TO THE OPENING OF THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY

Veröffentlicht — zusammen mit den
Willkomm grüßen anderer Persönlichkeiten —
in der Halbmonatschrift „New Judea“,
27. März 1925.

Historians have told us that our small nation withstood the destruction
of its independence as a State only because it began to transfer in its
estimation of values the highest rank to its spiritual possessions, to its religion
and its literature.

Vermischte Schriften 299

We are now living in a time when this people has a prospect of again
winning the land of its fathers with the help of a Power that dominates
the world, and it celebrates the occasion by the foundation of a University
in its ancient capital city.

A University is a place in which knowledge is taught above all differences
of religions and of nations, where investigation is carried on, which is to
show mankind how far they understand the world around them and how
far they can control it.

Such an undertaking is a noble witness to the development to which
our people has forced its way in two thousand years of unhappy fortune.

I find it painful that my ill-health prevents me from being present at
the opening festivities of the Jewish University in Jerusalem.