate among the large masses of Jewry. Then our University will develop speedily into a great spiritual center which will evoke the respect of cultured mankind the world over."
